In the second production of its Centennial Season, San Francisco Opera presents Tchaikovsky’s interpretation of Alexandr Pushkin’s Romantic tragedy, Eugene Onegin.

Led by Vassilis Christopoulos – one of Greece’s most renowned conductors – the line-up of stars includes soprano Evgenia Muraveva as the heroine Tatyana, with bass-baritone Gordon Bintner in the title role. Tenor Evan LeRoy Johnson is the poet Lensky, Tatyana’s sister Olga is sung by mezzo-soprano Aigul Akhmetshina and mezzo-soprano Deborah Nansteel is Madame Larina, (all five making their debuts with SF Opera). Bass Ferrucio Furlanetto is Prince Gremin, Ronnita Miller is Filipyevna and Brenton Ryan is Monsieur Triquet.

The production is directed by Robert Carsen, revival Director is Peter McClintock and design is by Michael Levine.

Eugene Onegin was Tchaikovsky’s fifth completed opera. It was written and orchestrated by the composer between May 1877 and January 1878, and underwent four further revisions between March 1879 and June-July 1891. The libretto – after Alexandr Pushkin’s 1837 novel in verse – was devised by Tchaikovsky, assisted by Konstantin Shilovsky. The opera had its world premiere at the Maly Theatre in Moscow in 1879, performed by students from the Moscow Conservatory, directed by Ivan Samarin and conducted by Tchaikovsky’s close friend Nikolai Rubinstein.

Tchaikovsky’s opera is a classic portrayal of the drama, passion and insight into human nature which characterizes great Russian music and literature. When Lensky introduces his friend, the dashing and handsome Onegin, to the Larin household, the young and somewhat naïve Tatiana falls in love with him, but is rather coolly spurned. She grows into an elegant, aristocratic woman, and ultimately marries Prince Gremin, meeting up again with Onegin at a ball in St Petersburg. Despite the strength of feeling that they discover between the two of them, she remains faithful to her husband, and when Onegin insults Lensky by flirting with Olga, Lensky challenges him to a duel – with tragic results.

Young Russian soprano Evgenia Muraveva is described by anaclas.com as a “singer with masterful legato and fluent timbre”. She has already sung the role of Tatyana at Komische Opera, Berlin, and also appeared in Tchaikovsky’s Pique Dame at both the Bolshoi and Mariinsky theatres. Other roles which she has sung include those of Leonora in Verdi’s Il trovatore at the Tatarstan Opera Theatre, and for Saint-Petersburg Opera she has sung the title role in Puccini’s Tosca, Nedda in Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci, Mimi in Puccini’s La bohème, Donna Anna in Mozart’s Don Giovanni and the Contessa in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro.

Following bass-baritone Gordon Bintner’s six seasons as a member of the Oper Frankfurt ensemble, he made two highly acclaimed debuts – as Junior in Bernstein’s A Quiet Place at Opéra National de Paris, and as Guglielmo in Mozart’s Così fan tutte at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. He returns to the Royal Opera House later in the season as Albert in Massenet’s Werther, and appears with the Canadian Opera Company as Count Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro, where he was formerly a member of the Opera Studio. There he made his debut as Onegin, as Belcore in Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’amore and as Papageno in Mozart’s The Magic Flute, prompting La Presse, Montreal to predict: “This man will certainly have a big career.”

American tenor Evan LeRoy Johnson is described by Backtrack as “… a talent to watch for: he has both stage presence and vocal presence by the bucketload”. Among notable appearances, he has sung the Prince in Dvořák’s Rusalka at Glyndebourne Festival, Cassio in Verdi’s Otello at
Bayerische Saatsoper, and Narraboth in Strauss’s Salome. Debut appearances include the role of Edgardo in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor at Lyric Opera of Kansas City, and Andres in Berg’s Wozzeck at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence.

Russian mezzo-soprano Aigul Akhmetshina, according to David Mellor in the Daily Mail, “… has got it all: striking good looks, a vibrant stage presence and a great voice”. He describes her as “The new Netrebko”. This season, she makes her debut at Teatro Real as Angelina in Rossini’s La Cenerentola, and as Rosina in his Il Barbiere di Siviglia at Opéra national de Paris. She will also sing this role in a return to Deutsche Oper, Berlin. Future engagements include debuts at the Metropolitan Opera, Bayerische Staatsoper, Gran Teatre del Liceu and Dutch National Opera, and she returns to the Royal Opera House, Opéra national de Paris, Teatro Real Madrid, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Opernhaus Zürich and Glyndebourne Festival.

Vassilis Christopoulos is the former Artistic Director of the Athens State Orchestra, Chief Conductor of the Southwest German Philharmonic Orchestra of Constance, and since 2016 he has been Professor of Conducting at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Frankfurt.
 In 2017 he inaugurated Greek National Opera’s new venue in Athens with the company’s first ever production of Strauss’s Elektra, followed two years later by Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District – unanimously hailed as an indisputable musical triumph. He led the GNO in its first production of Wozzeck, and marks his US debut with this production of Eugene Onegin.

Maestro Christopoulos conducts the San Francisco Opera and Chorus (Director John Keene) in Tchaikovsky’s gorgeous score for Eugene Onegin – sung in Russian with English supertitles. It runs at the War Memorial Opera House until October 14th. For further information and tickets, visit the San Francisco Opera website.

The October 1st production of Eugene Onegin will be live-streamed at 2.00 pm (Pacific) and will also be available on-demand for 48 hours from 10.00 am (Pacific) on October 2nd. Tickets for the streamed performances are available on the San Francisco Opera website.

All photographs © Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera

Information sourced from:

San Francisco Opera program notes

Artists’ websites:

Evgenia Muraveva

Gordon Bintner

Evan LeRoy Johnson

Aigul Akhmetshina

Deborah Nansteel

Ferrucio Furlanetto

Ronnita Miller

Brenton Ryan

Vassilis Christopoulos

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Kazuki Yamada and the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra open the 2022-23 season with a programme of favourites – Berlioz’s Roman Carnival Overture, Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto and Dvořák’s Symphony No 9. The guest artist is the highly acclaimed young violinist Daniel Lozakovich.

Kazuki Yamada has been Music Director of the OPMC since the 2016-17 season, and with his recent appointment as Chief Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra – a position which he takes up in spring 2023 – we can expect a closer collaboration between the two orchestras. As Principal Guest Conductor of the CBSO since 2018, Maestro Yamada has formed a close association with the ensemble. In 2019 he led collaborative performances of Mendelssohn’s Elijah in Monaco, and in 2023, the CBSO Chorus will return to the Principality for a performance of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana.

Twenty-two year-old violinist Daniel Lozakovich has a glittering career before him. His tone, says the Hamburger Abendblatt, “… resonates with the Romantic warmth of such forebears as Christian Ferras or Jascha Heifetz”, the Boston Globe praised his “poise, tonal purity, and technique to spare”, and – following a performance at the Verbier Festival – Le Figaro wrote of his “Perfect mastery. An exceptional talent”.

Mr Lozakovich has performed with major orchestras such as the Boston Symphony, the Orchestre National de France, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Orchester der Komischen Oper Berlin and the Konzerthausorchester Berlin. He is also a regular guest at international music festivals such as the Gstaad Menuhin Festival, the Progetto Martha Argerich in Lugano, the Gergiev Festival in Rotterdam, the Baltic Sea Festival Stockholm’s Berwaldhallen, the White Nights Festival in St Petersburg, the Festival de Pâques – Aix-en-Provence and the Tanglewood Music Festival.

He obviously has an affinity for the music of Tchaikovsky – whose Violin Concerto he will perform at this concert – as his latest release for Deutsche Grammophon in 2019 bears the title None but the Lonely Heart, in which he explores masterpieces by Tchaikovsky, including the Violin Concerto. Writing for the French record label Artalinna, Jean-Charles Hoffelé says: “With an incredible elegance, a luminous absence of the slightest Mannerism, this young man plays straight and slender, with a class that epitomizes the masterpiece of Tchaikovsky”.

Tchaikovsky wrote his Violin Concerto in 1878 and dedicated it to the violinist Leopold Auer who protested that it was “almost impossible” to play. Undaunted, the composer transferred the dedication to Adolf Brodsky who premiered it on 4th December, 1881, at a Vienna Philharmonic Society concert, conducted by Hans Richter. Unbelievably, the concerto wasn’t well received, provoking “violent controversy” (according to biographer Anthony Holden). It was particularly singled out for criticism by the Austrian critic Eduard Hanslick, which “wounded Tchaikovsky greatly”. Nevertheless, on the concerto’s first Russian performance – also given by Brodsky – on 20th August, 1882, both performance and concerto were warmly received, the Violin Concerto having retained its popularity to this day.

To open the concert, the OPMC plays La Carnaval Romain (the Roman Carnival) by French composer, critic and conductor of the Romantic period, Hector Berlioz. Best known for his 1830 Symphonie fantastique, the choral symphony Roméo et Juliette written in 1839, and the dramatic La Damnation de Faust from 1849, Berlioz initially intended his Roman Carnival Overture to be part of his score for the opera Benvenuto Cellini. The opera, however, was harshly criticised at its premiere in 1838 and was performed only twice during the composer’s life. The opera has since been revived, but the colourful Roman Carnival Overture has been well received since its premiere in Paris in 1844.

Czech composer Antonín Dvořák wrote his Symphony No 9 whilst director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York, hence its subtitle From the New World. He found it hard to settle in New York, and missed his homeland, nevertheless he did draw inspiration from the African-American spirituals that he heard whilst there. Although many musicologists have suggested that some of the melodies in the Symphony were based on these spirituals, Dvořák himself said that he “…. tried to write only in the spirit of those national American melodies”. The Symphony does however evoke memories of Bohemian, German, French, Scottish and other Old World melodies, and in expressing characteristics of both Old and New World, the Symphony was popular on both sides of the Atlantic. The work was premiered at Carnegie Hall on 16th December, 1893.

Kazuki Yamada conducts the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra, and soloist Daniel Lozakovich, in the opening concert of the 2022-23 season on Saturday 24th September 2022 at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco.

Tickets may be reserved on the OPMC website.

Kazuki Yamada

Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra

City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra

Daniel Lozakovich

Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto – biography of composer by Anthony Holden

Berlioz Roman Carnival Overture

Dvořák Symphony No 9

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San Francisco Opera opens its Centennial Season with John Adams’ spectacular new work, Antony and Cleopatra. Starring in the title roles are bass-baritone Gerald Finley and soprano Amina Edris, joined by tenor Paul Appleby as Octavius Caesar, bass-baritone Alfred Walker as Antony’s confidante Enobarbus and mezzo-soprano Elizabeth DeShong as Octavia, Caesar’s sister and Antony’s wife. Music Director Eun Sun Kim leads the San Francisco Opera Orchestra and Chorus in this production which is directed by Elkhanah Pulitzer.

The libretto for Antony and Cleopatra has been written by John Adams from Shakespeare, with supplementary passages from Plutarch, Virgil and other classical texts, in consultation with Elkhanah Pulitzer and Dramaturg Lucia Scheckner. The opera was co-commissioned for San Francisco Opera’s Centennial and co-produced with the Liceu Opera Barcelona, the Teatro Massimo Palermo, and the Metropolitan Opera New York. It tells of the torrid romance between the Roman general, Antony, and the Egyptian queen, Cleopatra, as a result of which alliances and marriages are torn apart, a brutal war ensues and ultimately a new leader for Rome emerges.

Multi-award-winning John Adams – a long-time resident of the Bay Area – has been composing for more than three decades, creating works which have become the most performed of all contemporary music. He is best known for his operas The Death of Klinghoffer (which he also conducted), Doctor Atomic, Nixon in China and Girls of the Golden West. Other works include El Niño (a Nativity oratorio), The Gospel According to the Other Mary (a Passion oratorio), Short Ride in a Fast Machine and The Dharma at Big Sur. Also a conductor, John Adams has led some of the world’s major orchestras including the Concertgebouw Orchestra, Berliner Philharmoniker, Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Wiener Symphoniker, BBC Symphony and the Orchestra of Santa Cecilia.

Cairo-born Amina Edris is a graduate of the Merola Opera Program, subsequently becoming an Adler Fellow at San Francisco Opera. Roles in which she has appeared for the Company include Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, Frasquita in Bizet’s Carmen, Annina in Verdi’s La Traviata and Countess Ceprano in Verdi’s Rigoletto. Highlights of Amina’s 22/23 season include a return to the Orchestre de chambre de Paris for a performance of Mozart’s Requiem, a role debut in Ravel’s Shéhérazade with the Stuttgart Philharmoniker, a Prague debut in a gala concert with Pene Pati, the title role in Massenet’s Manon in a house debut at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona and a return to the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées as Musetta in Puccini’s La bohème.

The role of Antony, the Roman general and triumvir, is taken by Canadian Bass-baritone Gerald Finley, of whom the New York Times writes: “Mr. Finley has long been recognized as a recitalist of rare versatility, a concert artist of the first rank and an opera singer of distinction in a broad repertory”. For San Francisco Opera, he sang the role of J Robert Oppenheimer in John Adams’ Doctor Atomic, which won a Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording in 2012. Widely acclaimed for his performances, he has appeared in major opera and concert venues, and this season he will appear as Count Almaviva in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro at the Opera National de Paris, Wolfram von Eschenbach in Wagner’s Tannhäuser at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and Der Holländer in Wagner’s Der fliegende Holländer at the Staatsoper Unter Linden in Berlin.

American tenor Paul Appleby is the young Caesar, Octavius. He made his debut at San Francisco Opera in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, and created the role of Joe Cannon in the Company’s 2017 premiere of John Adams’ Girls of the Golden West. He is a frequent guest artist at the Metropolitan Opera – where he has sung roles such as Hylas in Berlioz’s Les Troyens, Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni, Belmonte in Die Entführung aus dem Serail and the role of Brian in the North American premiere of Nico Muhly’s Two Boys. Among other roles, Mr Appleby has appeared as Tom Rakewell in Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress at Oper Frankfurt, Jonathan in Handel’s Saul and as Bénédict in Berlioz’s Béatrice et Bénédict at Glyndebourne Festival Opera.

The cast also includes Brenton Ryan as Eros, Taylor Raven as Charmian, Hadleigh Adams as Agrippa, Patrick Blackwell as Maecena, Gabrielle Beteag as Iras, Timothy Murry as Scarus and Philip Skinner as Lepidus.

Elkhanah Pulitzer leads a production team of Tony Award-winning set designer and MacArthur Fellow Mimi Lien, costume designer Constance Hoffman, lighting designer David Finn, projection designer Bill Morrison and sound designer Mark Grey.

The San Francisco Opera Orchestra, soloists and Chorus (director John Keene) are led by Music Director Eun Sun Kim in this production of John Adams’ Antony and Cleopatra which is sung in English with English supertitles. It runs at the War Memorial Opera House between September 10th and October 5th.

For more information and for tickets, visit the San Francisco Opera website.

The good news for anyone who isn’t based in the Bay Area or who cannot make it to the War Memorial Opera House, is that the performance on Sunday, September 18th will be live-streamed at 2.00 pm (Pacific Time). Tickets to watch this online performance cost $27.50, and a replay will be available for 48 hours, from September 19th, at 10.00 am. Tickets are available via this link.

San Francisco Opera also invites Bay Area residents to join them for the traditional Opera in the Park performance this Sunday, September 11th. Pack a picnic and head for the Robin Williams Meadow at Golden Gate Park where you’ll be richly entertained in an afternoon of performances by stars from this fall’s season. Entrance is free, and the concert starts at 1.30 pm. Further information is available on the San Francisco Opera website.

Information sourced from San Francisco Opera program notes

See also:

Amina Edris

Gerald Finley

Paul Appleby

Alfred Walker

Elizabeth DeShong

Elkhanah Pulitzer

Eun Sun Kim

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Giselle, one of the oldest classical ballets in the repertoire, and certainly one of the greatest Romantic era ballets, is to be performed by the United Ukrainian Ballet at the London Coliseum this month.

In a new interpretation by internationally renowned choreographer, Alexei Ratmansky, Giselle will feature guest performances by English National Ballet’s Romanian principal Alina Cojocaru and the Company’s Ukranian soloist Katja Khaniukova. Viktor Oliynyk, conductor of the National Opera of Ukraine, will lead the English National Opera Orchestra. 

The 60 dancers of the United Ukrainian Ballet are all in exile, and are supported by the United Ukrainian Ballet Foundation, formed to provide training and employment for the dancers until they are able to return to their homeland. Under the artistic direction of Igone de Jongh – former principal dancer with the Dutch National Ballet – the dancers are based in the Dutch Centre for Ukrainian Dancers in The Hague, and the non-profit Foundation will, in the longer term, raise funds to support Ukraine in the reconstruction of the cultural heritage of the country which has been destroyed by the war.

Alexei Ratmansky, Artist in Residence at American Ballet Theatre, is regarded as one of the great choreographers of our time. Born in St Petersburg and trained at the Bolshoi Ballet School in Moscow, he has choreographed ballets for the Mariinsky Ballet, the Royal Danish Ballet, the Royal Swedish Ballet, Dutch National Ballet, New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, San Francisco Ballet, The Australian Ballet, Kiev Ballet and the State Ballet of Georgia, and also created works for Nina Ananiashvili, Diana Vishneva and Mikhail Baryshnikov.

Winner of a Golden Mask Award by the Theatre Union of Russia, he became Artistic Director of the Bolshoi Ballet in 2004, during which tenure the Bolshoi Ballet was named ‘Best Foreign Company’ in 2005 and 2007 by The Critics’ Circle in London. Ratmansky was made Knight of the Order of Dannebrog by Queen Margrethe II of Denmark in 2001 and was awarded a 2005 Benois de la Danse prize for his creation of Anna Karenina for the Royal Danish Ballet. He received a Critics’ Circle National Dance Award for The Bright Stream in 2006, was named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow for 2013, and won a second Benois de la Danse prize in 2014 for his Shostakovich Trilogy – a co-commission with ABT and San Francisco Ballet – for which he also received a Critics’ Circle National Dance Award for Best Classical Choreography in 2020.

Having both Russian and Ukranian roots, Ratmansky left the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, where he was choreographing a ballet, on 24th February this year, in favour of supporting the Ukranian dance and ballet world, working with Igone de Jongh, with whom he has collaborated for many years.

Giselle was initially the result of the collaboration of three French artists – Ballet Masters Perrot and Coralli, and composer Adolphe Adam. The composer, together with librettists Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges and Théophile Gautier, was commissioned to create a vehicle for ballerina Carlotta Grisi in 1841. Inspiration was drawn from the poem Fantômes from Victor Hugo’s Les Orientales, which told of a Spanish girl who died after a night of frenzied dancing, and a passage in prose entitled L’Allemagne by German poet, writer and literary critic Heinrich Heine, about a Slavic tale of supernatural maidens called Wilis, young brides-to-be who die before their wedding day.

The original ballet tells of a frail young peasant girl who is betrayed by her beloved, the aristocratic Count Albrecht, as a result of which she dies of a broken heart. Giselle finds herself in a moonlit glade surrounded by the supernatural Wilis and their queen, Myrtha. Albrecht enters the glade to lay flowers on Giselle’s grave, and is summoned by Myrtha and her Wilis to dance to his death. Giselle – ever forgiving, and touched by his exhaustion – pleads for mercy on his behalf, and Myrtha ultimately frees him from the vengeance of the Wilis.

Marius Petipa, Premier Maître de Ballet of the Imperial Theatres in St Petersburg from 1871, staged four revivals of Giselle between 1884 and 1903, and it’s this final version on which most interpretations have since been based. Ratmansky’s interpretation is based on the Petipa version as well as revivals of the ballet from the 1860s, as he explains in this videoclip of the United Ukranian Ballet in rehearsal:

The costumes and set design, by Hayden Griffin, have been loaned free of charge by the Birmingham Royal Ballet, and members of the English National Opera Orchestra have also donated their services free of charge.

This production features guest performances by Katja Khaniukova (13th and 15th September) and Alina Cojocaru (14th and 16th September), and all ticket profits will go to the DEC Ukraine Appeal and The United Ukrainian Ballet Foundation.

The United Ukrainian Ballet’s production of Alexei Ratmansky’s Giselle, set to Adolphe Adam’s sumptuous score, runs at the London Coliseum from 13th to 17th September. For further information and online ticket reservations, visit https://ukrainegiselle.com/.

Information sourced from United Ukrainian Ballet

See also:

English National Ballet
London Coliseum
Alina Cojocaru
Katja Khaniukova

Viktor Oliynyk
English National Opera Orchestra

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