Bob Ellis

Opera Parallèle (OP), the Bay Area's leading producer of contemporary opera, has announced tickets for the company's upcoming Everest: An Immersive Experience, are now on sale beginning with an initial allotment of nine performances spanning February 3 – 12.

San Francisco Opera's Webby Award-winning In Song video portrait series continues with the release of In Song: Pretty Yende. Filmed on location in Piet Retief and Cape Town, this new episode features the enthralling South African soprano Pretty Yende, who makes her Company debut as Violetta in a new production of Verdi's La Traviata opening November 11.

San Francisco Opera announces the release of In Song: Meigui Zhang, the newest episode in its free, Webby Award-winning In Song video portrait series.

As the Company is poised to celebrate its 2022–23 Centennial Season, San Francisco Opera today unveiled Instigators, a bold new multidisciplinary program that brings a group of remarkable thinkers and artists into the world of opera.

Award-winning filmmaker and photographer Sekou Luke (Notes from Harlem) and noted music journalist Christian John Wikane (PopMatters) presented 'Unscripted' Live at the Apollo Theater Soundstage on Monday night (May 23).

The Webby Awards announced today that San Francisco Opera’s intimate video portrait series In Song, produced with Lumahai Productions, won the 2022 “Webby People’s Voice Award” for best music “Video Series & Channel.” In a competitive category of five nominees including NPR, Pitchfork and Soundcloud, In Song received the most online votes cast between April 5 and April 21 for “the Internet’s highest honor” (New York Times). In Song was also nominated for the 2022 Webby Award for best music “Video Series & Channel,” for which the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences selected In The Know x Complex: Making it.

Special to the evening will be the San Francisco debut performance of critically acclaimed opera singer and finalist on NBC television’s hit show The Voice, countertenor John Holiday, in a spectacular musical program spanning opera to pop, including the artist’s heartfelt interpretation of Harold Arlen’s immortal “Over the Rainbow.” Kevin Korth will be Holiday’s musical collaborator.

R&B singer, songwriter LAYA has unleashed her new single “Brag.' The visual also features brief cameos from Karlie Hustle (Apple Music), DJ Stacks (Heavy Hitters DJ, Hot 97), Scram Jones (Grammy-nominated producer, Shade45), Jus Ske (“DJ legend Jusske”), and Bob Ellis (Tracy Ellis Ross’ father). 

The highly anticipated West Coast premiere of composer Lembit Beecher and librettist Hannah Moscovitch's critically acclaimed opera, Sophia's Forest, will be given four performances Thursday, February 24 through Saturday, February 26 at Grace Cathedral, 1100 California Street.

Tommy Faragher, a long-time denizen of the entertainment industry, will next be onstage playing live for JOHN LLOYD YOUNG: SOLID GOLD at Feinstein’s at Vitello’s October 22nd and 23rd. Had the chance to delve into Tommy’s storied resume as a producer, composer, songwriter, arranger, and musician.

Opera Parallèle's (OP) General and Artistic Director Nicole Paiement, today announced the 2021-22 season repertoire, casting and creative teams for the company's 12th anniversary.

Joby Talbot and Gene Scheer's acclaimed opera Everest will be given a bold new theatrical treatment reimagined as a graphic novel opera film, a concept where the singers are integrated into an animated environment creating a one-of-a-kind operatic experience.

San Francisco Opera announces educational events in connection with John Adams' Girls of the Golden West, which receives its world premiere at the War Memorial Opera House on November 21. With a libretto drawn from historical sources by director Peter Sellars, this new work from the composer of Nixon in China and Doctor Atomic explores the true and often brutal stories of pioneers on California's Gold Rush frontier.

Single (non-subscription) tickets for San Francisco Opera's 2017 Fall Season at the War Memorial Opera House go on sale Monday, June 26, 2017, at 10 a.m. Tickets may be purchased online at sfopera.com; in-person at the San Francisco Opera Box Office, located at 301 Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco and open Mondays from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. and Tuesday-Saturday from 10 a.m.-6 p.m.; and by phone at (415) 864-3330 during Box Office hours. Full and Half Series subscription packages are also available. Tickets for the three cycles of Wagner's Ring during the summer of 2018 are available as complete, four-opera cycles only.

San Francisco Opera today announced new details of its soon-to-be-completed $21 million renovation of 38,000 square feet in the Veterans Building's fourth floor and basement named the Diane B. Wilsey Center for Opera. Adjacent to the War Memorial Opera House, the Wilsey Center for Opera is scheduled to open in late February 2016, and consolidates most of the Company's operations into a single campus in the vibrant and emerging arts district of San Francisco's Civic Center. The 1932 Beaux Arts-designed Veterans Building recently reopened in September following a 26-month, City-financed $156 million seismic retrofit and renovation of the historic Herbst Theatre, Green Room, meeting rooms, offices and corridors throughout the first three floors.

San Francisco, August 31, 2015 – Acclaimed Opera Parallèle will present its annual gala benefit Today, October 3, at 6:30 pm, at Marines' Memorial Club in San Francisco featuring an original “Jukebox Opera” entitled Heroes, created by the Company's artistic team and performed by baritone Michael Mayes, who performed the role of Joe DeRocher in OP's 2015 production of Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking. The performance will showcase another side of this charismatic artist together with Opera Parallèle's Founder and Artistic Director Nicole Paiement and Creative Director Brian Staufenbiel, who will trace the journey of a hero in arias by Heggie, Bernstein, Adamo, and others. The evening will also include cocktails, hors d'oeuvres, dinner, performance, and auction presented in The Commandant's Ballroom & Lounge at the classic 1920's Beaux-Arts hotel, Marines' Memorial Club. Tickets are priced from $350, with tables and sponsorships available for $3,500-$10,000 and all proceeds benefit Opera Parallèle and its cutting-edge productions including this season's premiere at SFJAZZ of Terence Blanchard's Champion February 19-28 and Peter Maxwell Davies' The Lighthouse April 29-May 1 at ZSpace in San Francisco. For tickets and information, visit www.operaparallele.orgor call Roma Olvera at 415.626.6279.

San Francisco, August 31, 2015 – Acclaimed Opera Parallèle will present its annual gala benefit Saturday, October 3, at 6:30 pm, at Marines' Memorial Club in San Francisco featuring an original “Jukebox Opera” entitled Heroes, created by the Company's artistic team and performed by baritone Michael Mayes, who performed the role of Joe DeRocher in OP's 2015 production of Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking. The performance will showcase another side of this charismatic artist together with Opera Parallèle's Founder and Artistic Director Nicole Paiement and Creative Director Brian Staufenbiel, who will trace the journey of a hero in arias by Heggie, Bernstein, Adamo, and others. The evening will also include cocktails, hors d'oeuvres, dinner, performance, and auction presented in The Commandant's Ballroom & Lounge at the classic 1920's Beaux-Arts hotel, Marines' Memorial Club. Tickets are priced from $350, with tables and sponsorships available for $3,500-$10,000 and all proceeds benefit Opera Parallèle and its cutting-edge productions including this season's premiere at SFJAZZ of Terence Blanchard's Champion February 19-28 and Peter Maxwell Davies' The Lighthouse April 29-May 1 at ZSpace in San Francisco. For tickets and information, visit www.operaparallele.orgor call Roma Olvera at 415.626.6279.

This fall, the Harwood Museum of Art will present four exhibitions, united by the theme ¡Orale! The Kings and Queens of Cool from Saturday, September 20th through Sunday January 25, 2015.

The Dallas Opera is privileged to announce an extraordinary and unprecedented experiment in twenty-first century opera: “The Dallas Opera's Global Interactive Simulcast” of acclaimed American composer Tod Machover's DEATH AND THE POWERS, scheduled to take place in Dallas on Sunday, February 16th at 2:00 p.m. Central Time, originating in the Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House at the AT&T Performing Arts Center and being simulcast to as many as ten locations in Europe and the U.S.

American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) artistic director Carey Perloff today announced the final casting and design team for A.C.T.'s 30th anniversary production of Sam Shepard's classic interrogation of the American dream, Curse of the Starving Class