David Bennett News

Riding on the success of its drive-in performance of La Boheme this past fall, The San Diego Opera is planning to continue adaptive programming to bring people together in the continued pandemic.

Marianne Flettner was a legend. Her phenomenal abilities as an opera administrator were equaled only by her devotion to opera itself. Many of the world's most celebrated artists were Flettner's devoted friends in the opera business, which was her world for more than half a century.

San Diego Opera has announced the continuation of its 2020-2021 season with a drive-in filmed encore presentation of the 2018 SDO production of All Is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914 on Monday, December 21, 2020 at 7 PM at the Del Mar Fairgrounds parking lot (2260 Jimmy Durante Blvd.). Prior to the screening of the film will be a live concert of holiday favorites starring members of the San Diego Opera Chorus including a singalong that patrons can enjoy from the comfort and safety of their own car. 

San Diego Opera is celebrating the success of its drive-in production of La Boheme that took place last month.

A connoisseur's bravos replaced by honkin' horns and flashin' headlights? Puccini's La bohème staged in a parking lot? Such is opera performance in an age of COVID-19. A sold-out fleet of 450 cars contained opera-starved San Diegans who showed their appreciation of the performance in ways never imagined by the composer or previously casts. The intrepid automotive adventurers were rewarded with warm, sometimes thrilling voices thanks to the daring initiative that salvaged a production originally planned for the San Diego Civic Center stage. Quite a feat given the challenge of new outdoor staging and libretto revisions required for social distancing among the performers.

San Diego Opera has announced cast changes for its ground-breaking live, drive-in performances of La bohème at the Pechanga Arena San Diego parking lot.

Join the conversation this fall, wherever you are, as Pittsburgh Humanities Festival @ Home presents a?oesmart talk about stuff that matters.a?? Catch free and fascinating live-streamed interviews with artists, academics, and intellectual innovators exploring a range of topics a?" from health care and policy, to incarceration, technology, and creating opportunities for artists of color in Pittsburgh.

San Diego Opera has announced drive-in performances of La bohème at the Pechanga Arena San Diego parking lot (3500 Sports Arena Blvd, San Diego, CA 92110), starting October 24, 2020 at 7:30 PM.

In July of 2019, San Diego Opera partnered with Microsoft, with support from Opera America and the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation, to bring together professionals from theater companies, tech companies, and prominent university engineering and theater programs for a two-day hackathon to discover new ways for technology to be used in theater.

San Diego Opera has announced its 2020-2021 season, after the premature ending of the Company's previous season this winter in response to the global coronavirus pandemic.

San Diego Opera's upcoming performances of Aging Magician have been cancelled. The performances were to be held Friday, March 13 and Saturday, March 14 at the Balboa Theatre. Aging Magician was being produced by Beth Morrison Projects.

The San Diego Opera's first Detour Series performance this season belonged to the new Bel Canto Trio, starring tenor Joshua Guerrero, soprano Julie Adams, and bass-baritone Nicholas Brownlee. All are outstanding young award winners with impressive voices and resumes. Music director and pianist Christopher Allen was their accompanist.

San Diego Opera once again will partner with SD Pride, Out at the Fair, and #NowTrending App for a?oeOut at the Operaa?? on Saturday, April 25, 2020 surrounding a performance of Rossini's comic masterpiece The Barber of Seville. This new production is inspired by the films of Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar, whose bold colors, unique camera angles, and explorations of themes of sexual freedom and gender fluidity has earned him a cult following both in Spain and abroad.

San Diego Opera has announced that San Diego Opera board member for the past 28 years, and Opera Ball Chair for the past two, Sarah Brenda Marsh-Rebelo, affectionately known to her friends as Sarah B., has been named Honorary Life Director of the San Diego Opera. This marks only the seventh Life Director honor that the Company has bestowed in its 55-year history which was voted on unanimously at a board meeting on Monday, January 27, 2020.

Nominations for the 2019 FREDDY© Awards were announced on Thursday, May 9th, during the live broadcast of the on 69 News at Noon on WFMZ-TV.

The San Diego Opera's opening-night production of Verdi's Rigoletto featured the powerful voice and convincing acting of baritone Stephen Powell in a title role he has sung often. In contrast, it was soprano Alisa Jordheim's debut as Rigoletto's naive ill-fated daughter Gilda. Her fresh innocent appeal and Powell's veteran portrayal of cynical darkness were perfect for their respective roles. Jordheim has an agile voice with a deliciously silky tone, and commendable projection. She delivered coloratura passages of perfect clarity, hit the role's highest note with startling volume and purity, and held it. This won't be her last production of Rigoletto, nor the last major role in her promising career. Tenor Scott Quinn was the more than reprehensible duke who takes advantage of Gilda. The pair's youthful voices and appearance make them unusually well suited for Verdi's marvelous music and Francesco Maria Piave's tragedy-soaked libretto.

When San Diego Opera General Director David Bennett realized earlier this year that the scheduled Vancouver-derived production of Hansel and Gretel wouldn't fit comfortably on the Balboa Theater stage, All Is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914 was an obvious holiday-season alternative. He'd already been thinking about it for the company's Detour Series of less traditional works.

Can a musical drama set on a grim WW I battlefield make an audience feel good? Those working on the San Diego Opera's staging of All Is Calm: the Christmas Truce of 1914 are certain it can. The work tells the true story of the spontaneous unofficial truce between WWI enemies who left their trenches and entered the no-man's land between them to join in a celebration of the Christmas holidays. Peter Rothstein wrote the drama for his Minneapolis-based company Theatre Latte Da, and based it on material from the period, the most important of which is the verbatim text of letters and war journals written by soldiers who participated in the truce.  The cast sings many songs popular during the war and a few traditional Christmas carols. All were arranged by Erick Lichte and Timothy C. Takach, and are sung a cappella in the English, German and French languages of the soldiers. Vanessa Dinning has taken on the challenge of coaching in nearly 20 different dialects.

The San Diego Opera's last concert this season was billed as 'One Amazing Night.' The program was originally scheduled to feature soprano Lise Lindstrom and tenor Rene Barbera, but Barbera was released from his commitment when he was offered a Teatro alla Scala debut as Ernesto in a new production of Don Pasquale. He's sung multiple time in San Diego, and will likely return, but the company understood a La Scala debut means too much to an opera singer's career to stand in his way. Bass-baritone Greer Grimsley, who had previously performed with Lindstrom in the San Diego production of Salome, was an effective stand-in. Earlier this season Grimsley played the pirate king here in Pirates of Penzance with surprising comic flair, though best known for dark and heroic roles.