SAN DIEGO OPERA NEWS COVERAGE

Carmen is the world’s third most performed opera. Its tale of the doomed love affair between an innocent young soldier and a beguiling young woman unconstrained by conventional beliefs was seen in more than 6,000 productions on five continents last year. This performance was in the opera’s origi...

San Diego Opera has revealed its 2026–2027 season. The season showcases four distinctive works spanning centuries and styles, including The Marriage of Figaro, Rigoletto and more. ...

Rossini’s Barber of Seville is a top ten opera in performances. Donors love it for its vocal gymnastics, memorable arias and sparkling melodies. Receptive newcomers like it because of its delightful bubbling overture, the familiar Figaro aria that soon follows, and its simple fast-moving sitcom-li...

San Diego Opera will stage Bizet's CARMEN with Melody Wilson, Guadalupe Paz, Thomas Kinch, and Jonny Kaufmann in lead roles....

San Diego Opera has received a $4.5 million landmark commitment from Irwin Jacobs, renowned local philanthropist and steadfast supporter of the San Diego arts community....

San Diego Opera opened its 2025-26 season on a Halloween night with an appropriately disturbing opera about a murderous clown. Its unsavory plot hasn’t kept Ruggero Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci from becoming one of opera’s most popular creations. The reasons for its success? A can’t-wait-for-it t...

What did our critic think of OPERA À LA CARTE'S PRODUCTION OF OFFENBACH'S ORPHEUS IN THE UNDERWORLD at St. Peter's Episcopal Church Of Del Mar? With even large companies struggling to survive, why did soprano and voice teacher Abla Hamza decide to found Opera À La Carte? Her goals were laudable. ...

San Diego Opera has announced it will present the Southern California premiere of Fellow Travelers, the acclaimed opera by Gregory Spears and Greg Pierce, from July 10–12, 2026. ...

Opera San José has revealed the 2025–26 Artists-in-Residence—a group of distinguished opera professionals who will perform in the company’s four mainstage productions. Learn more!...

On the heels of a landmark 60th anniversary season, San Diego Opera has unveiled the lineup for its 61st season, featuring Pagliacci and more. See the full lineup here!...

What did our critic think of SAN DIEGO OPERA PRESENTS STRAUSS'S SALOME at San Diego Civic Theater? Richard Strauss’s eerie and perverse Salome is based on Oscar Wilde’s play of the same name, as adapted by librettist Hedwig Lachmann. Wilde was inspired by the Biblical tale of Princess Salome an...

San Diego Opera has announced that Adam Cioffari has joined the team as its new Artistic Administrator. In this position Cioffari will work closely with artistic and production teams to envision future programming and bring it to life – especially engaging with global talent and securing top tier ...

What did our critic think of SAN DIEGO OPERA PRESENTS LA BOHÈME at San Diego Civic Center? San Diego Opera celebrated the opening of its 60th season with Giacomo Puccini’s La bohème, the same opera the company staged to open its first season. Its magnificent melodies, a touchingly tragic love s...

The Breeders' Cup will welcomes internationally-acclaimed tenor Anthony Kearns back to the Breeders' Cup World Championships at Del Mar on Saturday, November 2, 2024, to perform on Race Day afternoon....

San Diego Opera will commence its 60th anniversary season on November 1 with a performance of Puccini's 'La bohème,' the same opera that inaugurated the company on May 5, 1965, at the San Diego Civic Theatre....

Ed Hofmeister returns to the San Diego arts community, where he built his marketing and communications career at organizations like The Old Globe, Lamb's Players Theatre and Mainly Mozart....

About halfway into her two-hour plus recital with tenor Joshua Guerrero, soprano Andrea Carroll gave a well-earned compliment to their accompanist Stephen Hopkins for his technique and versatility. Both were challenged during the unusually varied program the two singers had fashioned....

The first act of Opera À La Carte’s production of La bohème featured costuming and well-used furniture that made Rodolfo’s bohemian Parisian garret seem more real than the elaborate expensive sets and costumes of many other productions. After all, Rodolfo (tenor Adam Caughey) and his three fri...

Puccini’s Madama Butterfly is one of the most popular operas ever written. It has a wonderfully lyrical score, familiar arias and a story that remains compelling even after often heard. San Diego Opera’s most recent production played to a full house on opening night, and under the direction of J...

San Diego Opera’s most recent production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni is an example of how opera companies hope to attract younger audiences while coping with rising costs and smaller budgets. The pandemic hasn’t been kind to the arts. The National Endowment for the Arts has reported that stage pe...

What did our critic think of San Diego Opera Performs THE MIRACLE OF REMEMBERING at San Diego Civic Center?...

What did our critic think of GRAMMY® GREATS UNITE – LATONIA MOORE AND J’NAI BRIDGES IN CONCERT at Balboa Theatre?...

The great opera LA TRAVIATA will be presented by Pacific Lyric Association Friday, Saturday and Sunday, October 20-22 at the California Center for the Arts in Escondido....

San Diego Opera's 2023-2024 Season opens with the exciting return of soprano Latonia Moore and mezzo-soprano J'Nai Bridges on Wednesday, October 25, 2023 at 7:30 PM in concert at the Balboa Theatre with the San Diego Symphony. Both Latonia and J'Nai performed at San Diego Opera early in their career...

Beloved classics, a new mariachi opera, and special one-night-only concerts with world-renown artists make up San Diego Opera's 2023-2024 season....

San Diego Opera has announced that Llewellyn Crain has been appointed to the position of Chief Development Officer after an extensive search. Crain will lead the Company's development department; raising funds through major gifts, membership, planned and annual giving, corporate and foundation suppo...

San Diego Opera has announced three free community concerts through the Company's =Voices/Voces= (Equal Voices) program, an outreach program celebrating diversity through uniquely curated performances throughout the community. At these concerts, professional opera singers and musicians will present ...

Nicolas Reveles was diagnosed with late-stage pancreatic cancer shortly after completing Ghosts, and it is tragic that he died just weeks before its world premiere in a San Diego Opera production. A sincerely religious man, his spirit lives on in the minds of the many grieving friends and admirers ...

Get a first look at San Diego Opera's production of Tosca! Tosca is Giacomo Puccini’s gripping drama filled with torture, treachery, lust, execution and suicide. ...

WhaThe San Diego Opera has outdone itself with its most recent production of Puccini’s Tosca. The three major roles are sung by appealing voices with exceptional power; the company’s chorus and the city’s children’s choir combined for thrilling moments, especially in the riveting Act I final...

San Diego Opera's 2022-2023 season comes to a close with Zach Redler's opera about  military spirit with The Falling and the Rising. The Falling and the Rising opens May 12, 2022 at 7:30  PM at the Balboa Theatre as part of the dētour Series....

Puccini is one of Michelle Bradley’s favorite composers, and she’s in San Diego to sing his Tosca for the San Diego Opera company. We were originally scheduled to talk in person, but a rehearsal change meant Zoom was going to work better for an hour discussion. “I'm happy to be back, and I kn...

GHOSTS, an opera Nicolas Reveles completed shortly before his recent death, premieres on Friday, April 14. He was visibly ill when I interviewed him in January, but excited and enthusiastic about the coming production. Part 1 of my interview described how the new opera came to be written. This concl...

San Diego Opera’s 2022-2023 Season will continue with Puccini’s Tosca on Saturday, March 25, 2023 at the San Diego Civic Theatre for four performances....

The big question for the evening was how mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe would do as the first woman in professional opera to sing the baritone title role in Gianni Schicchi. But the question wouldn’t be answered until the second one-act opera in San Diego Opera’s “Puccini Duo.” Blythe was fi...

Stephanie Blythe looks for “creativity, imagination and curiosity” in her students. The first two are required of any good artist. Curiosity is a little less obvious, but she credits it for her ever expanding interests. Kate Smith led to reading about song writers, which In turn led to playing u...

Stephanie Blythe is probably the only opera singer who represents an ukulele company. That she embodies the unexpected is further confirmed by her upcoming roles in the San Diego Opera's next production, two one-act operas by Puccini. The mezzo soprano will first sing a deeper contralto as the Princ...

San Diego Opera's 2022-2023 Season continues with Puccini's Tosca on Saturday, March 25, 2023 at the San Diego Civic Theatre for four performances. ...

Recently retired Nicolas Reveles was the face of San Diego Opera for 40 years, known to most opera-goers primarily because of his informative and entertaining pre-performance talks. I suspect few in the audience knew he was also an opera composer, a choir director and a piano prodigy. In an hour dis...

San Diego Opera's 2022-2023 Season continues with The Puccini Duo: a double-bill of the tragic Suor Angelica and the witty comic opera Gianni Schicchi on Saturday, February 11, 2023 at the San Diego Civic Theatre for four performances. Additional performances are February 14, 17, and 19 (matinee), 2...