Lucas Meachem News

San Francisco Opera General Director Matthew Shilvock today announced the Company's 98th season, which opens on September 11, 2020 with an Opening Night Celebration featuring soprano Albina Shagimuratova and tenor Pene Pati in concert with the San Francisco Opera Orchestra conducted by Music Director Designate Eun Sun Kim. Opening Night festivities include San Francisco Opera Guild's Opera Ball, BRAVO! CLUB's annual Opening Night Gala and two new events: the Opera Supper in the Veterans Building's elegant Green Room and, for the entire audience, a celebratory, post-concert toast to the season.

I admit this is an absolutely personal, totally one-sided view of what gave one man opera thrills last year and what I will look back on with delight. Some are old works, some are new, some are individual performers, some are ensembles, some are complete productions, some are merely the highlight of an evening, most are domestic, a few are foreign. In any case, as the new decade begins, I recall that these are the vocal highlights that made my heart beat a little faster and made me look forward to the year ahead.

The impetuous, unstable Gherman is a man obsessed a?" with gambling, with Lisa (who's engaged to someone else), and with the secret of winning at cards, which is closely held by Lisa's grandmother, an elderly countess. His all-consuming passion eclipses his sense of reason and reality at a terrible price.

Mozart's musically brilliant and masterful tale of lust and revenge, Don Giovanni, returns to Lyric Opera of Chicago on Thursday, November 14 at 7pm. There will be nine performances through December 8 at the Lyric Opera House, 20 N. Wacker Dr., Chicago. Tickets start at $39 and are available now at lyricopera.org/Giovanni or by calling 312-827-5600.

Mozart's musically brilliant and masterful tale of lust and revenge, Don Giovanni, returns to Lyric Opera of Chicago on Thursday, November 14 at 7pm. There will be nine performances through December 8 at the Lyric Opera House, 20 N. Wacker Dr., Chicago. Tickets start at $39 and are available now at lyricopera.org/Giovanni or by calling 312-827-5600.

It's hard to imagine the logistics in putting together a complex program like the one that the audience at Carnegie Hall was treated to on Sunday evening for the 2019 RICHARD TUCKER GALA. But New York-born conductor James Gaffigan pulled it off wonderfully with the help of members of the Met Orchestra and the New York Choral Society--and a gaggle of amazing singers, beginning with this year's winner of the Tucker Award, Lisette Oropesa.

Lyric Opera of Chicago announced today that American baritone Lucas Meachem will portray the title role of Mozart's Don Giovanni November 14 - 30. Due to a family situation in Europe, Russian bass Ildar Abdrazakov has had to withdraw from Lyric's production in order to be closer to home in the coming months.

San Francisco Opera today announced a cast change for Charles Gounod's Romeo and Juliet (Roméo et Juliette), which opens the Company's 97th season on September 6, 2019 and runs for seven performances through October 1 at the War Memorial Opera House. Samoan-born New Zealand tenor Pene Pati, originally scheduled to sing Romeo on October 1, will perform the role in all performances, replacing Bryan Hymel who has withdrawn for personal reasons.

San Francisco Opera and San Francisco Chronicle present the latest edition of the annual Opera in the Park concert at 1:30 pm on Sunday, September 8, 2019.

San Francisco Opera inaugurates its 97th season on Friday, September 6 with Charles Gounod's romantic Romeo and Juliet (Roméo et Juliette) and two season-opening benefit eventsa?"Opera Ball 2019: The Capulets' Masked Ball and BRAVO! CLUB's Opening Night Gala. The Company's opening weekend also includes Benjamin Britten's Billy Budd in director Michael Grandage's acclaimed production opening on September 7; and on September 8 San Francisco Chronicle Presents Opera in the Park, the annual free concert tradition celebrating the opening of the opera season.

San Francisco Opera announces Canadian soprano Andriana Chuchman as the winner of the 2019 Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Emerging Stars Competition. Chuchman made her Company debut as Mary Hatch in Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer's It's a Wonderful Life last fall and was named a?oe2019 Emerging Star of the Yeara?? based on a popular vote conducted online at sfopera.com from July 9a?"July 31, 2019. As winner of the competition, now in its fourth year, Chuchman receives a $10,000 cash prize.

San Francisco's acclaimed Merola Opera Program wraps up its Summer Festival with the Merola Grand Finale, a concert at the War Memorial Opera House featuring the 29 young international artists selected from over 800 applicants in the 2019 Merola Opera Program, who will showcase a dazzling array of opera's most exciting arias and ensembles. Conducted by Maestro George Manahan, Music Director of the American Composers Orchestra and Portland Opera, and directed by 2019 Merola Apprentice Stage Director Greg Eldridge, this evening showcases the hard work and extraordinary talent of the Merola artists. The Merola Grand Finale will be performed at 7:30pm, Saturday, August 17 at the War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco. For tickets or more information, visit www.merola.org or call (415) 864-3330.

The Dallas Opera is pleased to announce that single tickets for its star-studded 63rd International "Standing Ovation" Season go on sale to the general public on Monday, July 15, 2019 at 9:00 a.m. (Central Time).

The Richard Tucker Music Foundation presents one of the most highly anticipated events of the opera season, the 2019 Richard Tucker Gala, on Sunday, October 27, 2019 at 6:00pm in Stern Auditorium Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall.

San Francisco Opera partners with the San Francisco Giants for Opera at the Ballpark, a free live simulcast of Charles Gounod's Romeo and Juliet (Romeo et Juliette) on Saturday, September 21, 2019 at 7:30 p.m. at Oracle Park.

San Francisco Opera Guild launched its 80th season celebrations on Thursday, May 16, with Marchesa, a fashion show featuring the Marchesa Fall 2019 collection, at Neiman Marcus Union Square in San Francisco. A prominent event of the new anniversary season will be Opera Ball, one of the premier philanthropic events on the West Coast. Presented in partnership with San Francisco Opera, Opera Ball 2019: The Capulets' Masked Ball will celebrate the opening of San Francisco Opera's 97th Season on September 6 with a festive evening featuring dinner, a masquerade ball and the opening night performance of Charles Gounod's Romeo and Juliet. The co-chairs for Opera Ball 2019 are Elizabeth Birka-White and Jane Mudge. Honorary chairs for the event are John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn and Diane B. Wilsey.

San Francisco's acclaimed Merola Opera Program, one of the most prestigious and selective opera training programs in the world, commences its 62nd season with a showcase of the program's rising stars in the Schwabacher Summer Concert. A jaded courtesan longing for true love, star-crossed lovers, a comic marriage, a deal with the devil, and brothers separated at birth all take the stage as Merola's talented young artists bring some of opera's most exciting moments to life by performing scenes from La rondine, Lucia di Lammermoor, Die schweigsame Frau, Faust, and Il trovatore.

The Crypt Sessions, which take place in the stone chamber beneath the Church of the Intercession on West 155th Street in Manhattan, might conjure up visions of horror, though it bears no relation to HBO's long-running anthology, “Tales from the Crypt.” Add that the center of attraction for the recital of the powerfully expressive baritone, Lucas Meachem, was Mahler's KINDERTOTENLIEDER, which translates to the grisly sounding (but actually elegant) “Songs on the Death of Children,” and one might be forgiven for thinking so. The result, in fact, was about as far from that as possible.

Puccini's La Boheme, one of opera's best-known love stories, is returning to the stage at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts. Art, life, love and loss collide for a charismatic group of struggling young artists in 19th-century Paris. Set to some of the most moving music ever composed, the story has captured the hearts of generations of audiences and inspired numerous adaptations, including the hit Broadway musical, Rent. La Boheme runs for 10 performances on April 17, 26, 28, May 2, 4, 5, 7, 11 (two performances), 22, 2019.

San Francisco's acclaimed Merola Opera Program, one of the most prestigious and selective opera training programs in the world, launches its 62nd season offering audiences a look at the opera stars of tomorrow. The 2019 Merola Summer Festival announces this year's 29 Merola artists, selected from more than 800 international applicants from as far away as Brazil, South Korea, New Zealand, and Colombia, as well as across the U.S. Along with the announced world premiere of If I Were You (August 1-6) by Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer, the singers will perform in the Schwabacher Summer Concert (July 11 & 13) and Merola Grand Finale (August 17). The 2019 Merola Summer Festival includes performances in San Francisco at various locations. Individual event tickets and information available at www.merola.org or 415-864-3330.