SIMON BOCCANEGRA To Open San Francisco Opera's 26/27 Season

San Francisco Opera’s 2026–27 Season begins Saturday, September 12 with Opera Ball, the opening night benefit co-presented with San Francisco Opera Guild, and Caroline H. Hume Music Director Eun Sun Kim leading an international cast in Giuseppe Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra. Last seen on the War Memorial Opera House stage in 2008, the opera will be presented in Claus Guth’s production from the Hamburg State Opera, remounted for San Francisco Opera by director Katherine M. Carter. Chorus Director John Keene prepares the artists of the San Francisco Opera Chorus for this rarely performed 1881 masterwork.

The story of Simon Boccanegra is based on the life of Genoa, Italy’s first elected head of state (or doge) who governs a deeply divided society amid plots and intrigue while also enduring the heartache of a fracture within his own family. Set to a libretto by Francesco Maria Piave in 1857, Simon Boccanegra was one of the rare misses during Verdi’s prolific middle period which yielded such triumphs as Rigoletto, Il Trovatore and La Traviata. Nearly a quarter-century later, Verdi emerged from quasi-retirement and thoroughly revised the opera in collaboration with Arrigo Boito, a composer and librettist nearly 30 years his junior. The result was an all-but-new work that stands alongside his late-period masterpieces Otello and Falstaff, which Verdi also set to libretti by Boito.

German director Claus Guth, who enjoyed success last season with a new production of Salome at the Metropolitan Opera, originally created his staging of Simon Boccanegra for the Hamburg State Opera. His vision, with production designer Christian Schmidt and original lighting designer Wolfgang Göbbel, emphasizes the power of past events and memory to shape the present, while a gradually descending meteor urges the doge to seize the moment rather than wait for an uncertain future. Katherine M. Carter, who directed San Francisco Opera’s acclaimed June 2025 revival of Puccini’s La Bohème, stages the production in its first presentation in the United States with lighting designs remounted by the Company’s lighting director, Justin A. Partier.

Music Director Eun Sun Kim has led operas by Verdi in each of her San Francisco Opera seasons since 2022. Simon Boccanegra marks the third season in a row that Verdi, under Kim’s baton, will open the Company’s season after Un Ballo in Maschera in 2024 and Rigoletto last year.

Following his house debut in 2024 as Renato in Un Ballo in Maschera, Mongolian baritone Amartuvshin Enkhbat, returned last season as the title role in Rigoletto, a portrayal for which he is renowned around the world. Enkhbat opens the Company’s 104th season with his first-ever performances as Simon Boccanegra, one of the most coveted roles in the baritone repertoire.

 Eleonora Buratto has headlined the operas of Verdi, Puccini and other Italian composers on Europe’s leading stages and at the Metropolitan Opera. The Italian soprano makes her Company debut as Amelia Grimaldi, the doge’s daughter who was abducted as a child and whose reunion with him after many years apart is at the heart of the opera. American soprano and former San Francisco Opera Adler Fellow Toni Marie Palmertree will perform Amelia at the final performance on September 27.

American bass-baritone Christian Van Horn, last seen on the War Memorial Opera House stage in 2024 as Escamillo in Bizet’s Carmen, returns as Jacopo Fiesco, a patrician who opposes the doge. Among the leading bass-baritones of his generation, Van Horn won praise earlier this year for his performance in Bellini’s I Puritani which the New York Times declared, “muscular and compassionate in equal measure, warm and persuasive.” Mexican American tenor Joshua Guerrero makes his Company debut as Gabriele Adorno, a nobleman who loves Amelia and who becomes an instrument in the struggle for power.

Simon Boccanegra holds an esteemed place in San Francisco Opera history. Originally scheduled to open the 1940 season as a West Coast premiere event, it had to be postponed to a non-opening position in the 1941 season because of baritone Lawrence Tibbett’s cancellation due to ill health. The Company has since presented Verdi’s tragedy with brilliant casts. Operatic legends such as Tibbett, Leonard Warren, Tito Gobbi and Dmitri Hvorostovsky have performed the title role with the Company, while Renata Tebaldi, Kiri Te Kanawa, Carol Vaness and Barbara Frittoli have all appeared as Amelia. For the role of Fiesco, San Francisco Opera has presented a roster of basses who are among the art form’s leading luminaries of the past century: Ezio Pinza (1941), Boris Christoff (1956), Giorgio Tozzi (1960), Martti Talvela (1975), Cesare Siepi (1980), Samuel Ramey (2000) and Vitalij Kowaljow (2008).

Performed in Italian with English supertitles, the six performances of Simon Boccanegra are scheduled for September 12 (8 p.m.), 16 (7:30 p.m.), 19 (2 p.m.), 22 (7:30 p.m.), 25 (7:30 p.m.), 27 (2 p.m.), 2026.

Tickets for Simon Boccanegra are priced from $30 to $447. Subscriptions for San Francisco Opera’s 2026-27 Season are priced from $136 to $2,634 for Full Series (6 productions), $69 to $1,743 for Half Series (2–4 productions) and a Design Your Own (DYO) option (minimum three operas). A $2 per-ticket facility fee is included in Balcony 1, 2 and 3 zone prices; all other zones include a $3 per-ticket facility fee. Contact the San Francisco Opera Box Office at 301 Van Ness Avenue, call (415) 864-3330 or visit sfopera.com. For information about subscriber benefits and special series subscriptions, including the Student & Teacher Series offering 50% off select Full, Half and DYO Series, visit sfopera.com/subscribe.

LIVESTREAM: SIMON BOCCANEGRA, Saturday, September 19

The Saturday, September 19 matinee performance of Simon Boccanegra will be livestreamed at 2 p.m. PT and available to watch on demand for 48 hours beginning Sunday, September 20 at 10 a.m. PT. Tickets for the livestream and on-demand viewing are $25 or $125 for all six 2026–27 Season operas. Visit sfopera.com/digital.

POST-PERFORMANCE TALKBACK WITH EUN SUN KIM: Sunday, September 27

Following the Sunday, September 27 matinee of Simon Boccanegra, San Francisco Opera Music Director Eun Sun Kim will host a post-performance talkback. Ticketholders are invited to gather for this discussion about producing a large-scale work like Simon Boccanegra, both on the stage and behind the scenes.

PRE-OPERA TALKS

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