San Francisco Opera Chorus Featured at Dianne and Tad Taube Atrium Theater

San Francisco Opera presents the acclaimed San Francisco Opera Chorus in concert on Friday, November 30, 2018, in the intimate Dianne and Tad Taube Atrium Theater at the Diane B. Wilsey Center for Opera. Company Chorus Director Ian Robertson leads the singers in a diverse program of a cappella choral music and accompanied works with instrumental support from Associate Chorus Master and pianist Fabrizio Corona and members of theSan Francisco Opera Orchestra.

The concert will feature sacred and secular music by an array of composers, including Cécile Chaminade, Antonín Dvo?ák and Ralph Vaughan Williams, along with opera choruses from George Frideric Handel's 1728 opera seria Alcina, Ludwig van Beethoven's only opera, Fidelio, and Richard Wagner's Der Fliegende Holländer and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. The music of living composers will be featured throughout the program, including works by Morten Lauridsen, Gabriela Lena Frank, Frode Fjellheim, Mårten Jansson and Eric Whitacre and arrangements of American folk songs by Kevin Riehle and Gwyneth Walker. Members of the San Francisco Opera Orchestra will accompany the Opera Chorus in the second half of the program for Handel's "Chorus of Enchanted Islanders" from Alcina and a series of contemporary compositions. Stage director and second-year San Francisco Opera Adler Fellow Aria Umezawa directs the movements of the Chorus in Handel's coronation anthem Zadok the Priest and "Tradition" from the Tony Award-winning musical Fiddler on the Roof.

In San Francisco Opera's first collaboration with Noontime Concerts, the San Francisco Opera Chorus will be presented onTuesday, December 4 at Old Saint Mary's Cathedral in Chinatown (660 California Street). Now in its 30th season, Noontime Concerts is a San Francisco non-profit institution dedicated to enriching the community with free classical music performances by renowned artists. The Opera Chorus will perform a shortened version of the November 30 concert program with works by Dvo?ák, Fjellheim, Handel, Wagner, Walker and Whitacre under the direction of Maestro Robertson and with Fabrizio Corona at the piano.

Company Chorus Director and conductor Ian Robertson joined San Francisco Opera in 1987 and has prepared the Opera Chorus in more than 300 productions. In recognition of his work and artistic guidance, Robertson was awarded the San Francisco Opera medal, the Company's highest honor, in 2012.

Tickets for the November 30 San Francisco Opera Chorus Concert are $35 and seating is general admission. Tickets may be purchased atsfopera.com, the San Francisco Opera Box Office at 301 Van Ness Avenue and by phone at (415) 864-3330. Additional information, including full program details and a video clip of the Opera Chorus in concert, can be found at sfopera.com/chorusconcert.