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Stage
SAN DIEGO OPERA’S general and artistic director, Ian Campbell, plans seasons four or five years in advance, traveling the world to hear singers. In long-ago preparation for the 2009 season, the peripatetic Campbell took a taxi from Vienna to Bratislava to hear soprano L’ubica Vargicová, who sings Gilda in Verdi’s Rigoletto (March28–April 8). He also went to a garage sale and bought an opera set. Not exactly a garage sale——New York City Opera was trashing a production set Campbell thought valuable and worth preservation. He got it for a song. “We’re adding a bit to it,” he says, “and we have one rental coming up that will recover what we bought it for, which is good business on our part.”
Good business is a hallmark of Campbell’s administration. Under his leadership, the company has oper - ated consistently in the black despite opera being the most expensive of performing arts. The current budget is $18 million for 23 stagings of five operas, January 24–May 20.
“The season is planned to be as popular as possible,” he says, “hence Tosca, Rigoletto and Butterfly.” Few San Diegans travel to Europe for opera. Most of what they hear locally is standard repertoire repeated at fiveto seven-year intervals. For the more adventuresome, Campbell schedules uncommon works like Jules Mas se - net’s Don Quixote, not performed here since 1969, and Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes, last produced in 1985.
The season opens January 24–February 4 with Tosca, which concerns the titular opera singer (French soprano Sylvie Valayre in her company debut) and the two men who love her, artist Mario Cavaradossi (American tenor Marcus Haddock in his first outing with SDO) and the devious Baron Scarpia (heap sexy American bassbaritone Greer Grimsley). This opera is packed with ravishing arias such as Tosca’s “Vissi d’Arte” (“I have lived for my art”) and Cavaradossi’s “E lucevan le Stelle” (“And the stars were shining”), sung just before he is shot by a “mock” firing squad arranged by Scarpia.
Campbell stages Don Quixote February 14-22, with magnificent Italian bass Ferruccio Furlanetto in the title role, German bass Reinhard Dorn as Sancho Panza and American mezzo Denyce Graves as Dulcinea. Ralph Funicello is designing the new production to surround the story of the deluded Don Quixote de la Mancha, who imagines himself a knight, tilts with windmills and falls in love with a strumpet he calls Dulcinea.
Rigoletto (March 26-April 8) features the company debuts of Slovak soprano Vargicová as Gilda and Italian tenor Roberto Aronica as the duke who despoils her. Georgian baritone Lado Ataneli, a fine Boc ca negra in 2005, returns as Gilda’s overprotective father. Hit arias are Gilda’s “Caro Nome” (“Beloved name)” and the Duke’s “La donna è mobile” (“Women are fickle”).
British stage director John Copley and conductor Steuart Bedford, both of whom knew Britten personally, collaborate on Peter Grimes (April 18-26), a haunting tragedy that pits a simple fisherman (American tenor Anthony Dean Griffey) against mob mentality in a small fishing village, where Grimes’ apprentice has drowned at sea. American soprano Jennifer Casey Cabot portrays Ellen, who believes in his innocence. American baritone Rod Gilfry makes his role debut as Grimes’ defender, Captain Balstrode.
The SDO season concludes May 9-20 with Madama Butterfly, in which San Diegans hear for the first time the de finitive Cio-Cio-San (Butterfly) of American soprano Patricia Racette. Lieutenant Pinkerton is sung by Uru guay an tenor Carlo Ventre, seen as Radames in last season’s Aida. The production features two returning artists, American baritone Malcolm MacKenzie as Sharpless and Chinese mezzo Zheng Cao as Suzuki.
Performances take place at the Civic Theatre in downtown San Diego. For dates, times and tickets, go to sdopera.com or call 619-533-7000.
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