Conductor Valentina Peleggi will conduct Seattle Opera’s upcoming “The Barber of Seville.” (Chris Beasley)
The young Italian conductor Valentina Peleggi make her Seattle Opera debut this weekend in a revival of Lindy Hume’s popular production of The Barber of Seville, running through 19 May. In advance of the opening, I wrote a profile of Peleggi for the Seattle Times:
No matter how many times you’ve seen “The Barber of Seville” — let alone heard the hit tune that Figaro, the title character, sings as his first entrance — you can expect fresh insights into this well-known score under Valentina Peleggi’s baton….
Seattle Opera today announced the lineup for its 2024-25 season. Three of the five mainstage operas are warhorses from the core repertoire: Pagliacci, The Magic Flute, and Tosca. The second part of Berlioz’s magnificent LesTroyens will be presented not in a full staging but in a concert version (though this is the company’s first-time excursion into Berlioz’s epic). And Jubilee, Tazewell Thompson’s opera about The Fisk Jubilee Singers, will be a world premiere. The rest of the season includes two chamber productions and a recital by tenor Frederick Ballentine, along with various additional Opera Center events, from an “Opera 101” series to background presentations on the Berlioz and Mozart operas.
General director Christine Scheppelmann’s tenure ends with the conclusion of the current season. There has been no update yet on the search for her successor.
I’m looking forward to the final performance on Sunday afternoon of Seattle Opera’s Holiday Chorus Concert showcasing the company’s impressive chorus.
The program features a blend of sacred and secular repertoire, including Ottorino Respighi’s Lauda per la natività del Signore, the choral prelude to Pietro Mascagni’s Zanetto, “Laudi alla Vergine Maria” from Giuseppe Verdi’s Quattro pezzi sacri, “There Is No Rose” by local composer Melinda Bargreen, choruses from Gian Carlo Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors, the “Sleep” chorus from Kevin Puts’s Silent Night, and selections from A Consort of Choral Christmas Carols by P.D.Q. Bach.
Run time approx. 90 minutes with intermission Tickets are $65 general public, $50 subscribers; 1 Flex Pass credit. Sold out, but call Audience Services for the latest ticket availability at 206.389.7676.
Seattle Opera Chorus also plans to undertake its first-ever tour of the Puget Sound region in January, with concerts at McIntyre Performing Arts & Conference Center in Mount Vernon on Friday, January 26, and at Vashon Center for the Artson Vashon Island on Sunday, January 28.
“This is a unique chance to see the chorus outside of a production and to get to know these artists more intimately,” said Chorus MasterMichaella Calzaretta, who is in her second full season with the company. “Our program offers a range of music that highlights the chorus’s power and dynamism and that won’t be heard anywhere else in Seattle. An opera chorus offers a truly distinct sound world—I think we might surprise some people with the breadth of emotions and styles we’re capable of producing.”
Richard Wagner once described his trailblazing brand of opera as “deeds of music made visible.” The new production of “Das Rheingold” that opened Seattle Opera’s 60th season Saturday adds a literal twist to that concept by having the orchestra share the stage with the singers.
Greer Grimsley as Wotan in “Das Rheingold” at Minnesota Opera. Grimsley performs the role in the Seattle Opera run as well. (Cory Weaver)
Opening Seattle Opera’s 60th season this Saturday is a new production of Das Rheingold — staged here for the first time since 2013. It’s not the start of a new complete Ring but a stand-alone production. My Seattle Timespreview:
At McCaw Hall, the gods are preparing once again to enter Valhalla.
Stagings of Richard Wagner’s cycle of four interlinked operas, together known as “The Ring of the Nibelung,” are what put Seattle Opera on the international map almost half a century ago. But a full decade has elapsed since the “Ring” was last produced here. So to open the milestone 60th anniversary season, General Director Christina Scheppelmann decided to pay homage to a central part of the company’s legacy with “Das Rheingold,” the first installment of the “Ring” operas, in a stand-alone new production directed by Brian Staufenbiel. It runs Aug. 12-20.
Christina Scheppelmann, General Director of Seattle Opera. Photo by Philip Newton
Seattle Opera announced today that its general director, Christine Scheppelmann, will take on the reins at La Monnaie/De Munt in Brussels, Belgium, in 2025, after her five-year contract in Seattle concludes.
“I love being here,” Scheppelmann toldSeattle Times‘ Janet I. Tu. “But they made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”
Scheppelmann is the fourth general director in the company’s history. Her final season will therefore be the already announced 2023-24 season, which begins in August.
Regarding the search for Scheppelmann’s successor, Seattle Opera indicated only this: “Seattle Opera’s Board of Trustees is committed to continuing to produce the highest-quality artistic experiences and programming with artists from around the world. The board invites the community to celebrate the achievements of Scheppelmann’s tenure and looks forward to new artistic and programming opportunities that will grow opera audiences for the future.” Meanwhile, Seattle Symphony continues to lack a music director — that search is still under way, with no update on its progress.
“Under Scheppelmann’s leadership, the company produced a world premiere, launched cornerstone programs, expanded its community partnerships, and brought over 100 new artists to Seattle for company debuts, with nearly 50 coming from abroad,” according to Seattle Opera’s press release.
“Leading Seattle Opera is a tremendous opportunity,” said Scheppelmann, who came to Seattle from the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona. “The company boasts an incredible staff, orchestra, chorus, and crew, as well as a wonderful, supportive audience, all of whom I will miss greatly. I love this city and the opera community in this region, which has welcomed me wholeheartedly. I could not pass up the opportunity to lead one of the great European opera companies while also being closer to my family. But for now, there is much work to do and more opera to come in the year ahead, and I look forward to sharing what we have in store.”
“Seattle Opera has been fortunate to collaborate with a general director of Christina’s caliber, and thanks to her leadership, the company is well positioned to build on its successes,” said Board President Lesley Chapin Wyckoff. “That Christina has accepted an offer to head one of Europe’s most important opera companies is a testament to her abilities and her excellent work in Seattle, which has ensured a bright, promising future for Seattle Opera. We could not be more proud of what she has accomplished here and we wish her the best in this exciting new opportunity.”
Cast members in A Thousand Splendid Suns at Seattle Opera. Photo credit: Sunny Martini
The moving operatic transformation of Khaled Hosseini’s 2007 novel AThousand Splendid Suns by composer Sheila Silver and librettist Stephen Kitvakos had its world premiere over the weekend at Seattle Opera in a powerful production directed by Roya Sadat. I reviewed the opening night performance for Musical America:
Soon after reading A Thousand Splendid Suns, Sheila Silver sensed that the story’s combination of tragedy and endurance has an archetypal, larger-than-life quality — exactly what opera excels at expressing. It’s a terrible irony that the work’s lengthy genesis has actually made this story of the oppression of women even timelier than when Silver first considered the idea over a decade ago….[see below]
In just a few weeks, Seattle Opera will unveil a new opera that has been many years in the making: an adaptation of Afghan American writer Khaled Hosseini‘s novel A Thousand Splendid Suns by the American composer Sheila Silver and librettist Stephen Kitsakos. Hossein’s fiction has inspired adaptations for the screen and the spoken stage — and even a graphic novel. But this marks the first time an opera has been made from his work. Seattle Opera’s production also presents the pioneering Afghan filmmaker Roya Sadat’s debut as an opera director.
I wrote a preview feature for Opera Now, which appears in the January 2023 issue:
The fate of Afghanistan and oppression of women are two phenomena that have acquired a topical urgency in today’s world. Sheila Silver has been immersed in these subjects since 2009, when she first encountered Khaled Hosseini’s novel A Thousand Splendid Suns. She was struck by the overwhelming power of Hosseini’s narrative, which unfolds in Afghanistan between the 1960s and 2002. Above all, she sensed an operatic intensity in the bond that develops between the two protagonists, Mariam and Laila, as they struggle to cope in a milieu of abuse and domestic violence. The strength of that bond is what makes the shattering sacrifice at the opera’s climax possible.
Das Rheingold, Brian Staufenfels production; image (c) Cory Weaver
I’m delighted by the mix Seattle Opera has come up with for the 2023-24 season. Along with the first bit of Wagner’s Ring to be staged here in a decade (setting aside an abridged concert Walküre performed a couple years ago), the company makes a rare outing with Handel in its first-ever production of Alcina, directed by Tim Albery and conducted by Christine Brandes, with Vanessa Goikoetxea as Alcina, Randall Scotting as Ruggiero, Sharleen Joynt as Morgana, and Ginger Costa-Jackson as Bradamante.
Malcolm X, the milestone debut opera by Anthony Davis from 1984, to a libretto by Thulani Davis, also promises to be a highlight. Presented in co-production with Detroit Opera, Opera Omaha, the Metropolitan Opera, and Lyric Opera of Chicago, it will be directed by Robert O’Hara, with a cast including Kevin Kellogg as the civil rights icon, Joshua Stewart as Street/Elijah Muhammad, and Leah Hawkins in her compay debut as Louise Little/Betty Shabazz. Kazem Abdullah conducts.
And even another go at Rossini’s Barber of Seville (directed by Lindy Hume, new head of Opera San José) gets an interesting new angle with the wonderful young conductor Valentina Peleggi making her Seattle Opera debut.
Das Rheingold kicks the season off in August, in BrianStaufenbiel’s production first introduced at Minnesota Opera in 2016. It will be a homecoming for Seattle Opera’s beloved Wotan of Rings past, Greer Grimsley, heading a mostly American cast that includes Michael Mayes as Alberich, Melody Wilson as Fricka, Frederick Ballentine as Loge, Kenneth Kellogg as Fafner, Peixin Chen in his company debut as Fasolt, and Denyce Graves as Erda. Ludovic Morlot will conduct.
As to whether this presages the beginning of a new complete Ring, Seattle Opera tweeted: “We have no plans to produce the full Ring in the near future, but Wagner will continue to be a regular part of our seasons.”
“I am thrilled to be able to celebrate 60 years of Seattle Opera with this first-rate lineup of artists and titles,” said Christina Scheppelmann. “60 years is a significant milestone for any American opera company, and it’s a testament to the strong tradition of opera and the performing arts in this city. This season will be both a reminder of that history and a promise of many more years to come.”
J’Nai Bridges stars as Delilah in Seattle Opera’s “Samson and Delilah in Concert.” (Todd Rosenberg Photography)
I spoke with J’Nai Bridges for the Seattle Times about her upcoming, long-awaited Seattle Opera debut. She will sing Delilah in two concert performances of Saint-Saëns’ Samson et Dalila.
This is where it all started.
J’Nai Bridges treasures the memories of her youth in Lakewood just outside Tacoma. Growing up in a close-knit, supportive family, she was encouraged to pursue her exceptional musical talents early on. Even today, she can count on her parents and siblings to travel far and wide to see her perform on the world’s leading opera stages — whether at the Metropolitan Opera in New York or in Munich, where she made her European debut in 2017.
MEMETERIA by Thomas May 