Guest Announcement: San Diego Opera Tickets Now Selling!

San Diego Opera Single Tickets Are Now On Sale

 

Board President Carol Lazier Shares Update on Company

 

Genovese Vanderhoof & Associates Have Been Engaged to Secure Long-Term Artistic Leadership for the Company

 

San Diego, CA – San Diego Opera is delighted to announce single tickets are now on sale to all performances of the San Diego Opera 2014-2015 season including La bohème, Don Giovanni, Nixon in China, the new mariachi opera El Pasado Nunca se Termina (The Past is Never Finished), the Company’s 50^th Anniversary Celebration Concert at Copley Symphony Hall, and Stephanie Blythe and Craig Terry’s recital, We’ll Meet Again – The Songs of Kate Smith. Single tickets start at $30. A full listing of performances date and times can be found at the bottom of this release.

Here are some of the changes and accomplishments in only five months since the Board of Directors announced the continuation of San Diego Opera:

 

• An executive search committee has been formed to secure long-term artistic leadership for the Company. Arts consultants Genovese Vanderhoof & Associates have been engaged to lead the committee.  

 

• The Company has moved its administrative offices next door from its old location to the Center City Building at 233 A St., Suite 500. The reduction in office space from 15,000 square feet to just over 7,000 square feet results in an annual savings of $400,000. The Company was also able to open a store front box office at 237 A St. that is open for walk-ins from 8:30 AM – 4:30 PM Monday through Friday.

 

• The newly reconstituted board of directors currently stands at 26 members. The board just completed a two-day board retreat that focused on issues of governance, board legacy, and future long-term planning.

 

• The current fundraising goal for the 2014-2015 season, which was $6.5 million of the Company’s approved $11 million budget, now stands at $1.2 million needed to be raised by June 30, 2015 with $5.3 million already raised.

 

• Subscription sales continue to trend upward with 89% of all households renewing. The Company has also seen a 377% increase in new subscribers and a 286% increase in lapsed subscribers (former subscribers that did not attend the 2014 season).

 

• The Company opened the season last month with a sold-out recital presented by Stephen Costello and Ailyn Pérez at the Balboa Theatre.

 

• The Company continues to explore new venues and partnerships, with performances at The Balboa Theatre and Copley Symphony Hall.

 

• San Diego Opera’s Education department has announced Opera Exposed a new touring ensemble comprised of the top vocal students from the Company’s University Partnership Program (USD, SDSU, and Point Loma Nazarene University) that will present free concerts around the community, as well as provide the students with professional training.

 

• The Company’s Education department has developed an in-classroom residency based on the Common Core State Standards. It involves visits to the classroom by singers, designers, costumers, wig & make-up specialists and technical theatre artisans who will give students a close-up view of opera from the inside. The number of school residencies for the 2014-2015 have more than doubled from previous seasons.

 

• Students attending the Student Night at the Opera final dress rehearsal can now watch the entire performance. Previously they were required to leave at the first intermission. San Diego Opera will continue to pay for transportation to these performances. Included in this year’s lineup, in addition to La bohème, Don Giovanni and Nixon in China, is the mariachi opera El Pasado Nunca se Termina.

 

• The Company has hired John Gabriel as the Director of School Programs to oversee and further develop the Company’s education efforts.

 

• The Company has planned and casted the 2016 season and is currently finalizing repertory and contracts for the 2017 season.

 

“San Diego Opera’s 50^h Anniversary Season is off to a tremendous start!  Our new direction of programming innovative as well as traditional works, and presenting exciting exceptional performances accessible to diverse audiences, is our future,” shares San Diego Opera Board President, Carol Lazier.

 

Purchasing Tickets

Single tickets for all operas are on sale. Single ticket prices start at $30 and can be purchased by calling (619) 533-7000 or online at www.sdopera.com.

 

Subscriptions range from $105 for a three-opera series to $1405 for a full season package (Orchestra level subscription and the 50^th Gala Anniversary Concert at the Jacobs Music Center - Copley Symphony Hall, the two recitals, and the mariachi opera). Some Saturday and Sunday subscriptions are slightly higher. Subscriptions can be purchased by calling (619) 533-7000 or online at www.sdopera.com.

 

The 2014-2015 International Season

Stephen Costello and Ailyn Pérez in recital                                      September 5, 2014

Stephanie Blythe and Craig Terry: The songs of Kate Smith            December 11, 2014

La bohème                                           Giacomo Puccini                  January 24, 27, 29 and Feb. 1(mat), 2015

Don Giovanni                                      Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart  February 14, 17, 20 and 22 (mat), 2015

Nixon in China                                    John Adams                          March 14, 17, 20 and 22 (mat), 2015

50^th Anniversary Celebration Concert                                              April 18 and 19, 2015

El Pasado Nunca se Termina               José “Pepe” Martinez            April 25 at 2 pm and 7 pm, 2015                       

 

General Information

San Diego Opera announced its 2014-2015 season and 50th Anniversary on May 19, 2014, after nearly two months of careful deliberations and analysis since the Company announced it was going to close at the end of the 2014 season.  During this time, the Company launched a crowd funding campaign that resulted in an unprecedented $2.2 million in public donations, of which 48% were first time donors from 6 countries and 36 States. The outpouring of public support, the unified vision expressed by the company’s management, staff, partners and contractors, and the expert advice of Opera America and the many General Directors of U.S. opera companies who weighed in with encouragement, logistical assistance and statements of solidarity, led the Board of Directors, headed by Carol Lazier, to confidently rescind the original vote to close.  The Company appointed former Lyric Opera of Chicago General Director, William Mason, as Artistic Advisor in May and has begun a search for permanent leadership to lead the Company as it reinvents itself to better serve the diverse San Diego community.

 

www.sdopera.com

George H Jackson wins this year's Robert J Harth Conducting Prize at Aspen Music Festival

Good news! George Henry Jackson, the young British conductor I had the honor of interviewing last year, had just won the 2014 Robert J Harth Conducting Prize at the Aspen Music festival. Congratulations, maestro!

(Here he is, conducting Mahler's 5th Symphony)

I'm afraid I didn't make it to the festival this year, but I'm elated to have a second chance when he comes back to the USA next summer. Yey!

Summer days and Sergei Rachmaninov

The summer heatwave had surprisingly (to me, at least) turned humid and quite a bit less heatwavy than expected, much to my heat-wimp delight.

A cool batch of jellyfish clouds out near Mt Helix a couple of days ago.

Somehow the weather and the varieties of clouds (yes, we have some serious clouds this summer! Not quite like the old cloudless brilliant blue summer sky of old) had been putting me in the mood for the music of Sergei Rachmaninov when I should have been listening to the new CD by Anna Bonitatibus that arrived in the mail a week ago. I think I'm saving her for when the dry weather returns later this week.

Anyhow, I started with Rach's two famous piano concertos, of course. There are so many wonderful performances of them on Youtube, though running into a series of orchestra-free version of them by Valentina Lisitsa was a special treat. It's obvious why the music is better with the piano and the orchestra (the two are always complimenting and communicating with each other, so just hearing one is like listening to someone talking to someone else on the phone... You feel excluded and it's hard to get the whole picture of what's being said), but at the same time getting to hear all the millions of notes (because Rachmaninov never wrote just a handful of notes when he could fit in a a whole keg of them) the piano plays - which you wouldn't be able to hear in the presence of the orchestra - really highlight how difficult a piece of music the concerto is for the pianist to play!



After a while I moved on to Rachmaninoff's many wonderful songs... The first, Spring Waters, being a personal favorite. Alas, that thing is really hard to sing and I had to go through many Youtube clips before finally finding one that does him justice. It was no surprise that it was performed by a really amazing singer (because, really, you'd have to be bloody out-of-this-world brilliant to be so enthusiastically endorsed by Astrid Varnay in her autobiography), Lithuania's Violeta Urmana.



What is more? Other clips of her from the same Rachmaninov songs recital were also uploaded and I got to discover a few more gems. Here is today's favorite earworm, 'It's So Nice Here.'



A Smorg can really laze around happily listening to that all day long (well, maybe not... with the current uptick in work load, but definitely in about a week or two!).

Summer evening on top of Mt Helix... Les Miserables!

A few fellow hills-crazy cycling friends and I have been riding up and down Mt Helix in La Mesa a lot lately. It is such a beautiful place with sleepy streets and friendly locals. I don't need a lot of incentive to head that way as soon as I hop on my bike in the morning. All I need is < 87F weather forecast, and I'm there!

 There is an additional incentive to dropping in on Mt Helix this week, though. The Christian Community Theater is putting on a run of Les Miserables at the Nature Theater.

Even if you don't like musicals, it's still a super cool place to be. Usually you are ushered off the mountain withing 1/2 hr after sunset, but during the shows, of course, you can stay longer. Check out http://christiancommunitytheater.com/ for tickets. The show goes on at 8 pm on July 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 30, 31, Aug 1, 2.



I'm afraid there's no parking up at the theater for this (there's a lot, but it's way too small). You'll have to park off Vivera opposite from the fire station near the base of the hill and take the shuttle bus up.

Around Town: Nebo

I was messing about Nebo Hill in La Mesa the other day, rediscovering the area's hidden staircases when I spotted this...

'Beware: Pickpockets and Loose Women'

It lies! I swear I looked everywhere for the loose women. They were all in hiding or something!

Oh, I did find the staircases, too, of course.