OPERA

La Traviata stands or falls on its lead singers and in Norah Amsellem and Rolando Villazon this 2005 Salzburg Festival performance has a pair whose electric interactions and brilliant singing are irresistible. If Amsellem can't quite provide the vocal bloom of the great Violettas of the past, hers is a lovely voice used with intelligence and dramatic intensity and she has the coloratura chops to deliver her Act I showpieces with flair. Villazon's tenor has ping on top, terrific color, and an impressive range of rubato, dynamic shadings, and interesting phrasing that makes Alfredo's music sound newly minted. The Germont is Thomas Hampson, no Verdi baritone but an astute singer and actor. Chorus and smaller roles are fine, the orchestra first-rate. Carlo Rizzi has odd notions about the music (usually too fast, sometimes way too slow) but this Traviata triumphs despite his conducting.

Ferrando and Guglielmo boast about the beauty and virtue of their girls, the sisters Fiordiligi and Dorabella. The cynical Don Alfonso proposes a wager. He will prove to them that the sisters are unfaithful, like all other women. Amused, the young men agree.

Hungarian conductor plans bold "Tannhäuser" production amid opera politics, artistic egos, nationalism, union conflicts, and funding challenges in critique of Grand Opera and European Union.

Mozart's opera in lush sets: Don Giovanni, the infamous womanizer, kills Donna Anna's father. He is then chased by Donna Anna's fiancé, Don Ottavio, as well as Donna Elvira, one of his former conquests. But the real threat lies elsewhere.

The opera "La Bohème" is about the tragic love story of Mimí and Rodolfo, set in Paris in the year 1830.

In Verdi's masterful adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy, a great warrior discovers the one weapon against which he has no defense-his own jealousy. South African tenor Johan Botha, "endowed with a bright, ringing sound and enough power to project effortlessly even over a full-strength orchestra" (San Francisco Chronicle), sings the title role. Bulgarian soprano Zvetelina Vassileva in her portrayal of Desdemona, the faithful wife who finds facts are no match for manufactured suspicion, "sings with flawless, rich Italianate sound, and graceful phrasing" (San Francisco Classical Voice). Italian baritone Marco Vratogna gives "an arrestingly dark and charismatic" portrait of the villain Iago, with singing that's "beautifully controlled and dramatically on point" (San Francisco Chronicle). Music Director Nicola Luisotti "seems to have been born to conduct Otello. Through the storms, waves of sound, orchestra and chorus joining in raging passages, he maintains flawless momentum and exemplary balance" (San Francisco Examiner). "Red-Hot Otello!" -San Francisco Examiner

The story of Don Juan set to music by Mozart in 1787.

ACT I Rome, June 1800. Cesare Angelotti, an escaped political prisoner, rushes into the Church of Sant'Andrea della Valle. After finding the key his sister has hidden for him, he hides in his family's private chapel. Soon, the painter Mario Cavaradossi arrives to work on his portrait of Mary Magdalene. The painting has been inspired by Angelotti's sister, the Marchesa Attavanti, whom Cavaradossi had seen praying in the church. Angelotti, who was a member of the former Bonapartiste government, emerges from his hiding place. Cavaradossi recognizes him and promises help, then hurries him back into the chapel as the singer Floria Tosca, his lover, calls from outside. When he lets her into the church, she jealously asks Cavaradossi to whom he has been talking and reminds him of their rendezvous that evening. Suddenly recognizing the Marchesa Attavanti in the painting, she accuses him of being unfaithful, but he assures her of his love. When Tosca has left, Angelotti again comes out of hiding. A cannon signals that the police have discovered the escape, and he and Cavaradossi flee to the painter's home. The sacristan enters with choirboys who are preparing to sing in a Te Deum celebrating the recent victory against Napoleon at the Battle of Marengo. At the height of their excitement, Baron Scarpia, chief of the secret police, arrives, searching for Angelotti. When Tosca comes back looking for Cavaradossi, Scarpia shows her a fan with the Attavanti crest that he has just found. Seemingly confirming her suspicions about her lover's infidelity, Tosca is devastated. She vows vengeance and leaves as the church fills with worshippers. Scarpia sends his men to follow her to Cavaradossi, with whom he thinks Angelotti is hiding. While the congregation intones the Te Deum, Scarpia declares that he will bend Tosca to his will. ACT II That evening in his chambers in the Palazzo Farnese, Scarpia anticipates the pleasure of having Tosca in his power. The spy Spoletta arrives with news that he was unable to find Angelotti. Instead, he brings in Cavaradossi. Scarpia interrogates the defiant painter while Tosca sings at a royal gala in the palace courtyard. Scarpia sends for her, and she appears just as Cavaradossi is being taken away to be tortured. Frightened by Scarpia's questions and Cavaradossi's screams, Tosca reveals Angelotti's hiding place. Henchmen bring in Cavaradossi, who is badly hurt and hardly conscious. When he realizes what has happened, he angrily confronts Tosca, just as the officer Sciarrone rushes in to announce that Napoleon actually has won the battle, a defeat for Scarpia's side. Cavaradossi shouts out his defiance of tyranny, and Scarpia orders him to be executed. Once alone with Tosca, Scarpia calmly suggests that he would let Cavaradossi go free if she'd give herself to him. Fighting off his advances, she declares that she has dedicated her life to art and love and calls on God for help. Scarpia becomes more insistent, but Spoletta bursts in: Faced with capture, Angelotti has killed himself. Tosca, now forced to give in or lose her lover, agrees to Scarpia's proposition. Scarpia orders Spoletta to prepare for a mock execution of Cavaradossi, after which he is to be freed. Tosca demands that Scarpia write her a passage of safe-conduct. After he has done so, he attempts to make love to Tosca, but she grabs a knife from the table and stabs him. She takes the pass and flees ACT III At dawn, Cavaradossi awaits execution on the ramparts of Castel Sant'Angelo. He bribes the jailer to deliver a farewell letter to Tosca, and then, overcome with emotion, gives in to his despair. Tosca appears and explains what has happened. The two imagine their future in freedom. As the execution squad arrives, Tosca implores Cavaradossi to fake his death convincingly, then watches from a distance. The soldiers fire and depart. When Cavaradossi doesn't move, Tosca realizes that the execution was real, and Scarpia has betrayed her. Scarpia's men rush in to arrest her, but she cries out that she will meet Scarpia before God and leaps from the battlement.

In 1820s Spain the soldier Don José falls in love with the fiery and charismatic factory worker Carmen. Conflicts and grievances multiply, however, as it becomes apparent their views on love and commitment are fundamentally incompatible.

A thoroughly Italian work inspired by Viennese operetta, this rarely performed Puccini gem tells the story of love between a kept woman from high society and a naïve younger man of moderate means. From the composer's fabled Act I aria, "Chi il bel sogno," to the glorious Act II cafe scene, this San Francisco Opera production features two world renowned singers at their finest: Romanian soprano Angela Gheorghiu and Russian tenor Misha Didyk. Ion Marin conducts La Rondine ("The Swallow") in an opulent Art Deco production design by Nicolas Joël.

An operetta with music by Johann Strauss II. However, he did not see the premiere. Wiener Blut is set at the time of the Congress of Vienna, 1814-1815, an international conference that sought to settle Europe after the upheavals of the Napoleonic Wars, and follows a traditional operetta plot full of mistaken identities. Count Balduin Zedlau, ambassador of the tiny court of Reuss-Schleiz-Greiz, is posted to Vienna. Count Zedlau is married but a real Don Juan always looking for a new encounter. Many of Strauss' compositions are used in the operetta although he did not specifically composed them for the operetta.

Performed in the actual Roman settings described in the libretto. The scenes take place at the appropriate times of day. Rome, June 1800. Floria Tosca is a celebrated opera singer, better known as La Tosca. Her lover is Mario Cavaradossi, a young artist and Bomapartist sympathizer. When the latter helps Angelotti, the leader of the opposition, to escape from prison and hides him in La Tosca's home, he antagonizes Baron Scarpia, the ruthless chief of police, all the more as his love for Tosca is unrequited.

Franz Woyzeck, a lowly soldier stationed in a mid-nineteenth century provincial German town, is the father of an illegitimate child by his mistress Marie.

A melancholy poet reflects on three women he loved and lost in the past: a mechanical performing doll, a Venetian courtesan, and the consumptive daughter of a celebrated composer.