“Is this aria too long, or is this scene too short? It was looking at contours, or the dramatic arc of the piece. “Very often, it was giving input in trying to shape the piece,” he explained. But the company began commissioning and premiering new works in earnest under general directors Lotfi Mansouri, Pamela Rosenberg, David Gockley, and current general director Matthew Shilvock.Ĭranna worked with them all, and in a recent interview, he said his contributions were multi-faceted. Opera’s world premieres actually date back to 1961, with “Blood Moon” by composer Norman Dello Joio. Opera in 1979 as assistant business manager and eventually became director of music administration, was involved in commissioning and developing each of those 12 works, from Conrad Susa’s “The Dangerous Liaisons,” which premiered in 1994, to Adams’ 2017 “Girls of the Golden West.” In between, he helped bring to the stage such operas as Previn’s “A Streetcar Named Desire” (1998), Heggie’s “Dead Man Walking” (2000), Adams’ “Doctor Atomic” (2005), Glass’s “Appomattox” (2007), Tobias Picker’s “Dolores Claiborne” (2013), and Bright Sheng’s “Dream of the Red Chamber” (2016). Presented as part of the Opera Aficionado virtual lecture series, it’s a revealing insider’s look at how operas get made, produced, and premiered.Ĭranna, who joined S.F. Opera dramaturg emeritus Clifford “Kip” Cranna, “Opera for Our Time - World Premieres at San Francisco Opera” offers a journey through 12 productions from the company’s last quarter-century. Those operas, which made their first appearances in the War Memorial Opera House, will be celebrated in a special interactive program this Sunday. Yet some of the company’s finest achievements have come in new works: world premieres of operas by composers including John Adams, Philip Glass, Jake Heggie, André Previn, and others. The history of San Francisco Opera is filled with great productions drawn from the standard repertoire.
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