“Life doesn’t even obtain excellent till you turn forty!” joked Shawna Lucey, Opera San José’s common director. She was talking about the company’s recently announced 2023–two thousand twenty-four season, the organization’s fortieth. But the mission of OSJ, founded by Irene Dalis to nurture youthful professionals by giving them a chance to sing major roles for the first time, means that age is just a no for the company. The forthcoming season intentionally mixes the new and the old, past and present, emerging artists and experienced hands.
“We wanted to really celebrate our past, our present, and our future,” said Lucey. “And we were looking at that in every facet of the season.” The schedule kicks off in Sept at the CA Theatre with a new production of Charles Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette directed by Lucey herself. In keeping with a trust shared with Khori Dastoor, OSJ’s previous chief (presently at Houston Opera), the company is continuing its partnerships with local arts organizations in different genres and that represent different parts of San José’s multiethnic makeup. Although details aren't yet set, Lucey did reveal that Antara Bhardwaj, the choreographer of the company’s hit production of The Marriage of Figaro (which, according to Lucey, broke OSJ box office records for its first weekend and sold ahead of expectations through its all run), would also be on board to choreograph Roméo.
Even more exciting is the local premiere of Daniel Catán’s magical realism-influenced Florencia en el Amazonas, which closes the season in April and May two thousand twenty-four. Crystal Manich (last year’s W Side Legend director) is in charge of the production. Lucey shared that Manich is “so clear in her directorial voice, and she knows Catán’s work, having directed Il Postino before. She's long wanted to tackle Florencia, and we're so thrilled to produce the Bay Area premiere of this necessary Spanish-language opera. In one of my earliest conversations with [Music Director Joseph] Marcheso, it was one of the first things we agreed on when I took this job. I'd known Crystal before, and seeing her work on W Side Story, I knew she was the right director for this transformative piece.
“We love to proposal things that are new and exciting for our patrons who have been with us for so long,” Lucey continued. “We’re also excited to bring all of San José’s communities into the opera ho, and I think this is a title that'll resonate with the opera aficionado who’s a Puccini freak as well as people who like Gabriel García Márquez’s novels — or with native Spanish-language speakers. This is a title to entice all those people into the opera ho.” Rounding out the season are revivals of Rossini’s The Barber of Seville in Nov and Verdi’s Rigoletto in Feb and March 2024. Unlike some other companies that shelved their digital projects after the pandemic shutdown lifted, OSJ is continuing to produce opera in its Fred Heiman Digital Studio. The 2023–2024 season will feature a workshopped production of Zheng, a new opera about locally beloved mezzo-soprano Zheng Cao, with music by Shinji Eshima and libretto by Tony Asaro. Eshima has had premieres at both San Francisco Ballet and the SF Symphony, and the rest of the production team also has ties to the Bay Area.
“We had some conversations about [the opera] could live and it was in its incubation,” Lucey explained, “and thinking about our community, we wanted to leverage the Heiman Digital Studio to tell a local legend and give these local artists a chance to get the following step with this endeavor. It makes it possible for other opera companies to hear it and experience it more easily than asking people to travel [here].” Of course, the resident artists are mission critical, and the 2023–2024 roster includes soprano Melissa Sondhi, mezzo-soprano Melisa Bonetti, tenor Joshua Sanders, and bass-baritone Vartan Gabrielian. Of Sondhi, Lucey reports, “She’s a really fabulous talent. She's been a chorister, then she was Barbarina in Figaro this past fall. And her voice just kept growing and growing, and it’s time for her to get on some lead roles.” And Lucey has similar things to declare about the others.
But in keeping with the season’s theme, “we also wish to bring back into the family some of our absolute loves, love Efraín Solís, who's one of ours, love Eugene Brancoveanu, who’s love our ‘resident artist emeritus.’ When these folks wish to attempt out a new role, when they get on something big, we’re the place they’re doing it beca our patrons really like having that relationship with the resident artists.” Also in the coming year’s cast lists are perennial stalwarts and recent SF Opera Medal winners Dale Travis and Philip Skinner.
