Announcing the Opera San José
2006 - 2007 Season:
September 9, 2006 - May 6, 2007

General Director Irene Dalis has selected four terrifically appealing operas for our third season in the California Theatre. In addition, there will be seven new artists in the resident company and many new faces among the guest artists who will complete the casts. Stage directors who have been contracted include favorites from the past:  Bodo Igesz, who just directed A Masked Ball, will direct the second opera in the season; and Olivia Stapp, who had great success last season with The Flying Dutchman, will direct Roméo et Juliette  and La traviata. Brad Dalton will make his company debut as stage director for Madama Butterfly.

ROMEO ET JULIETTE

September 9–24, 2006

Charles Gounod was a very brave man to undertake the re-creation of Roméo et Juliette, one of the most accomplished and lauded plays ever conceived. But the combination of sensual 19^th-century French music and the emotionally honest and unfailingly direct insights of William Shakespeare resulted in a deeply satisfying union of music and drama. The four duets between these enormously famous young lovers are limpid, sensual, and express about everything young love can express. The action scenes, deftly handled, preserve the balance that Shakespeare so carefully crafted between the fatal brutality of the period and the tenderness that these young people create in the eye of that storm. Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette, is beautiful, and no other composer has equaled his accomplishment in setting this play to music, though many have tried. 

THE BARBER OF SEVILLE

November 18–December 3, 2006

The last time we had a visit from this Spanish factotum was in 1999. Many have missed him, and as we presented Mozart’s Figaro last season, it seems no more than fair that we give equal time to Rossini’s charming conniver. Rossini, known the world over for his bubbling music and never-ending wit was launched into international acclaim with this brilliant opera, and to this day no Italian comic opera has approached its popularity. The Barber of Seville is an ensemble opera, that is, all major roles are equally important to the plot, and each principal character is given equal time in the limelight. This also means that every role is filled with splendid music that is always rewarding and keeps you smiling.

LA TRAVIATA

February 10 – 25, 2007

There are only two opera heroines who die of consumption, but they are so beloved that many have the impression that all opera heroines die of this malady. There is a reason that Violetta, the principal soprano in La traviata, has come to dominate the American operagoer’s imagination: She is the gold standard of both vocal prowess and powerful acting.      

Verdi has asked everything of this delicate woman: vocal agility and vocal power, a complete cynicism regarding romantic love, an utter disregard for her very life, and a desperate desire to live once she has discovered that love is possible just before Verdi rips that love out of her hands and leaves her with nothing.

While the other principal characters, her lover Alfredo and his father Germont, are assigned some of the very best music that opera has to offer, and are given extremely telling situations to live out on stage, everything each of them does finds all its importance in they way it impacts the life of Violetta. She is the object of desire, of hatred, of pity, and finally of love; but she is lost. La traviata is based on the life of a woman who was famous throughout Paris when she died at 23, but who became internationally famous when her lover published a memoir of their relationship. That novella quickly became a play for Sarah Bernhardt, and the play, one year later, inspired Verdi to compose this opera. Seven years will have elapsed between the last time we produced La traviata and when we raise the curtain on it once more. That’s just about overdue!

MADAMA BUTTERFLY

April 21–May 6, 2007

It will have been five years since we last produced Puccini’s most famous opera, Madama Butterfly, by the time we raise the curtain on our next production, and a number of opera lovers have complained that this is too long to wait. No opera is more requested except for Carmen. This opera, too, was drawn from life. Cio-Cio-San, the title character, lived in Nagasaki and was married to an American sailor who left her and then returned with his American wife to collect the child he fathered with this 15-year-old geisha.

In Puccini’s hands, Butterfly’s unfaltering trust in her husband’s love, and her absolute faith that he will return as he promised and just as in love as he seemed to be on their wedding night, has proven to be one of the most powerful characterizations in theatre. It is impossible to forget Cio-Cio-San. It is impossible to watch unfeeling as her rightful expectations must meet with the unyielding reality that she has been nothing but a lieutenant’s plaything. Her courage is heartbreaking and unforgettable.  

ORDER YOUR SEASON TICKETS TODAY! CALL 408-437-4450

Seating requests for the 2006-07 season will be filled in the order in which they are received. We can take your season-ticket order now, reserving your place in the California Theatre. However, OSJ cannot assign seats until current season-ticket holders have renewed theirs. We will begin specific seat assignments for new season-ticket buyers in March. Don't delay. Place your order now to get the best possible seating.

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