ArtsSF

Two Operas in One, Studded with Choruses and Ballets, Plus a Prime Diva SAN FRANCISCO—A vast French-romantic creation, as only Berlioz could conceive it, has taken over the S.F. Opera stage and in effect thrown down the glove, challenging other troupes to match or do better, while challenging the endurance of both performers and audience. It adds up to five hours, five acts, and more savory choruses and ballet segments than in a month of run-days. After a low-key start,…

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Tutino Work Recalls World War Atrocities SAN FRANCISCO—The Italian world premiere opera “Two Women” is a vibrant old-style melodrama with immediate appeal, one that will play even better when it arrives in Italy. A World War Two tragedy became a novel, then film that had propelled Sophia Loren into super-stardom, and now a searing opera of a woman’s wartime ordeal composed by the retiring, soft-spoken Marco Tutino, 60. Tutino’s musical roots lie close to Puccini’s cohorts of a century or…

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And an Operatic 1st: a ‘Sex-and-a-half-Tet’ SAN JOSE, CA—Score one with staging Mark Lanz Weiser’s 1998 work “Where Angels Fear to Tread” at Opera San Jose. This was the last of many admirable judgments by OSJ founder (and former mezzo great) Irene Dalis, who pushed mounting the work despite the 31-year record of chancey audience response to new works at OSJ. 15 years had passed since the troupe had mounted any premiere. This may well be judged her crowning production…

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