Music Director Eun Sun Kim leads new-to-San Francisco production by director Leo Muscato and an international cast headed by Michael Fabiano, Lianna Haroutounian, Amartuvshin Enkhbat, Mei Gui Zhang, Judit Kutasi

Opening Weekend celebrations include Opera Ball benefit gala and September 8 free Opera in the Park concert

San Francisco, CA - San Francisco Opera opens its 102nd season on Friday, September 6 with Giuseppe Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera and Opera Ball, the opening night benefit co-hosted with San Francisco Opera Guild. Caroline H. Hume Music Director Eun Sun Kim leads the Company’s first presentation of Un Ballo in Maschera (The Masked Ball) since 2014 in Italian director Leo Muscato’s staging for the Rome Opera which has never been presented outside of Europe. Opening weekend festivities inaugurating the 2024–25 Season continue Sunday, September 8 with San Francisco Chronicle Presents Opera in the Park, the annual free concert in Golden Gate Park featuring Maestro Kim and the San Francisco Opera Orchestra with vocal stars of the new season.

Since its premiere in 1859-the peak of Verdi’s prolific “middle period” when he was producing soon-to-be classic operas like Rigoletto, La Traviata and Il Trovatore with astonishing regularity-Un Ballo in Maschera has emerged as one of the composer’s most compelling and tightly constructed stage works. A political drama of hidden agendas, treachery and all-consuming passions, Ballo’s fast-paced story is continuously propelled forward by Verdi’s melodic invention, especially in episodes like the eerie fortune-telling scene, the midnight love duet and Renato’s Act III aria, “Eri tu” (“You were the one”), which is regarded as one of the composer’s greatest baritone arias.

Music Director Eun Sun Kim, noted for bringing “tonal muscle and stylistic variety” (San Francisco Chronicle) to her performances of Verdi, leads Un Ballo in Maschera as part of her initiative to conduct major works by Verdi and Richard Wagner every season. This season she takes on Verdi’s Ballo (September 6–27) and Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde (October 19–November 5), each for the first time. Her 2024–25 Season also includes a sold-out performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony on October 26, honoring the work’s 200th anniversary, and Mozart’s early masterpiece Idomeneo in June 2025.

With productions of La Forza del Destino, Rigoletto, Attila, Ernani, I Masnadieri and I Due Foscari, Leo Muscato has developed a deep affinity for staging Verdi’s works. His vision for Un Ballo in Maschera, which retains Verdi’s original Swedish setting, received praise at its 2016 performances in Rome for playing “skillfully with the dramatic elements in the story” (Opera). Muscato’s creative team collaborators, each making their Company debut, are set designer Federica Parolini, costume designer Silvia Aymonino and lighting designer Alessandro Verazzi. San Francisco Opera Dance Master Colm Seery is the choreographer and Chorus Director John Keene prepares the artists of the San Francisco Opera Chorus.

The international cast is headed by a nucleus of leading operatic stage artists. Michael Fabiano portrays Gustavus III, the Swedish king whose 1792 assassination at a masked ball in Stockholm’s opera house was the spark that fired Verdi’s imagination to create the opera. Fabiano made his San Francisco Opera debut in 2011 and has returned on many occasions as some of opera’s foremost heroes, including the title role of Verdi’s Don Carlo and in Puccini’s La Bohème, Tosca and Madame Butterfly. Of the latter, the San Francisco Chronicle said, “American tenor Michael Fabiano, always a welcome presence in the War Memorial, brought his blazing tone and easy fluency to the role of Pinkerton.”

The role of Amelia is performed by Armenian soprano Lianna Haroutounian. Since her 2014 Company debut as Tosca, Haroutounian has enjoyed several triumphs on the War Memorial Opera House stage, including Cio-Cio-San in Madame Butterfly as a “Butterfly for the ages” (Mercury News), Nedda in Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci-”another of her glistening, glorious star turns” (San Francisco Chronicle)-and the title role in Puccini’s Manon Lescaut.

Completing Ballo’s love triangle is Amartuvshin Enkhbat as Renato. The young Mongolian baritone, appearing with San Francisco Opera for the first time, has garnered praise worldwide in Verdi’s baritone roles, including for his 2023 Metropolitan Opera debut as Germont in La Traviata: “… his burnished-mahogany ‘Di Provenza il mar’ proving the most deeply satisfying singing of anyone onstage” (New York Times).

Last seen on the War Memorial Opera House stage in 2022 as “a touchingly expressive, plush-voiced Eurydice” (Opera News) in Gluck’s opera, Mei Gui Zhang returns as Oscar, the king’s page. The Chinese soprano was recently featured in the Company’s award-winning In Song video portrait series. In Song: Meigui Zhang traces her personal and artistic journey from Chengdu to an international opera career.

Judit Kutasi’s American debut with San Francisco Opera last season provided one of the most thrilling recent discoveries for critics and audiences alike. Of Kutasi’s Ortrud in Lohengrin, San Francisco Classical Voice said, “She brought a huge, beautifully controlled, vividly colorful voice and first-class acting to the role,” and Parterre proclaimed her debut “quite possible one of the most noteworthy US debuts in the recent years!” The Romanian mezzo-soprano returns this season as the mysterious fortune teller, Ulrica.

Portraying the co-conspirators who plot to assassinate the king are bass Adam Lau as Samuel and current San Francisco Opera Adler Fellow bass-baritone Jongwon Han as Tom. Tenor Christopher Oglesby is the Chief Magistrate and current Adler Fellows Samuel Kidd and Thomas Kinch take on the roles of Christiano and Amelia’s servant, respectively.

San Francisco Opera first presented Un Ballo in Maschera in 1931 and returned to it in 1937 and 1940, a period when Verdi’s opera was rarely heard on any other American opera stage. The Company has presented the opera in 18 previous seasons, typically with casts featuring the art form’s luminaries. Two artists who are closely associated with Un Ballo in Maschera, both on stage and recordings, made their role debuts in the opera with San Francisco Opera: soprano Leontyne Price sang her first Amelia here in 1965 and tenor Luciano Pavarotti portrayed King Gustavus for the first time in 1971.

Sung in Italian with English supertitles, the seven performances of Un Ballo in Maschera are scheduled for September 6 (8 p.m.), 11 (7:30 p.m.), 15 (2 p.m.), 18 (7:30 p.m.), 21 (7:30 p.m.), 24 (7:30 p.m.), 27 (7:30 p.m.), 2024.

POST-PERFORMANCE TALKBACK WITH EUN SUN KIM: Sunday, September 15
Following the Sunday, September 15 matinee of Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera, San Francisco Opera Music Director Eun Sun Kim will participate in a post-performance talkback in the auditorium. Ticketholders are invited to gather after the performance for a live Q&A with the maestro to learn about the behind-the-scenes work that goes into producing Verdi’s opera.

LIVESTREAM: UN BALLO IN MASCHERA, Sunday, September 15
The Sunday, September 15 matinee performance of Un Ballo in Maschera will be livestreamed at 2 p.m. PT. The opera will also be available to watch on demand for 48 hours beginning on Monday, September 16 at 10 a.m. PT. Tickets for the livestream and limited on-demand viewing are $27.50. For tickets and more information about livestreams, visit sfopera.com/digital.

PRE-OPERA TALKS
San Francisco Opera Dramaturg Emeritus Kip Cranna will provide a 20-minute overview of the opera 55 minutes prior to each performance in the Opera House auditorium for ticketholders. An audio recording of the talk will be available at sfopera.com/ballo.

OPENING WEEKEND (September 6–8)
San Francisco Opera’s new season opens Friday, September 6 with Opera Ball, the annual benefit co-presented by San Francisco Opera and San Francisco Opera Guild. The celebratory evening begins with a cocktail reception and sumptuous dinner at City Hall. Guests then proceed to the Opera House where the curtain rises on Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera. Dancing and late-night bites await back at City Hall after the opera.

Opera Ball is made possible, in part, by Opening Weekend Grand Sponsor Diane B. Wilsey and is co-chaired by Romana D. Bracco and Valerie Crane Dorfman. Proceeds benefit a wide range of artistic initiatives at San Francisco Opera and San Francisco Opera Guild’s education programs which reach thousands of students in K-12 classrooms and afterschool programs. For more information, visit sfopera.com/operaball. BRAVO! CLUB, the community of young professionals and opera lovers, will kick off the new season on September 6 with a special Cocktail Celebration. Visit sfopera.com/bravo for more information.

Opening weekend concludes with San Francisco Chronicle Presents Opera in the Park on Sunday, September 8 at 1:30 p.m. The free annual concert showcases Eun Sun Kim, the San Francisco Opera Orchestra and stars of the Company’s fall season at Robin Williams Meadow in Golden Gate Park.

TICKETS AND INFORMATION
Tickets for Un Ballo in Maschera range from $28 to $426 and are available at the San Francisco Box Office (301 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco), by calling (415) 864-3330 and online at sfopera.com. San Francisco Opera Box Office hours are Monday 10 a.m.–5 p.m.; Tuesday through Friday 10 a.m.–6 p.m.; Saturday 10 a.m.–6 p.m. (Saturdays phone only). A $2 per-ticket facility fee is included in Balcony 1, 2 and 3 zone prices; all other zones include a $3 per-ticket facility fee. 

Tickets for the September 15 livestream of Un Ballo in Maschera are $27.50. For more information, visit sfopera.com/digital. 

Subscriptions for the Company’s 102nd season start from $146 for the Full Series (6 productions), and $52 for the Half Series (2–4 productions) and a Design Your Own (DYO) option (minimum three operas). For information about subscriber benefits and special series subscriptions, including the Student & Teacher Series offering 50% off select Full and Half Series, visit sfopera.com/subscribe. 

Ticket packages are available for Opera Ball and the BRAVO! Cocktail Dinner Opening Night Celebration at sfopera.com/operaball. 

Rush tickets are available for select performances to those who register at sfopera.com/rush. Rush tickets are available from 11 a.m. until midnight of the day before the performance or until the allotment of rush tickets is sold out. Registration in advance is required to receive notices about Rush ticket availability. Standing Room tickets will be sold for mainstage opera performances in the War Memorial Opera House. Standing room tickets are $10 and sold on the day of performance only, beginning at 10am. Cash only and limit of two tickets per person. 

The War Memorial Opera House is located at 301 Van Ness Avenue. Patrons are encouraged to use public transportation to attend San Francisco Opera performances. The War Memorial Opera House is within walking distance of the Civic Center BART/Muni Station and near numerous bus lines, including 5, 21, 47, 49 and F Market Street. For further public transportation information, visit bart.gov and sfmta.com. 

Gifts of all sizes help create San Francisco Opera’s programs and are appreciated. To donate visit sfopera.com/donate. 

All casting, programs, schedules and ticket prices are subject to change. For further information about San Francisco Opera’s 2024–25 Season, visit sfopera.com.