San Diego Opera Releases Season Schedule, Hopes to Bounce Back from COVID

Following a difficult season with performances canceled due to rising costs and reduced revenue, the San Diego Opera Thursday announced its 2023-2024 season.

The season will begin Oct. 25 with a special concert featuring soprano Latonia Moore and mezzo-soprano J’nai Bridges with the San Diego Symphony at The Balboa Theatre.

In December, the company returns with the mariachi opera “El Milagro del Recuerdo (The Miracle of Remembering),” a prequel to 2013’s “Cruzar la Cara de la Luna (To Cross the Face of the Moon).” This new mariachi opera “lovingly explores family traditions in the face of life-changing decisions,” according to a statement from the opera. Sung in Spanish, the opera marks the return of vocalist Vanessa Alonso, who made her company debut as Lupita in 2013’s “Cruzar.” “Milagro” will run Dec. 1 and 3 at San Diego Civic Theater.

The season continues Feb. 2 and 4 with Mozart’s masterpiece “Don Giovanni” starring Germán Enrique Alcántara in his house debut as the titular villain at San Diego Civic Theater.

“The singers will be costumed under stage lights, for a complete visual and auditory experience as the action onstage, supported by projections, paints a haunting portrait of temptation and its consequences,” the statement reads. “Pompous, lustful, and accustomed to getting away with anything and everything, Don Giovanni is the ultimate villain. As Giovanni stalks his latest conquest his past sins catch up to him from beyond the grave and he must face judgment for years of cruelty and lechery.”

Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” follows on April 26 and 28 at San Diego Civic Theater, with the performances marking the centennial of the composer’s death.

The season will conclude on June 8 at 7:30 p.m. at the Balboa Theater with a one-night-only piano concert with tenor Joshua Guerrero and soprano Andrea Carroll.

“I am thrilled to announce our exciting new season, filled with world- class artists, beloved operatic classics and new discoveries,” said San Diego Opera General Director, David Bennett. “We are carefully navigating the challenges all organizations face in the post-pandemic world, and this season will provide abundant opportunities for audiences to experience the potency of the human voice while we remain fiscally responsible for our community.”

SD Opera’s season was cut short last season, with ticket revenue covering around 20% of expenses, down from 35% pre-COVID. As a result, the company canceled performances of “The Falling and the Rising,” a co- commissioned work originally scheduled to premiere in 2020 but postponed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 2022-23 season concluded with the world premiere of “Ghosts,” a set of three one-act horror-inspired operas by the late composer Nicolas Reveles, who died of pancreatic cancer in early March.

— City News Service