Opera At The Ballpark is back this year on November 11! Guests can lay out on a picnic blanket at Oracle Park and enjoy a free live simulcast of La Traviata on the big screen. Doors open at 6pm and the screening starts at 7:30pm, but be sure to RSVP ahead of time.
Music Director Eun Sun Kim will lead the SF Opera Orchestra and Chorus in a lovely performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata. This is SF Opera’s first new production of La Traviata since 1987, given new life thanks to stage and opera director Shawna Lucey. New sets have been created for this performance, and the screening at Oracle Park will be a live simulcast of the show’s opening night happening just a few miles away at the War Memorial Opera House.
La Traviata is a three-act opera by Giuseppe Verdi dating back to 1853 when it was first performed in Venice. It tells the forbidden love story of Violetta and Alfredo in upper-class Paris society, based on French author Alexandre Dumas fils’ play La Dame aux camélias.
Pretty Yende and Jonathan Tetelman will make their SF Opera debuts as star-crossed lovers Violetta and Alfredo, respectively. Italian baritone Simone Piazzola will join them as Alfredo’s father Giorgio, alongside Taylor Raven as Violetta’s friend Flora and SF Opera veteran Philip Skinner as Baron Douphol.
The opera has a three-hour run time with two intermissions and will be sung in Italian with English subtitles. The simulcast at Oracle Park will only happen once, but additional performances at the War Memorial Opera House will continue on November 11, 13, 16, 22, 25, 27, 30, and December 3. Tickets start at $31.
Save the date for La Traviata’s free screening at Opera at the Ballpark, happening November 11 at 7:30pm.