Opera San José is an American opera company founded in 1984 by Irene Dalis (1925-2014) based in San Jose, California .
66-430: Opera San José was founded in 1984 by mezzo-soprano singer Irene Dalis (1925-2014), who directed the company for 30 years until her retirement in 2014. In 1988, it formed a residency of principal artists that would perform in all productions, modeled after traditional European opera companies. The company purchased two apartment buildings to provide the artists with housing rent-free. Initially performances took place in
132-526: A child prodigy , with various prominent musicians such as the violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter and conductors Zubin Mehta and Sir Simon Rattle expressing amazement at what she had achieved at such a young age. Rattle told the BBC: "I don't know that I've come across anyone of that age with quite such an astonishing range of gifts." Deutscher herself, however, always professed her dislike of perception of her as
198-522: A 'Melodist by High Grace', whose cantilenas "convey bottomless grief or overflowing yearning". Deutscher herself explained that her melodies often arrive unbidden, including in her dreams. The opening of her first short opera, The Sweeper of Dreams , came to her fully formed in a dream, as well as the theme of a set of piano variations in E-flat major, which eventually became the basis of the third movement of her piano concerto. Deutscher has also described
264-505: A 'prodigy' and of her young age being the focus of the discussion. She said at the Google Zeitgeist conference when she was 10: "I want my music to be taken seriously ... and sometimes it's a little bit difficult for people to take me seriously because I'm just a little girl." Deutscher also repeatedly objected to the frequent headlines comparing her to Mozart: "I don't really want to be a little Mozart. I want to be Alma." After
330-675: A boy, and comes across Jonas there. Together they discover that Swindelle is pursuing some self-serving plans." Deutscher has played her own music as soloist with renowned orchestras across the world, including the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra , Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra , Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg , Vienna Chamber Orchestra , Royal Philharmonic Orchestra , Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra (China), Lucerne Symphony Orchestra (Switzerland), Vancouver Symphony Orchestra , Orchestra of St. Luke's (New York). She has also given recitals of her own compositions in
396-500: A different musical style, and Deutscher assigned various of her early compositions to these composers. Deutscher's early musical education focused on creative improvisation, following a method of teaching called Partimenti , which was developed in eighteenth-century Italy, and which has been revived and popularized by Professor Robert Gjerdingen . Gjerdingen sent exercises for Alma Deutscher and commented on technical aspects of her composition, while she had lessons in improvisation with
462-656: A fuller, more dramatic quality. Such roles include Despina in Mozart's Così fan tutte and Zerlina in his Don Giovanni . Mezzos sometimes play dramatic soprano roles such as Santuzza in Mascagni 's Cavalleria rusticana , Lady Macbeth in Verdi's Macbeth , and Kundry in Wagner's Parsifal . The vocal range of the mezzo-sopranos lies between the soprano and the contralto voice types . Mezzo-sopranos generally have
528-554: A heavier, darker tone than sopranos. The mezzo-soprano voice resonates in a higher range than that of a contralto. The terms Dugazon and Galli-Marié are sometimes used to refer to light mezzo-sopranos, after the names of famous singers. Usually men singing within the female range are called countertenors since there is a lighter more breathy tonal (falsetto) quality difference. In current operatic practice, female singers with very low tessituras are often included among mezzo-sopranos, because singers in both ranges are able to cover
594-577: A large-scale production of Mozart's Idomeneo: ré di Creta (2011) jointly produced with the Packard Humanities . The number of K-12 educational performances has exceeded 2,300. Community programming for adult audiences totals some 3,200 performances. Between all areas of programming, the company reached approximately 113,000 in its last complete season (2018-2019). Opera San José has received four-star ratings from Charity Navigator for its record of responsible fiscal management. Opera San José
660-402: A lead role ): The lyric mezzo-soprano has a range from approximately the G note below middle C (G 3 , 196 Hz) to the A two octaves above middle C (A 5 , 880 Hz). This voice has a very smooth, sensitive and at times lachrymose quality. Lyric mezzo-sopranos do not have the vocal agility of the coloratura mezzo-soprano or the size of the dramatic mezzo-soprano. The lyric mezzo-soprano
726-554: A performance of Deutscher's piano concerto in Vienna, that despite "moving in the Romantic worlds of Mendelssohn and Grieg , Deutscher's music is full of extraordinarily original ideas and genuine surprises." He concluded that it is a misconception that composers must reinvent musical language anew in each generation. "The world turns in a circle", he wrote, "but always sprouts new, beautiful flowers, if one only lets them sprout". On
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#1732794262259792-583: A production at the Salzburg State Theatre , adding a children's chorus. In 2022 Deutscher made her U.S. debut as conductor, in a revival of the 2017 Opera San Jose production of Cinderella . The production was released on YouTube in 2023. Deutscher's second full-length opera, "The Emperor's New Waltz" (German: Des Kaisers neue Walzer ), was a commission of the Salzburg State Theatre and premiered there in March 2023. In interviews with
858-405: A public statement about her style, her love of melody, and her musical aesthetics: "Why music should be beautiful". She explained that many people have told her that beautiful melodies are not acceptable in classical music of the twenty-first century, because music must reflect the complexity and ugliness of the modern world. "But I think that these people just got a little bit confused. If the world
924-513: A range from approximately the G below middle C (G 3 , 196 Hz) to the B two octaves above middle C (B 5 , 988 Hz). Some coloratura mezzo-sopranos can sing up to high C (C 6 , 1047 Hz) or high D (D 6 , 1175 Hz), but this is very rare. What distinguishes these voices from being called sopranos is their extension into the lower register and warmer vocal quality. Although coloratura mezzo-sopranos have impressive and at times thrilling high notes, they are most comfortable singing in
990-555: A special excited state-of-mind, which she called an "improvising mood". She told the Daily Telegraph in 2016, "When I am in an improvising mood, melodies burst from my fingertips." At a younger age she also described melodic inspiration arising from skipping with her 'magical' skipping rope: "I wave it around, and melodies pour into my head". In 2019 she told the New York Times : "When I was younger, I really thought it
1056-513: A stir and won an Emmy Award. In 2018, Deutscher moved with her family to Vienna. She explained to The New York Times in 2019: "I grew up on the music of Mozart , Schubert , Beethoven , and Haydn . Musically speaking, I think that Vienna's always been my home." In 2021, she was admitted to the conducting degree at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna , to study with conductor Johannes Wildner . At 16, she may have been
1122-467: A television program hosted by renowned pianist and pedagogue Arie Vardi , featuring performance and improvisation by Deutscher brought her to the attention of leading figures in the classical music world, including conductor Zubin Mehta . In the same year, a viral YouTube mashup video released by musician Kutiman featured an ostinato from one of Deutscher's early videos. In 2017, a CBS-60 Minutes feature with Scott Pelley about Deutscher created
1188-473: A virtual New Year's Eve celebration, The Parting Glass (December 2020); Love & Secrets: A Domestic Trilogy (April 2021); Sing For Your Supper! (May 2021); and The Parting Glass Part 2: Back to the Bar! (December 2021). The premiere season of Opera San José began on September 18, 2004, at the 1,100-seat California Theater. The California Theatre, which opened as a vaudeville and movie theatre in 1927,
1254-528: A year later. Deutscher's piano concerto was premiered when she was 12. She has lived in Vienna , Austria , since 2018. She made her debut at Carnegie Hall in 2019 in a concert dedicated to her own compositions. Alma Elizabeth Deutscher was born on 19 February 2005, in Basingstoke , England. She is the daughter of literary scholar Janie Deutscher (née Steen) and linguist Guy Deutscher . Deutscher also has
1320-522: A younger sister, Helen Clara. She began playing piano at the age of two, followed by violin at three. Her strong affinity to music was apparent from an early age. She could sing in perfect pitch before she could speak, and she could read music before she could read words. In a 2017 interview with the Financial Times , Deutscher said: "I remember when I was three and I was listening to a lullaby by Richard Strauss , I loved it! I especially loved
1386-455: Is a British composer, pianist, violinist and conductor. A former child prodigy , Deutscher composed her first piano sonata at the age of five; at seven, she completed the short opera, The Sweeper of Dreams , and later wrote a violin concerto at age nine. At the age of ten, she wrote her first full-length opera, Cinderella , which had its European premiere in Vienna in 2016 under the patronage of conductor Zubin Mehta , and its U.S. premiere
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#17327942622591452-425: Is a full-length work based on the fairy tale of Cinderella , but with significant modifications to the plot, which in her version revolves around music: Cinderella herself is a composer, the prince is a poet, and a haunting melody that Cinderella sings to the prince as she flees from the ball takes the place of the glass slipper of the traditional tale. Deutscher explained that it was important for her that Cinderella
1518-403: Is a type of classical female singing voice whose vocal range lies between the soprano and the contralto voice types . The mezzo-soprano's vocal range usually extends from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above (i.e. A 3 –A 5 in scientific pitch notation , where middle C = C 4 ; 220–880 Hz). In the lower and upper extremes, some mezzo-sopranos may extend down to
1584-469: Is funded by the city of San José as well as by donors such as Applied Materials , Packard Humanities Institute , Hewlett Foundation , David and Lucile Packard Foundation , and the Getty Foundation . Mezzo-soprano A mezzo-soprano ( Italian: [ˌmɛddzosoˈpraːno] , lit. ' half soprano ' ), or mezzo ( English: / ˈ m ɛ t s oʊ / MET -soh ),
1650-403: Is ideal for most trouser roles . Lyric mezzo-soprano roles in operas ( * denotes a lead role ): A dramatic mezzo-soprano has a strong medium register, a warm high register and a voice that is broader and more powerful than the lyric and coloratura mezzo-sopranos. This voice has less vocal facility than the coloratura mezzo-soprano. The range of the dramatic mezzo-soprano is from approximately
1716-451: Is not just a pretty girl with a dainty foot. The prince falls in love with Cinderella because of her talent. Deutscher has worked on the opera over a period of at least five years, between the ages of nine and fifteen, producing successive expansions and revisions. The first (chamber) version was premiered in Israel in 2015, when Deutscher was ten. An orchestral version premiered in Vienna
1782-408: Is so ugly, then what's the point of making it even uglier with ugly music?". She then cited the lullaby by Richard Strauss as her earliest inspiration for creating beauty. In another interview, she explained: "Melody is the essence of music – this is not just my own musical aesthetics, it's the aesthetics of almost everyone, young and old. It's not a great secret that the most loved pieces of music are
1848-400: Is stunning", and predicted that Cinderella would find its way to Broadway . Opera Today described it as "a young talent's sensational burst to prominence... a once-in-a-lifetime opera-going event that had audiences standing and cheering." The Vienna State Opera staged its own adaptation for children in 2018, and 2020. In 2019–20 Deutscher undertook a further revision of the opera for
1914-437: Is that young people go to a musical, but then think: "Actually, there was also opera in it and it didn't hurt at all, it was even beautiful..." The Salzburg State Theatre describes the plot as follows: "Mozart versus modern beats, shrill dissonance against harmonic beauty. Inspired by the fairy tale "The Emperor's New Clothes," the opera tells a story about pretence and truth and about the bonding power of music. The gardener and
1980-499: The BBC and with German KlassikRadio, Deutscher explained the main themes and inspirations for this musical comedy: "First of all, I wanted to tell a beautiful love story, between two young people, but also between two musical worlds: classical music and pop music. Then I wanted to write a musical comedy that isn't only for opera fans, but also appeals to young people who otherwise have no access to classical music. And finally I wanted to parody
2046-687: The F below middle C (F 3 , 175 Hz) and as high as "high C" (C 6 , 1047 Hz). The mezzo-soprano voice type is generally divided into the coloratura , lyric, and dramatic. While mezzo-sopranos typically sing secondary roles in operas, notable exceptions include the title role in Bizet 's Carmen , Angelina ( Cinderella ) in Rossini 's La Cenerentola , and Rosina in Rossini's Barber of Seville (all of which are also sung by sopranos and contraltos). Many 19th-century French-language operas give
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2112-583: The F below middle C (F 3 , 175 Hz) to the G two octaves above middle C (G 5 , 784 Hz). The dramatic mezzo-soprano can sing over an orchestra and chorus with ease and was often used in the 19th century opera, to portray older women, mothers, witches and evil characters. Verdi wrote many roles for this voice in the Italian repertoire and there are also a few good roles in the French Literature. The majority of these roles, however, are within
2178-507: The German Romantic repertoire of composers like Wagner and Richard Strauss . Like coloratura mezzos, dramatic mezzos are also often cast in lyric mezzo-soprano roles. Dramatic mezzo-soprano roles in operas ( * denotes a lead role ): All of Gilbert and Sullivan 's Savoy operas have at least one mezzo-soprano character. Notable operetta roles are: Alma Deutscher Alma Elizabeth Deutscher (born 19 February 2005)
2244-565: The German regional opera company, the resident company aims to prepare its artists for further career opportunities through performance experience and coaching by conductors and stage directors. To date, Opera San José has presented 150 opera productions, including five world premieres among the 64 titles in its repertoire. Notable productions include the American premiere of Alma Deutcher 's Cinderella (2017), Jake Heggie 's Moby-Dick (2019), and
2310-474: The Leading Article of The Times endorsed Deutscher's call for beautiful music: "Deutscher seeks audiences rather than disciples. She is surely right to hold that the surest way to introduce her generation to the joys of classical music is to provide something beautiful". Deutscher's first completed opera, from age seven, is a short work inspired by Neil Gaiman 's story, "The Sweeper of Dreams", with
2376-613: The Montgomery Theater in San Jose's Civic Auditorium complex until 2004 when productions moved to the newly-restored historical California Theatre. Larry Hancock served as the General Director from 2014 until his retirement in 2019, at which point he introduced arts administrator Khori Dastoor as his successor. Joseph Marcheso has been the music director and Principal Conductor since 2014. In June 2021, Dastoor
2442-849: The Sorcerer, and dancers from San José Dance Theatre. In June 2020, Opera San José unveiled its plans to create the Heiman Digital Media Studio, a new performance/film space that enables the company to stream fully produced operatic performances into the living room of patrons. The studio was funded by a donation from Opera San José trustee Peggy Heiman in honor of her late husband, Fred Heiman. On July 11, 2020, Opera San José launched its Digital Media Studio series with virtual performances of Robert Schumann's Dichterliebe ('A Poet's Love') song cycle performed by Resident Artist baritone Eugene Brancoveanu and Resident Artist conductor Christopher James Ray on piano. The virtual performance
2508-476: The Swiss musician Tobias Cramm. Deutscher thus initially became fluent in the musical grammar of eighteenth-century music, which she later described as her musical "mother tongue". Deutscher came to popular media attention in 2012, when she was seven, after writer and comedian Stephen Fry commented on her YouTube channel: "Simply mind-blowing: Alma Deutscher playing her own compositions. A new Mozart ?" In 2014,
2574-685: The age of 16, Deutscher was educated at home . She was registered for a school in England when she was five, but after attending the first orientation day, she came back in tears, and told her parents: "they haven't taught me to read and write". Her parents then decided to educate her at home. They later explained on the BBC Documentary Imagine and on CBS 60 Minutes that they were led to choose home education by their realization that their daughter's "volcanic imagination" and creativity were essential to her well-being, and they came to
2640-465: The celebrated premiere of Deutscher's opera Cinderella in Vienna in 2016, the focus in the public reception of Deutscher's music has shifted to her unabashed love of melody and to her musical language and aesthetics. The striking quality of Deutscher's melodies was noticed early on. The musicologist Ron Weidberg wrote in 2015 that "few composers can write such tunes, which from the first moment are immediately impressed upon our memory, and thus turn into
2706-520: The challenging part of composition is to develop the ideas and turn them into "a coherent structure. That's extremely difficult". From a young age, Deutscher has repeatedly stated her determination to compose beautiful music and bring back melody and harmony to modern classical music. In a press conference of the Carinthischer Sommer Music Festival in 2017, which featured Deutscher's violin and piano concertos, she made
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2772-939: The conclusion that the freedom required for this intense creativity and imagination cannot be provided in a school. Deutscher herself told the BBC when she was ten: "I never want to go to school. I have to go outside and get fresh air, and read." Two years later she explained to the Financial Times: "I think that I learn at home in one hour what it would take at school five hours to learn". In his 2017 BBC Documentary about Alma Deutscher, Alan Yentob described this intense world of imagination, in which Deutscher had created an imaginary country called "Transylvanian", with its own language and above all its own music . "I made up my own land with its own language and there are beautiful composers there, named Antonin Yellowsink and Ashy and Shell and Flara". These imaginary composers each had
2838-512: The first was being a child, the second was being female". The theme of female empowerment is recurrent in Deutscher's operas, and also dominates her full length opera, Cinderella . She told The New York Times in 2019: "I'm a very strong feminist and I'm really happy that I was born now, when girls are allowed to develop their talents." She said she is particularly attracted to stories of women overcoming adversity. Deutscher's first opera
2904-546: The following year, with conductor Zubin Mehta as patron of the production. Reports about the sold-out performances appeared in newspapers all over the world, and Viennese critics expressed their astonishment at the accomplishment of Deutscher's orchestral writing and at the beauty of her melodies. Deutscher further elaborated the work for the sold-out U.S. premiere in 2017 at Opera San Jose . The New Criterion called it an "opera of astounding wit, craft, and musical beauty... The sheer amount of orchestral and vocal invention
2970-490: The harmony; I always call it the Strauss harmony now. And after it finished I asked my parents 'How could music be so beautiful?'" She received a little violin as a present on her third birthday, and while her parents thought it would just be another toy, she was "so excited by it and tried playing on it for days on end", so her parents decided to find her a teacher. Within a year she was playing Handel sonatas. At four she
3036-969: The leading female role to mezzos, including Béatrice et Bénédict , La damnation de Faust , Don Quichotte , La favorite , Dom Sébastien , Charles VI , Mignon , Samson et Dalila , Les Troyens , and Werther , as well as Carmen . Typical roles for mezzo-sopranos include the stereotypical triad associated with contraltos of "witches, bitches, and britches": witches, nurses, and wise women, such as Azucena in Verdi 's Il trovatore ; villains and seductresses such as Amneris in Verdi's Aida ; and " breeches roles " or "trouser roles" (male characters played by female singers) such as Cherubino in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro . Mezzo-sopranos are well represented in baroque music , early music , and baroque opera . Some roles designated for lighter soubrette sopranos are sung by mezzo-sopranos, who often provide
3102-477: The middle of their range, rather than the top. Many of the hero roles in the operas of Handel and Monteverdi , originally sung by male castrati, can be successfully sung today by coloratura mezzo-sopranos. Rossini demanded similar qualities for his comic heroines, and Vivaldi wrote roles frequently for this voice as well. Coloratura mezzo-sopranos also often sing lyric-mezzo-soprano roles or soubrette roles. Coloratura mezzo-soprano roles in operas ( * denotes
3168-643: The ones with the best tunes." She has elaborated on this theme in interviews with The New York Times in 2019 and The Times in 2022, as well as in a speech at the Vienna State Opera in 2019, on the occasion of receiving the European Culture Prize, where she said: "there is more to European Culture than just dissonance. Perhaps there is also a place in European Culture for harmony." In an interview with German Radio after
3234-573: The other hand, critics who are committed to modernism have criticized Deutscher's refusal to embrace the harshness that characterizes much of classical music since the second half of the twentieth century. An editorial in The Wall Street Journal by Barton Swaim observed that Deutscher's music is perceived as provocative by such critics, who "dislike her music for the same reason audiences love it. They object to its traditional tonality, its straightforward emotional appeal". In May 2022,
3300-468: The other, and true operatic contraltos are very rare. Within the mezzo-soprano voice type category are three generally recognized subcategories: coloratura mezzo-soprano, lyric mezzo-soprano, and dramatic mezzo-soprano. A coloratura mezzo-soprano has a warm lower register and an agile high register. The roles they sing often demand not only the use of the lower register but also leaps into the upper tessitura with highly ornamented, rapid passages. They have
3366-443: The possession of all those who listen to them. Alma is one of these composers." Deutscher's melodies were a major theme in the reception of her opera Cinderella since 2016. The opera was described by one Viennese critic as containing "fireworks of earworms". The Spanish newspaper ABC wrote that "Cinderella is a flood of wonderful and radiant melodies, almost in excess." The German Opera Magazine Orpheus wrote that Cinderella
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#17327942622593432-412: The premiere of her third opera in 2023, Deutscher explained: "So that an art form stays alive and doesn't become a museum of holy relics, you always need something new and fresh. But you need new music which speaks to people, which moves them, which brings them solace, which entertains them". Much of the response to Deutscher in the first years of her public exposure centred on her young age and status as
3498-672: The renowned Lucerne Festival (Switzerland) and Aix-en-Provence Festival (France). At the invitation of the Austrian Chancellor, she has performed at the Chancellery in Vienna on several state occasions, including in 2018 at a service commemorating the end of the Second World War in Europe. Notable live performances include: Notable television appearances: Deutscher has appeared on television shows across
3564-897: The return of the Irene Dalis Vocal Competition. Following cancellations in 2020-21 due to the COVID-19 pandemic , the company's 2021–22 season began in September 2022 with a digital production of Rimsky-Korsakov 's Mozart and Salieri , starring baritones Sidney Outlaw (Salieri) and Simon Barrad (Mozart). A month later, the company returned to the California Theatre with a new production of Purcell 's baroque opera, Dido and Aeneas . Casting for this celebrated work included mezzo-soprano Nikola Printz as Dido, baritone Efraín Solís as Aeneas, soprano Maya Kherani as Belinda, bass-baritone Nathan Stark as
3630-426: The rich heiress: Jonas and Leonie could hardly be more different. No wonder that the two can't stand each other. What unites them, however, is the dream of studying at the music academy. But Leonie's father, fashion mogul Rudolf Kaiser, thinks that her planned marriage to the renowned contemporary composer Anthony Swindelle will bring enough high culture into the family. Leonie decides to visit the university disguised as
3696-795: The sky was "blue". The development of her colour perceptions, and especially her insistence in an early age that the clear sky was "white", were reported in Guy Deutscher's 2010 book, Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages . Deutscher is trilingual in English, German and Hebrew. Deutscher's music has been noted above all for the wealth and beauty of its melodies. The Austrian Newspaper Wiener Zeitung termed Deutscher
3762-470: The text adapted from a libretto by Elizabeth Adlington. Parts of the score came to Deutscher in a dream. The first performance of the opera was in Israel in 2013. In the story, a job is advertised for a Sweeper of Dreams, who is to help people forget their nightmares. The three middle-aged men on the committee are shocked to discover that the only candidate, Alex, is a sixteen-year-old girl. Her interviewers mock her, because she "committed two terrible crimes:
3828-477: The tuneless world of atonal contemporary classical music – music that only "clever people understand" – and to the rest of us just sounds like noise". Deutscher said that she wanted to move away from the rigidity of the opera genre in this musical comedy: "My hero Jonas is a pop singer, he sings songs on the guitar, he raps over Mozart. But at the end he also sings in a ten-part fugue. I wanted to show that opera and musicals are much closer than one thinks. My dream
3894-416: The world, including The Ellen DeGeneres Show , and NBC Today . The first album of Deutscher's music, "The Music of Alma Deutscher" was released in 2013 when she was 8. In 2019, Sony Classical Records released "From My Book of Melodies", a piano album of Deutscher's compositions from ages of four to fourteen. Two productions of her opera Cinderella has been released on DVD, by Sony Classical and by
3960-442: The youngest student ever to be admitted to this conducting course, whose alumni include Zubin Mehta , Claudio Abbado and Kirill Petrenko . In the first years of her life, Deutscher was the subject of her father's linguistic experiments related to his professional research. In an effort to understand why ancient cultures did not use the term "blue" to describe the colour of the sky, he made sure never to inform his daughter that
4026-493: Was heralding the "Renaissance of German Singspiel". The Austrian Newspaper Der Standard expressed the hope that Deutscher's melodious music might help opera reconnect with the wider public and inject a new life into the world of opera, which has so often been pronounced dead. Deutscher's musical idiom draws on the harmonic framework of 18th and 19th century classical music. Renowned Austrian critic Wilhelm Sinkovicz [ de ] expressed his astonishment, when reviewing
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#17327942622594092-419: Was improvising on the piano, and by five, had begun writing down her own compositions. These first written notations were unclear, but by age six, she could write clear compositions and had composed her first piano sonata, a recording of which was released in 2013. At seven, she composed her first short opera, The Sweeper of Dreams, at nine, a violin concerto, and her first full-length opera at age ten. Until
4158-465: Was offered in English with Spanish and Vietnamese translations. A few months later, in December 2020, Opera San José presented a new fully staged production of Jake Heggie 's chamber opera, Three Decembers , featuring mezzo-soprano Susan Graham in the central role, alongside Resident Artists soprano Maya Kherani and baritone Efraín Solís. Virtual offerings that followed Three Decembers included
4224-443: Was renovated nearly 30 years after it closed its doors in 1973. It is currently one of the most significant performing venues in the area. Opera San José's resident company is made up of early career artists that are identified and awarded annual contracts. During their tenure, members of the resident company perform leading roles in mainstage productions and participate in school and community-wide educational activities. Modeled after
4290-626: Was selected to become the next General Director and CEO of Houston Grand Opera , beginning in January 2022. Opera San José announced the appointment of nationally acclaimed opera and theatre director Shawna Lucey as its new General Director and CEO in December 2021. Lucey's appointment as the fourth General Director in Opera San José's history would begin in January 2022, midway through the company's 38th season, overseeing productions of Bizet's Carmen and Bernstein's West Side Story as well as
4356-496: Was the rope that gave me inspiration. Now, I know it's not really the rope, it's the state of mind that I get into when I wave it around". However, Deutscher has explained in numerous interviews the difference between the spontaneous moments of inspiration, in which she hears melodies in her head, and the laborious process of composing complete polished pieces based on these melodies. To the Financial Times , she said that
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