Three Decembers

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Introduction



Listen to composer Jake Heggie and mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade talk about Three Decembers



Frederica von Stade on KQED's Forum with Michael Krasny (Courtesy of KQED)



Cal Performances Website

Two of the Bay Area's best-loved musical artists, composer Jake Heggie (Dead Man Walking) and mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade, reunite for this poignant new chamber opera, based on a play by Terrence McNally (Master Class). Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer use operatic ensembles and Broadway-style solo numbers to explore the loving but often-strained relationship between a famous actress and her two grown children, one of whom is a gay man whose partner is dying of AIDS. The ten-piece instrumental ensemble features two pianists intimately familiar with Heggie's gift for lyricism: conductor Patrick Summers and the composer himself.

Three Decembers (Last Acts) made its world premiere in Houston last March to the delight of audiences and critics:

"Jake Heggie...has a true gift for soaring and meaningful melody, a great ear for orchestral effects, a talent for picking good source material, and a knack for crafting affecting melodrama (in the best sense of that word) that can move an audience to tears...the luminous mezzo [Frederica] Von Stade [is] a classy, beautiful, consummate artist...She charms, she rants, she belts, she caresses, she provokes, she soothes, and she pours out phrase after phrase of plangent sound."
-Opera Today

This special production is a co-production with Houston Grand Opera and Cal Performances presented at Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley.

  • Approximate running time: 2 hours including one intermission
  • Sung in English with English supertitles

  • Commissioned by Houston Grand Opera, San Francisco Opera and Cal Performances
  • Three Decembers is supported by a grant from The James Irvine Foundation.
  • Production photo: Brett Coomer, courtesy of Houston Grand Opera
  • Cast, program and schedule are subject to change

Buy Tickets

  • Presented at Zellerbach Hall – UC Berkeley
  • For tickets, please click here or call the Cal Performances Ticket Office at (510) 642-9988.

Cast

Production

*San Francisco Opera debut
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