2019–20 Season

Romeo & Juliet

MUSIC BY CHARLES GOUNOD

The blossom of first love
Sacrificed on the altar of pride and hate.

Despite the senseless, bloody conflict between their warring families, two young lovers commit to each other in life and death.

Experience the rush of first love in one of the most epic tragic romances.

Production New to San Francisco Opera

Meet the Cast

Sung in French with English supertitles

Curious about the Opera?

Pre-Opera Talks

Perfect for newcomers, opera aficionados or anyone in between, our pre-opera talks provide an engaging 25-minute overview of the opera. Free to ticketholders, 55 minutes prior to curtain (except for Opening Night) in the Orchestra section. Speaker: Alexandra D. Amati

Opera Previews

Explore Romeo and Juliet in a 90-minute presentation by Timothy Flynn. Events held thorughout the Bay Area August 26-28 and cost varies by location. Learn more.

Open Curtain

Have you always wanted to see the inner workings of our stage? At select performances, our curtain is open during intermission and we narrate the live changeover. Dates: Tuesday, September 24 and Sunday, September 29.

REVIEWS

[Pene Pati’s] got a vigorous, full-bodied sound with a lustrous mid-range and glorious, perfectly placed top notes

— San Francisco Chronicle

Perhaps best of all, Pati… has that magical, indescribable charisma that radiates beyond the footlights

— San Francisco Chronicle

Soprano Nadine Sierra… tackled the glittering passagework and high-flying roulades with precision

— San Francisco Chronicle

Conductor Yves Abel and the Opera Orchestra rose superbly to their assignments

— San Francisco Chronicle

Baritone Lucas Meachem was a standout as Romeo’s fellow Montague Mercutio, sporting dramatic heft and robust resonance

— The San Francisco Examiner

PROGRAM ARTICLES

From Page to Opera Stage

All the world loves a lover, but some ages love lovers more than others do. For example, when Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet was ﬁrst performed in the mid-1590s, it would not have been difficult to ﬁnd members of the audience who took a distinctly jaundiced view of Romeo and Juliet’s deﬁance of family interests and honor in order to satisfy their own romantic desires. Read more.

Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette

By 1867 Napoleon III’s Second Empire seemed to be approaching the glorious new future he had promised. Paris had been rebuilt by the indefatigable Baron Haussmann with grand new boulevards lined with trees and handsome buildings, the low-rise Paris that we know today. Read more.

Potion or Poison

“Romeo, Romeo, Romeo! Here’s drink—I drink to thee!” [SHE DRINKS, AND FALLS UPON HER BED WITHIN THE CURTAINS.] So ends the dramatic soliloquy Shakespeare gives his heroine as she steels herself for downing Friar Lawrence’s potion to give her the “borrowed likeness of shrunk death.” Read more.

Synopsis

Despite a senseless conflict between their warring families, two young lovers commit to each other in life and death.

READ COMPLETE SYNOPSIS >

CAST AND CREATIVE

CAST

Romeo	Pene Pati
Juliet	Nadine Sierra
Juliet	Amina Edris ¹
Mercutio	Lucas Meachem
Friar Lawrence	James Creswell
Count Capulet	Timothy Mix
Tybalt	Daniel Montenegro
Duke of Verona	Philip Skinner
Stephano	Stephanie Lauricella ^*
Gertrude	Eve Gigliotti ^*
Gregorio	SeokJong Baek
Benvolio	Christopher Oglesby
Paris	Hadleigh Adams

PERFORMANCES

Sep 6, 13, 18, 21, 24, 29; Oct 1

CREATIVE

Conductor	Yves Abel
Director	Jean-Louis Grinda ^*
Associate Director	Vanessa d’Ayral de Serignac ^*
Set Designer	Eric Chevalier ^*
Costume Designer	Carola Volles ^*
Lighting Designer	Roberto Venturi ^*
Fight Director	Dave Maier
Choreographer	Lawrence Pech
Chorus Director	Ian Robertson

* San Francisco Opera debut

¹ Oct 1

Teatro Carlo Felice and Opéra de Monte-Carlo co-production.

Previous performances of Romeo and Juliet can be found in our Archive.

MADE POSSIBLE BY

Opening Weekend Grand Sponsor, Diane B. Wilsey.

Additional support is provided by John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn; the Edmund W. and Jeannik Méquet Littlefield Fund; Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem; and Joan and David Traitel.