Soprano Sarah Cambidge is excited. Like, super excited. It has been weeks since she was announced as the villainous Aunt Lydia in the West Coast opera premiere of The Handmaid’s Tale, and yet, judging from the sheer enthusiasm radiating through the telephone line, you might have thought she’d just won the part yesterday.

We are coming up on the end of our first week of “remote” San Francisco Opera. For the first time I think in our history we have been spread to all corners of the Bay Area and are without a fixed place to gather. Even after the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989, we were performing Otello, Aida,and Idomeneo at the Masonic Auditorium within three days of the earthquake. Opera is an inherently collaborative, inclusive art-form: it urges us to come together, to bind every artform into one singular whole. It is an extraordinary celebration of the power of human creativity, and it cannot be silent for too long. We certainly don’t plan to be!

In about eight weeks, we will welcome an exciting group of singers, conductors, and creative teams to San Francisco to begin rehearsals for our summer season. Our summer season is a fast-paced, tightly organized time in our calendar when three operas are rehearsed, opened and performed right on top of each other.