San Francisco Opera Celebrates Its 99th Season

Inaugural Season of New Music Director Eun Sun Kim

A long-anticipated return to live opera performances for the first time in more than 20 months—is finally here. And with it, comes the inaugural season of newly appointed Music Director Eun Sun Kim.  

Seoul-born conductor Eun Sun Kim trained in Europe with conductors Kirill Petrenko and Daniel Barenboim before emerging as a leading opera and symphonic music conductor. Her rapid rise on the American opera scene began with remarkable debuts with Houston Grand Opera in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, as a late replacement at the Cincinnati May Festival and with San Francisco Opera for the benchmark presentation of Dvořák’s opera. She leads the Company’s new production of Beethoven’s Fidelio next month (October 14–30) and an all-Verdi tribute concert next summer, while also making her Metropolitan Opera and Lyric Opera of Chicago debuts during the 2021–22 Season.

The War Memorial Opera House opened the Fall 2021 season with the ever-popular Tosca, staged on Aug. 21 – Sept. 5, 2021) and also performed for a larger outdoor audience at Opera at the Ballpark on Sept. 10, 2021 in a one-night-only event at Oracle Park. The free, live simulcast of Live and In Concert: The Homecoming starring Rachel Willis-Sørensen, soprano, and Jamie Barton, mezzo-soprano, reunites them with Eun Sun Kim for the first time since their unforgettable Summer 2019 performances of Antonín Dvořák’s Rusalka.

Relayed live from the War Memorial Opera House, this concert will be projected onto the biggest screen in the Bay Area: a 71-foot high, 153-foot display.

This is followed by new San Francisco Opera productions of Beethoven’s Fidelio, (Oct. 14-30, 2021) conducted by Eun Sun Kim, and Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte, conducted by Henrik Nánási. 

Così fan tutte is the second chapter of San Francisco Opera’s Mozart-Da Ponte Trilogy, set in an American House across a 300-year timespan (the new Don Giovanni production will premier in Summer 2022.)

Audiences appreciate improvements made during the period that the War Memorial Opera House was closed. These include upgraded seats, accessibility enhancements and improved sight lines in orchestra, grand tier and dress circle sections. 

In another new offering, fans may experience San Francisco Opera from anywhere in the world through a livestream of select performances of Fidelio and Così fan tutte.

Two special concert programs on Dec. 11 and 12, 2021 will celebrate the distinguished 35-season career of San Francisco Opera Chorus Director Ian Robertson. Program highlights with Maestro Robertson conducting will include beloved opera choruses by Mozart, Puccini and Verdi, in addition to more contemporary works by Florence Beatrice Price, Joan Szymko and Kate Rusby.

Looking ahead to the 2022 Summer Season, San Francisco Opera is pleased to present the return of Bright Sheng’s Dream of the Red Chamber, the new production of Don Giovanni and an all-Verdi concert led by Eun Sun Kim.