Co-Editor, Public Relations Director
CELEBRATING 100 YEARS THROUGH AUDIO
Streaming the First Century
Introduction
San Francisco Opera enjoys a vast recorded legacy. Throughout its history, the Company’s performances have been set into shellac grooves, punched into paper rolls, recorded onto wires or magnetic tape, converted into digital signals, and streamed over the internet to listeners around the world. This Centennial Season, San Francisco Opera is opening the vault and sharing a selection of preserved treasures from its first 100 years.
Company founder Gaetano Merola’s enthusiasm for emerging technologies ensured that San Francisco Opera was on the air in the early 1920s when radio was still in its infancy. Several performances from the 1930s were recorded off the airwaves and, beginning in the 1960s, new devices allowed even non-broadcast presentations to be preserved, sometimes surreptitiously. Still later, San Francisco Opera’s industry-pioneering Taube Media Suite allowed performances from 2007 onward to be captured in HD. Nearly 50 titles from that still-growing catalog of operas were streamed on-demand during the pandemic while the stage was otherwise dark, and the Media Suite will enable each production during the 2022–23 Season to be livestreamed and preserved.
Streaming the First Century features 25 audio artifacts from previous seasons to open a series of magical portals into the Company’s first 100 years, allowing us to experience, as if through time travel, the moments that touched the hearts of generations of audiences and continue to move us.
Guided by the repertory of the Centennial Season, four interactive sessions feature two complete San Francisco Opera performances (with synopses, rare photos, and original program articles), four excerpted operas (with text and translations), an array of archival artist interviews, and new conversations among San Francisco Opera artisans and administrators spanning the decades. Scholars, performers, and Company members introduce and provide insight into each audio document, allowing all to listen through their experienced ears.
Each session of Streaming the First Century offers myriad pathways to stream your way through San Francisco Opera’s distinguished past. Expect to be surprised, thrilled, moved, and to marvel at the infinite agility and expressiveness of the human voice. Make your way down the rabbit hole and, with these legendary performances still ringing in your ears, we hope your journey with San Francisco Opera continues well into the next century.
Jeffery McMillan and Barbara Rominski, Streaming the First Century co-editors
EXPERIENCE SAN FRANCISCO OPERA LIKE YOU'VE NEVER HEARD IT BEFORE
Session 1: Slavic Sensibilities
Session 2: Parlez-vous français?
Session 3: Italian Roots
Session 4: Ho jo to ho!
Down the Rabbit Hole
Project Team
Co-Editor, Director of Archives
Barbara Rominski
Media Producer
Jodi Gage
Director of Production Operations & Media
Jeremy Patfield
Special Projects Manager
Ellen Presley
Recording Engineer / Engineer in Charge
Uwe Willenbacher
Contributors
Interview, Session 4
Christine Bullin
Writer, Sessions 1, 3, and 4
Mark Burford
Interview, Session 3
Pierre Cayard
Writer, Interview, Sessions 1, 2, 3, and 4
Kip Cranna
Interview, Session 4
Robert Darling
Interview, Session 3
John Del Bono
Interview, Session 1
Stan Dufford
Interview, Sessions 1 and 4
Ann Farris
Audio Transfer Engineer
Tardon Feathered
Interview, Session 3
David Gockley
Interview, Session 4
Sheri Greenawald
Interview, Sessions 1 and 2
Lori Harrison
Translator, Session 2
Patricia Kristof Moy
Writer, Sessions 3 and 4
Judith Malafronte
Interview, Session 3
Ward Marston
Interview, Session 2
Thomas Munn
Writer, Session 3
Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen
Writer, Sessions 2, 3, and 4
Kenneth Overton
Interview, Session 1
Jeanna Parham
Interview, Session 2
Justin Partier
Writer, Sessions 1, 2, 3, and 4
Roger Pines
Interview, Sessions 1, 2, and 4
Ian Robertson
Interview, Session 2
Pamela Rosenberg
Writer, Sessions 1, 2, 3, and 4
Larry Rothe
Writer, Sessions 1, 2, and 4
David Shengold
Interview, Session 3
Ira Siff
Writer, Sessions 2 and 4
Paul Thomason
Writer, Session 1
Maurice Wheeler
Interview, Sessions 1, 3, and 4
Francesca Zambello
Made Possible By
Streaming the First Century is one of our many Innovation Programs made possible, in part, by the Creative Edge Fund with major support from founding funders Carol and Dixon Doll, Peter Fenton and Kate Greer, and Bob Ellis. Additional support provided by Julie Dickson.
The Taube Media Suite is made possible in part, by Dianne and Tad Taube and John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn.