Opera has a reasonable claim to being the very queerest of the performing arts. Consider the emotional intensity of the repertory, the extremes of productions, and the flamboyant vocal displays demanded, not to mention the long and passionate association between opera and gay men.
San Francisco is one of the world’s gay capitals, and San Francisco Opera has participated in the city’s annual Pride Parade for many years. Back in the 1990s, the company co-commissioned composer Stewart Wallace and librettist Michael Korie’s Harvey Milk, celebrating the life of a towering gay figure.
On Friday, June 27, SF Opera added to this history, presenting its first-ever Pride Concert, a celebration of the LGBTQ community, emceed by drag queen (and opera singer) Sapphira Cristál and starring mezzo-sopranos Jamie Barton and Nikola Printz and baritone Brian Mulligan. Projections by video artist Tal Rosner accompanied the evening, and Artistic Managing Director Gregory Henkel curated the program, which consisted of works composed by or associated with LGBTQ musicians.
It was a joyous occasion in the War Memorial Opera House, drawing an enthusiastic audience dressed to the nines and applauding wildly for all onstage. Music Director Eun Sun Kim kicked off the festivities leading a peppy performance of the Overture to Leonard Bernstein’s operetta Candide. Following uplifting remarks from General Director Matthew Shilvock, she yielded the podium to Robert Mollicone, a member of the company’s music staff.
The concert lasted about 90 minutes and, after several numbers from the classical repertory, leaned heavily into pop and Broadway. Cristál provided tart and timely running commentary on politics, the performers, the crowd, and herself. She put on a one-person fashion show to boot, with many outfit changes during the performance.
San Francisco is lucky to number composer Jake Heggie among its residents — he was seated in a center box with his husband Curt Branom and was recognized from the stage — and no Pride Concert here would be complete without a number by him. Printz sang “Vesuvio, il mio unico amico” (Vesuvius, my only friend) from Great Scott, an opera about, among other things, staging a lost 19th-century opera. It’s a lovely aria in the style of Vincenzo Bellini and was accompanied by projections of flames.
The program then moved to more familiar fare (Great Scott hasn’t been staged locally yet), with Mulligan giving an intense account of Prince Yeletsky’s aria from Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades and Barton an alluring “Mon coeur s’ouvre à ta voix” (My heart opens to your voice) from Camille Saint-Saëns’ Samson and Delilah — two odes by gay composers. (Never mind their unfortunate attempts at relationships with women.)
The Bacchanale from Samson followed: noisy fun, though full of cartoonish orientalism. It could have been even wilder, but here Rosner’s flying grapes, goblets, and exploding half-naked statues vastly elevated the uproariousness. The video artist’s greatest coup was surely during a number late in the program, when chunks of the auditorium walls appeared to peel off, revealing a Pride flag.
Here’s a question I’ve never seen posed or answered: Is the English horn particularly queer? Several of the numbers on the program included prominent solos for the instrument, all gorgeously played by Benjamin Brogadir.
Barton continued with Reynaldo Hahn’s song “À Chloris,” a neat segue to the popular/Broadway side of the program. Mulligan sang a lovely gender-switched rendition of “The Man That Got Away” by Harold Arlen and Ira Gershwin, a song made famous by Judy Garland in the 1954 A Star Is Born. The baritone also shone in Freddie Mercury and Queen’s “You Take My Breath Away,” showing off a beautiful falsetto.
It wasn’t all wistful ballads, though you could certainly put together an hours-long program of those. Barton and Mulligan demonstrated their considerable comedic skills in a personalized version of “Bosom Buddies” from Jerry Herman’s musical Mame. The SF Opera Orchestra stylishly handled “Techno” from Jimmy López’s crossover symphonic composition Fiesta!, but Billy Strayhorn’s “Take the ‘A’ Train” needed much more swing than it got. Printz and Barton dueted on “Closer to Fine” by the Indigo Girls.
Printz closed the concert with a rousing rendition of the 1970s disco song “I Was Born This Way,” backed by a blue-clad trio of Adler Fellows: Georgiana Adams, Caroline Corrales, and Thomas Kinch. True to the occasion — which will apparently be an annual event — the three appeared to have LED sparkles in their hair, and Kinch wore big sparkly earrings.
And then everyone fanned out into the opera house for a dance party.
