San Diego Opera sets 2009 season

San Diego Opera will stage Massenet's autumnal masterpiece "Don Quixote" as part of its 2009 season, announced today. Veteran Italian bass Ferruccio Furlanetto, who sang Mussorgsky's "Boris Godunov" for the company in 2007, will appear as Cervantes' visionary and slightly cracked wandering knight Feb. 14 to 22.

His inspiring Dulcinea will be Siberian mezzo-soprano Marina Domashenko. German bass Reinhard Dorn will be his faithful sidekick, Sancho Panza. Karen Keltner will conduct. The stage director will be company general director Ian Campbell.

Furlanetto is also slated to return to the company to sing another inspired character, the high priest Zaccaria in Verdi's "Nabucco," during the 2010 season.

Another outsider opera, Benjamin Britten's "Peter Grimes, is on tap for April 18 to 26. Taking the title role will be American tenor Anthony Dean Griffey, who was seen in the part during the Metropolitan Opera's live broadcast of the work to movie theaters across the country in February.

American soprano Jennifer Casey Cabot will sing Ellen Orford, the schoolteacher who tries to save Grimes from himself and from the fury of the townspeople living in an isolated British fishing village.

Steuart Bedford will conduct. John Copley will be the stage director.

The five-opera season, which runs May 20, opens with Puccini's "Tosca," Jan. 24 to Feb. 4. French soprano Sylvie Valayre will make her company debut as the tempetuous titular diva. American tenor Marcus Haddock, also in his first company appearance, will sing her lover, Cavaradossi. American baritone Greer Grimsley will be the villainous Scarpia.

Edoardo Müller will conduct. Andrew Sinclair will be the stage director.

Verdi's "Rigoletto" will be presented March 28 to April 8. Georgian baritone Lado Ataneli will take on the challenging title role. Italian tenor Roberto Aronica will sing the fickle Duke. Slovakian soprano L'ubica Vargicová will sing the innocent Gilda. All three singers will be making their company debuts. Müller will conduct. Lotfi Mansouri will direct.

The season will close with Puccini's "Madame Butterfly," May 9 to 20, 2009. American soprano Patricia Racette will be the trusting, betrayed Butterfly. Uruguayan tenor Carlo Ventre will be the caddish Pinkerton. American baritone Malcolm MacKenzie will be the ineffectual consul Sharpless.

Müller will conduct. Garnett Bruce will be the stage director.

chris.pasles@latimes.com