SAN DIEGO OPERA ANNOUNCES LINEUP

The 1987-88 season of San Diego Opera looks like a celebration of Italian opera’s favorite son, Giuseppe Verdi.

At a press conference Wednesday, Ian Campbell, general director of the company, announced that the four-opera season will begin Oct. 10 with Verdi’s “Rigoletto” and will close with “Il Trovatore,” opening Feb. 27, 1988. As a postscript to the season, again to be presented in Civic Theatre, the company will perform Verdi’s Requiem, March 9, 1988.

“We’re offering the two Verdi operas this season because of the singers who were available to us,” Campbell said. To assess the balance and variety of a company’s repertory, he said, “you really must look at the repertory over a five-year period, not just a single season.”

In between the Verdi operas, Campbell has sandwiched Donizetti’s “L’Elisir d’Amore,” a San Diego Opera premiere, which will open Oct. 31, and Gounod’s “Faust,” opening Feb. 13, 1988.

English baritone John Rawnsley will sing the title role in “Rigoletto,” and Korean soprano Hei-Kyung Hong will sing Gilda. The American director Richard Tannenbaum will stage the work, and Edoardo Mueller will conduct.

In the Donizetti opera, Australian soprano Glenys Folwes will sing opposite Hungarian tenor Denes Gulyas, making his San Diego debut. Willie Anthony Waters, artistic director of Miami Opera, will conduct, and Lou Galterio will be stage director.

Gounod’s “Faust,” last produced here in 1981, will feature Richard Leech in the title role. Diana Soviero will appear as Marguerite, with Italian basso Ferruccio Furlanetto as Mephistopheles. American Francesca Zembello will stage “Faust,” which will be conducted by Karen Keltner.

In “Il Trovatore,” Italian tenor Giuseppe Giacomini, last heard here as Otello in Feb., 1986, will return to sing Manrico. Joining him will be soprano Susan Dunn as Leonora, Covent Garden baritone Jonathan Summers as Count di Luna, and mezzo-soprano Dolora Zajic as Azucena.

British director Richard Gregson will stage “Trovatore.” American conductor Thomas Fulton, who will also conduct the company’s Verdi Requiem, will be on the podium.

Soloists for the Requiem will be Carol Neblett, Dolora Zajic, Dennis O’Neill and Jeffrey Wells.