Carreras Recital to Kick Off San Diego Opera’s Season

The U.S. premiere of Mexican composer Daniel Catan’s “La Hija de Rappaccini” (“Rappaccini’s Daughter”) and a solo recital by Spanish tenor Jose Carreras headline the San Diego Opera’s 1993-94 season announced Monday by Ian Campbell, the company’s general director.

Hoping to continue the box-office bonanza of the company’s Luciano Pavarotti concert last October, Carreras’ recital will open the 1993-94 season on July 5 in the Civic Theatre. Although neither the accompanist nor Carreras’ program has been decided yet, Campbell predicted that the noted tenor would select songs and arias from his favored Spanish and Italian repertories.

Catan’s recent opera, which had its premier in April, 1991, at Mexico City’s Bellas Artes Opera, is the newest work Campbell has offered in the 10 years he has led the company.

“It also is the first opera by a Mexican (composer) ever done in the U.S.,” Campbell claimed, although Carlos Chavez’s “Panfilo and Lauretta” had its premiere in New York in 1957. Mezzo-soprano Encarnacion Vazquez and conductor Eduardo Diazmunoz, both from the Mexico City premiere, will be joined by tenor Fernando de la Mora and U.S. director Jonathon Pape (March 5-16). A new production, designed by John Conklin, will be built in the company’s scenic shop.

Catan, a 43-year-old composer from Mexico City, described his two-act opera as an “optimistic tragedy, where death is not sad but part of the interminable cycle of life.” Although the opera is based on a play by Octavio Paz, the plot, with its Faustian overtones, is derived from a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Other operas in San Diego’s upcoming season are Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin” (Jan. 22-Feb. 2), Verdi’s “Rigoletto” (Feb. 12-23), Bellini’s “La Sonnambula” (April 9-20), and Offenbach’s “Les Contes d’Hoffmann” (April 30-May 11).

In “Eugene Onegin,” Australian baritone Jeffrey Black sings the title role opposite American soprano Renee Fleming as Tatiana. Campbell added that Fleming will return to open the company’s 1994-95 season in the title role of Dvorak’s “Rusalka.” The ubiquitous John Copley, who directed the company’s 1985 “Onegin,” returns for this production; Kenneth Montgomery conducts.

Chinese baritone Haijing Fu sings the title role in “Rigoletto,” joined by De la Mora as the Duke of Mantua and American soprano Sheryl Woods as Gilda. Elio Boncompagni conducts, and Austrian Wolfgang Weber directs.

Australian soprano Deborah Riedel makes her U.S. debut in the title role of “La Sonnambula,” San Diego’s first production of Bellini’s infrequently staged bel canto work. Mexican tenor Ramon Vargas, who made his unexpected U.S. debut in December in the Metropolitan Opera’s “Lucia di Lammermoor,” sings Elvino. In his tenth appearance on the San Diego Opera podium, Richard Bonynge conducts, and Leon Major directs the production.

Offenbach’s opera features tenor Jerry Hadley as Hoffmann; soprano Nova Thomas sings all four heroines, and baritone Louis Otey sings the villains. Bonynge conducts and Weber returns to direct Bonynge’s version of the opera, which reverts to the customary Ernest Guiraud sequence of acts and includes the most familiar interpolations.