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Music Director @sfopera

Maestro for a minute!!
Flawed baton technique aside, conducting the world-class @sfoperaorchestra was an absolute thrill of a lifetime. I am incredibly grateful for this opportunity and for the guidance of @eskconductor throughout the process (and to the orchestra for putting up with my “amateur at best” ictus!)
Big shoutout to @maestricone & @carrieannmatheson for their generous tutelage 🥹

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$There is something startlingly coherent about Claus Guth’s psychological framing of Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra, a production whose visual language psychologically deepens this notoriously labyrinthine drama. Guth begins at the opera’s end, with the dying Doge reflecting on a life shaped by political ambition, private grief, lost love, and belated reconciliation. What follows unfolds as an extended act of memory: figures drift through Christian Schmidt’s cavernous frame like apparitions, actions are repeated or observed at the canvas that intermittently peers into the past, and Simon’s own history appears refracted into his present. The great descending meteor becomes an increasingly ominous presence as the evening progresses—the weight of office, regret, mortality, and time itself bearing upon a complex figure who has spent decades trying to reconcile his familial and civic responsibilities. Particularly moving is Guth’s collapse of Simon the statesman into Simon the grieving father; amid the political machinery of Genoa, the reunion with Amelia becomes the opera’s emotional locus, illuminating the rich emotionality incipient to Verdi’s work and characters. Amartuvshin Enkhbat’s @amartuvshinenkhbat extraordinary Verdi baritone anchors the evening, his dark, Italianate plushness and effortless amplitude matched by an unusual inwardness with his interpretation. His council chamber scene is a remarkable demonstration of authority and prowess. Eleonora Buratto @eleonora_buratto brings a gleaming, flickering Italianate soprano to Amelia (what Freni like undertones) and their recognition scene is among the evening’s most affecting passages. Christian Van Horn @vanhorncvh gives Fiesco patrician severity and weight, while Joshua Guerrero’s @iamjoshuaguerrero bright, ardent Gabriele provides contrast and brightness amid the darker vocal patina. Eun Sun Kim @eskconductor leads the score with flexibility and attention to color, allowing Verdi’s great paragraphs to expand and scintillate while observing the score’s flowing dramatic architecture. @sfopera$

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