On May 7, 1964, Seattle Opera staged its first production: Tosca. Almost exactly 60 years later, the company threw itself a 60th birthday party on May 11, 2024, at McCaw Hall. In those 60 years, Seattle Opera has become a worldwide destination for lovers of Wagner’s four-opera Der Ring des Nibelungen, staged many world premieres, and survived and even thrived innovatively when COVID made it impossible to produce traditional performances. During General Director Christina Scheppelmann’s five-year tenure, the company has also worked actively toward greater inclusivity in audiences, casting, and staffing, both in “color-blind” casting and in presenting operas that address the lives and concerns of Black people and other people of color.
The celebratory concert was a non-stop showcase of the best of the company: artists: soloists, chorus, orchestra, and backstage crews. The program displayed the gamut of opera genres from farce to fulfilled romance to seduction to grief and tragedy.
This event was staged on the set of the currently running Barber of Seville, with risers and chairs added for the Seattle Opera Chorus. This ensemble includes top-notch local singers/actors who portray crowds, armies, servants, party guests, and so on. The chorus is a team of vocal athletes; their voices must not only blend, but must be heard above an orchestra full of brass instruments. In the currently running Barber, they are also required to dance. Michaella Calzaretta has served as chorusmaster and coach since 2022.
The chorus welcomed the audience with “Entry of the Guests” (“With joy we greet the noble hall”) from Richard Wagner’s Tannhäuser. The noble McCaw Hall responded enthusiastically.
The first half of the concert ran the gamut from comedy to fulfilled romance to communal joy to tragedy, and included solos and duets by luminaries including John Moore, Adam Lau, Ginger Costa-Jackson, Sarah Coburn, Duke Kim (currently starring as Almaviva in Barber), Mary Elizabeth Williams, and Greer Grimsley. “Bravos” filled the house after each aria. Particularly riveting was Mary Elizabeth Williams’s “My Man’s Gone Now” from Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. In voice and body, Williams conveyed the gut wrenching pain of her grief over a murdered husband. Another emotional moment was Greer Grimsley’s “Wotan’s Farewell,” from Wagner’s Die Walküre—in which the god must turn his favorite child into a mortal and put her to sleep. Alone in his spotlight, Grimsley mimed reaching for a last embrace, kissing his daughter goodbye, and laying her to rest—while his powerful bass voice transformed his very human sorrow into godlike proportions
The Seattle Symphony Orchestra, led by Kazem Abdullah (who recently conducted X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X here) took its star turn with the “Polonaise” from Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. A series of arias, duets, and choruses then expressed doubt, betrayal, unfounded suspicions, love versus friendship, yearning for a homeland, and outright madness. High points included Amitai Pati’s sweet high tenor in “Una furtiva lagrima” from Donizetti’s The Elixir of Love. Sarah Coburn’s “Ardon gl’incensi” from Lucia Di Lammermoor (also by Donizetti) was a show-stopper. Coburn navigated an astonishing cascade of ornaments and scales as she portrayed a woman gone mad from abuse and deception. Kudos also to Demarre McGill, whose solo flute followed the labyrinthine line of the aria.
Near the end of the concert, Debra Horne (KIRO 7 news reporter and member of the Seattle Opera Board) announced that Seattle City Council had designated May as Seattle Opera Month, and the King County Council had declared May 11 as Seattle Opera Day. Horne then introduced a special guest: US Representative Pramila Jayapal, who read out a proclamation she had entered into the Congressional Record on the floor of the US House of Representatives the previous week. This was a tribute to retiring General Director Christina Scheppelmann and a recitation of her many accomplishments and innovations at Seattle Opera, including creating online performances and an outdoor production of Die Walküre during the COVID pandemic.
Greer Grimsley completed the tribute with Rogers and Hammerstein’s “Some Enchanted Evening” from South Pacific (with the line “Once you have found her, never let her go”), and the chorus closed the concert with Wagner’s glorious hymn to redemption and salvation, the “Pilgrim’s Chorus” from Tannhäuser.
Throughout the evening, Lighting Designer Matthew Marshall employed the existing templates for Barber of Seville to set the mood and scene for each aria. The stage was flooded in scarlet for Carmen, drenched in aquas and teals for The Pearl Fishers, and shadowed in deep violet for Wotan.
Selections for this concert were mostly old favorites, with a few less-familiar choices. Most were pre-20th century, and none was more recent than the 1950s. The evening took us back to the operas that would have been presented in Seattle Opera’s first years (and are still presented). This company continues to innovate, however. As well as offering beloved and familiar works, it is dedicated to championing new work, reaching new audiences, introducing new concepts and musical ideas, and welcoming new audiences and performers.
Seattle Opera 60th Anniversary Concert and Gala. One performance only, May 11, 2024 at McCaw Hall.