Opera San Jose’s latest digital offering, “Love & Secrets: A Domestic Trilogy,” is available for viewing through Monday.
The fully staged production comprises three tales of passion and yearning, as couples contend with the tumult, joys and heartache of love.
“For couples around the globe, this extended period of quarantine has forced romantic relationships into uncharted territories,” said Opera San Jose general director Khori Dastoor, a Los Altos resident. “The rhythm of domestic life has been disrupted and challenged as never before. Despite prolonged physical closeness, feelings of isolation emerge, inviting questions about the very foundations of partnership as each person evolves, both as individuals and in relation to one another.”
Dastoor curated the original collection of three chamber operas, directed by Opera San Jose resident director Tara Branham. Music director Joseph Marcheso and resident conductor Christopher James Ray lead members of the Opera San Jose Orchestra in “Love & Secrets.”
The three short operas making up the trilogy include Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari’s “Il segreto di Susanna,” Ned Rorem’s “Four Dialogues” and Tom Cipullo’s “The Husbands.”
“Il segreto di Susanna” is a drawing-room comedy of errors in the 19th-century Italian opera buffa tradition, in which an innocuous secret threatens a young newlywed couple’s chance at happiness. Conducted by Marcheso, the one-act opera features resident artists soprano Vanessa Becerra, baritone Efraín Solís and tenor Carlos Enrique Santelli.
“Four Dialogues” is based on the poetry of Frank O’Hara. It’s a classic guy-meets-girl tale marking one couple’s relationship from love’s first blush to the pangs of its bitter end. The opera stars Santelli and local soprano Marnie Breckenridge.
“The Husbands,” based on William Carpenter’s prose poem “Rain,” centers on people who have kept their departed spouses forever present in their hearts. Conducted by Ray, the 10-minute work features resident artists mezzo-soprano Ashley Dixon and baritone Eugene Brancoveanu.
Tickets are offered on a pay-what-you-can basis of $15, $25 or $40 per household. Those who buy tickets by Monday will have 30 days to view the production.
For tickets and more information, call (408) 437-4450 or visit operasj.orgSJ Opera offers ‘Love & Secrets’.
