Still up in the air, but not looking well, are the Merola Opera Program, July 9 – Aug. (The big LGBTQ Pride celebrations in San Francisco and New York have not yet been canceled, but in Los Angeles and many other cities cancellations were announced earlier.) Danielle de Niese sang the title role of SF Opera’s 2014 Partenope the opera scheduled to return this summer, but now canceled | Credit: Cory Weaver Activities relating to the mainstage presentations were also canceled, including Bay Area Opera Previews, preperformance talks and Pride Night at the Opera. The summer season that’s not to be would have presented Verdi’s Ernani, June 7 – July 2 Handel’s Partenope, June 12–27 and the Bay Area premiere of Mason Bates’s The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, June 20 – July 3. “The safety and health of our audiences, artists and employees must come first, and it is imperative that we continue to do our part in the critical effort to contain COVID-19.”

“Today I am announcing the heartbreaking decision to cancel our 2020 Summer Season due to the current pandemic,” said SF Opera General Director Matthew Shilvock.

Ongoing developments in the global effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, says the announcement, including orders by the City of San Francisco to shelter in place through at least May 3 (in addition to an open-ended California state order), travel and quarantine restrictions, and other safety measures, prohibit the company’s ability to prepare, build, rehearse, and perform this summer. It was to take place in the War Memorial Opera House, closed by city edict since March 7, between June 7 and July 3. Long feared in the wake of worldwide cancellations of summer festival events, and now clearly inevitable, SF Opera’s Summer Season today fell victim to the coronavirus. if only he could enter himself | Credit: Cory Weaver SFO General Director Matthew Shilvock would see an empty War Memorial Opera House.

Sf opera season