Seattle Opera Celebrates Milestone Season With 60th Anniversary Concert & Gala

The crowning event in Seattle Opera’s 2023/24 season is the star-studded 60th Anniversary Concert and Gala, a festive jubilee featuring a selection of gems from the operatic repertoire performed by some of the company’s best and most beloved singers. The concert program, which the company announced today, includes a mix of big solo arias, small ensembles, full opera scenes, and thrilling numbers from the Seattle Opera Chorus and Seattle Symphony. Audiences will be treated to a one-of-a-kind event celebrating six decades of opera in Seattle and looking forward to many new memories to come.

“We’ve put together a fabulous program that showcases the full strength and beauty of opera,” said General Director Christina Scheppelmann. “From the most iconic arias to some gorgeous scenes you don’t get to hear every day, this concert really shows off the best of what opera has to offer.”

Highlights include many of opera’s most cherished arias, such as the Habanera from Georges Bizet’s Carmen (performed by Ginger Costa-Jackson), Wotan’s Farewell from Richard Wagner’s Die Walküre (performed by Greer Grimsley), and “My man’s gone now” from Porgy and Bess (performed by Mary Elizabeth Williams). Audiences will also hear powerful opera choruses like “Va, pensiero” from Giuseppe Verdi’s Nabucco and big orchestral numbers like the Polonaise from Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin.

The constellation of singers features performers from three decades of Seattle Opera productions, with established veterans sharing the stage with rising stars. “This juxtaposition of artistic experience is very important to me,” said Scheppelmann. “Seattle Opera has always taken very seriously the charge of fostering up-and-coming singers, and I wanted the lineup for this celebration to reflect the company’s forward-looking nature. It is a rare treat to hear a mix of singers such as this on one program, singing such a varied collection of repertoire.”

The lineup includes Greer Grimsley, who appeared most recently as Wotan in August’s Das Rheingold, along with Ginger Costa-Jackson (Bradamante, Alcina, ’23), Mary Elizabeth Williams (Isolde, Tristan and Isolde, ’22), Sarah Coburn (Countess Adèle, Count Ory, ’16), John Moore (Rasheed, A Thousand Splendid Suns, ’23), Duke Kim (Alfredo, La traviata, ’23), Amitai Pati (Nemorino, The Elixir of Love, ’22), Adam Lau (Angelotti, Tosca, ’21), and Resident Artist Michael J. Hawk.

Complementing the soloists are the 52-member Seattle Opera Chorus, under the direction of Chorus Master Michaella Calzaretta, and members of theSeattle Symphony, led by conductor Kazem Abdullah, fresh off his performances of X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X in February and March.

The concert will be followed by a festive gala dinner on the McCaw Hall stage, arrayed in the shadow of the set for The Barber of Seville, with a Northwest-inspired menu curated by celebrated Seattle chef Tom Douglas. Tickets to the gala dinner are available for purchase in special dinner/concert packages at seattleopera.org/60gala. Concert-only tickets are available at seattleopera.org/60years.

To mark the milestone, Classical KING will broadcast a series of historic recordings from throughout Seattle Opera’s history, highlighting a variety of musical styles and important performers. Those broadcasts, which all begin at 8 PM, are: Of Mice and Men, recorded in 1976 (May 10); Rusalka, recorded in 1990 (May 17); Boris Godunov, recorded in 2000 (May 24); and The Flying Dutchman, recorded in 2016 (May 31).

Since its founding in 1963, Seattle Opera has grown into one of the leading opera companies in the United States, and has developed an international reputation for mounting high-quality productions and fostering a supportive and nurturing environment for artists. The company gained early distinction for its productions of Wagner operas, creating an “international attraction” (The New York Times) in its past presentations of Wagner’s Ring cycle. In recent years, Seattle Opera has been a dedicated proponent of new American opera, offering world premieres of Amelia (’10), An American Dream (’15), and A Thousand Splendid Suns (’23) alongside several prominent co-commissions, including the recent “unflinching” presentation (The Seattle Times) of X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X (’24). Four general directors have led the company: founding General Director Glynn Ross (1963–1983), Speight Jenkins (1983–2014), Aidan Lang (2014–2019), and Christina Scheppelmann (2019–present).

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