Fare Thee Well, Mr. Gockley!

David Gockley, the sixth general director of the San Francisco Opera, is retiring at the end of the current season, but the stamp of his veteran know-how will still be apparent in the repertoire and casting of productions for 2017-18. His legacy, after a remarkable decade, should continue to influence operations at the venerable War Memorial much longer.

The SFO Orchestra and Chorus are joining an impressive line-up of stars and colleagues for a glamorous retirement party, Celebrating David!, Thurs., June 16, at 7 p.m. at the War Memorial Opera House. A pre-performance reception at the new Diane B. Wilsey Center for Opera, and a post-performance black-tie dinner with the artists in the Wilsey Center for Opera's new Taube Atrium Theater are added parts of the event. Tickets for the concert-only part of the one-night affair, emceed by old favorites mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade and bass-baritone Samuel Ramey, are available at sfopera.com, the Opera Box Office or by phone at (415) 864-3330.

Divas Renee Fleming, Ana Maria Martinez, Karita Mattila, Patricia Racette, Nadine Sierra, Heidi Stober, Susan Graham, Daniela Mack, and Dolora Zajick will rock the rafters with Michael Fabiano, Brian Jagde, Simon O'Neill, Eric Owens, Rene Pape and other special guests joining them for selections from some milestone operas in Gockley's career. Arias and ensemble numbers will be backed from the pit by conductors Nicola Luisotti, Jiri Belohlavek, John DeMain and Patrick Summers.

The starry roster shows the gratitude of the many artists who have been discovered, nurtured or promoted (sometimes all three) by Gockley during their own careers. Possibly the last of an amazing breed of American impresarios, David Gockley is part showman and go-getting producer, part savvy businessman and genuine opera devotee. He makes his exit at the peak of his powers.
San Francisco Opera general director David Gockley. Photo: Terrence McCarthy

When he first signed on in 2006 after 33 years at Houston Grand Opera, he already had an international reputation, with 35 world premieres and six American premieres under his belt. Of his tenure in San Francisco, he has said he is most proud of the establishment of the Opera's Media Suite, the Wilsey Center for Opera on the fourth floor of the Veterans Building, and the well-received Wagner Ring Cycle in 2011. We would add the creation of Opera at the Ballpark, free live simulcasts of summer productions at AT&T Park; the commissioning of eight world premieres and two West Coast premieres; and making the Wilsey Center an intimate venue for adventurous programming.

Some of the commissions have been flops, and a few successful revivals returned too soon, but the SFO got a big piece of the credit for Jake Heggie's Moby-Dick, and Gockley also brought two of his earliest triumphs in Houston, Porgy & Bess and Nixon in China, to the War Memorial in productions that deserve to endure in the repertory.

Ever the determined advocate and pragmatic idealist, David Gockley leaves the SFO in better shape than he found it, and the benefits of his tenure are more than financial. He has laid an organizational groundwork meant to assure the very survival of the art.

Another side of the Bay

While the lights blaze bright for Celebrating David! in San Francisco, another important musical event will be happening on the Cal campus in Berkeley. The 70th Ojai Music Festival is taking the show on the road for Ojai at Berkeley, June 16-18, with the US premiere of Kaija Saariaho's La Passion de Simone (chamber version), Josephine Baker: A Portrait, and a concert with Dina El Wedidi and band.

By startling coincidence, the director of the much-anticipated Saariaho opera is Peter Sellars, Ojai festival music director, ageless wunderkind, eternal revolutionary and original director for David Gockley's legendary Houston premiere of John Adams' Nixon in China. That was almost 30 years ago, but Sellars has never lost his enfant terrible reputation, even as he has matured to international fame and respect. He has also proved a perfect match for collaboration with composer Kaija Saariaho.

Saariaho is the recognized star of a generation of Finnish composers, and her unique musical language continues to make an impact on classical music. Her electronic music, mostly in combination with acoustic instruments, has been combined to create many extraordinary pieces, ranging from chamber music to large orchestral scores and operas.

When Peter Sellars was scaring the horses in Texas in 1987, Saariaho was fulfilling an early commission from Lincoln Center for the Kronos Quartet: Nymphea for string quartet and live electronics. Her first opera L'Amour de loin (Love from Afar) received a US premiere in Santa Fe in 2002, and now it becomes the first opera composed by a woman to appear at the Metropolitan Opera in more than a century, next season (2016-17).

After years of planning, she took up residence in Berkeley as the 2015 Bloch Professor in Music. The upcoming US premiere at Cal seemed inevitable. La Passion de Simone has been called more a meditation or oratorio than opera. Originally written for Dawn Upshaw (as was L'Amour de loin), it charts episodes in the life of Simone Weil - French philosopher, Christian mystic, feminist and political activist. Subtitled A Musical Journey in 15 Stations, the piece models the life and writings of Simone Weil as a passion play. Albert Camus famously called Weil "the only great spirit of our times." How could Saariaho (and later Sellars) resist the inspiration? For that matter, how could we?