Ride of the Operatic Symphony

The Santa Barbara Symphony’s Season Turns a Spotlight on Opera Repertoire

When the current Santa Barbara Symphony season was publicly unveiled, on stage at the Lobero Theatre last September, one of the musical highlights of the session was extra-orchestral. The fine mezzo-soprano Christina Pezzarossi Ramsey performed an operatic aria — a teaser for one of the Symphony’s upcoming concerts. That moment arrives this month, under the title Ride of the Valkyries: Opera at the Symphony.

For this unusual programming move, the Santa Barbara Symphony concert at The Granada Theatre on January 20 and 21 sidesteps typical orchestral repertoire in favor of a veritable micro-festival of arias and overtures from celebrated opera repertoire. Maestro Nir Kabaretti, as it happens, is well-suited to the task and the milieu, as a conductor whose international résumé has included significant opera engagements, in Italy, Spain, and elsewhere. He also conducted the opera The Diary of Anne Frank in a visiting production by the esteemed Vienna State Opera.

The upcoming program leans largely toward Italian fare, from the likes of Verdi, Mascagni, Rossini, and Puccini. But, as promised, the Granada program also features Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries,” a rare household-known bit of opera culture placed in the general public ear through such sources as Warner Brothers’ cartoon culture and the film score of Apocalypse Now. The piece was also heard locally last year in Opera Santa Barbara’s (OSB) pocket-sized version of the epic opera Die Walküre, from whence it comes.

Anikka Abbott, Emcee | Credit: Courtesy
Deborah Nansteel, Mezzo-Soprano | Credit: Courtesy
Karin Wolverton, Soprano | Credit: Courtesy
Harold Meers, Tenor | Credit: Courtesy
Timothy Mix, Baritone | Credit: Courtesy

Opera Santa Barbara, in fact, plays a sideways role in the Symphony’s opera program: Four singers in the upcoming OSB production of Il trovatore (February 9 and 11) have been tapped as soloists for the Symphony while they are in town rehearsing. Soprano Karin Wolverton, mezzo-soprano Deborah Nansteel, tenor Harold Meers, and baritone Timothy Mix are more than up to the task of assuming the spotlight fronting the orchestral forces.

Kabaretti explained the Symphony’s reasoning behind the program and its featured soloists, in that, “since they will be in town to rehearse [the opera], why don’t we use them for the symphony? So we have a really fabulous quartet and we will play excerpts from different operas. As you know, in every opera, there is an orchestra; some of the symphonic pieces will be recognizable, like the ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ — the best part of the five-hour opera by Wagner. We’ll play that because it’s really very symphonic.”

In general, the maestro promises that “it will be a beautiful evening of vocals and symphony.”

The Ride of the Valkyries: Opera at the Symphony will be performed at The Granada Theatre (1214 State St.) on Saturday, January 20, at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, January 21, at 3 p.m. See thesymphony.org.