In the later years of his tenure as General Director, Kurt Herbert Adler broadened the San Francisco Opera's appeal in complementary ways. The repertoire was expanded from the bread and butter of Verdi, Wagner, Puccini, Strauss and a few others to embrace Janacek, Britten and true contemporaries such as Reimann. Janos Gereben has prepared a tribute to Adler which is offered here. Technical information on this disc is provided below.
The Opera's broadcasts had been occasional in the 1930's and 40's; the next two decades saw none at all. The 1970 Tosca, celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of Dorothy Kirsten's debut with the company, began thirteen years of radio coverage of complete seasons. Thereafter, broadcasts again became occasional and were taken from tape. Since the early 1990's, there have been none. Initially, the broadcasts were local to the Bay Area; from the late 1970's, national distribution over public radio expanded awareness of the Company.
The broadcast schedule had grown to include all productions each season, fewer than from the Met but matching the older house's artistic standards while presenting material little known or unknown to the opera lovers of the U.S. The San Francisco's reputation in the Bay Area was spread to the rest of the nation and to the world: it was not merely the seconda donna of U.S. opera companies. For innovative programming, for bringing the best artists to the country and for sheer enthusiasm, the Left Coast was the first place to go for American opera. The recordings on these discs illustrate the properties of the Company. They are drawn from productions of the last dozen years of the Adler era. San Francisco had not given up the core repertoire while Adler was in charge, nor would it turn to novelty for its own sake during the McEwen years.
The purpose of this retrospective is to document the work of this outstanding company in audible form. The format used here is compressed, monaural sound limited to about 10 KHz. Better sound quality and stereo are available from these fine performances and we urge the Opera and others with rights for their release to consider issuing them in the best sound possible with appropriate documentation. We hope that the present materials will serve to illuminate the history of the Company and to satisfy the needs of scholars of music in the United States and those of students of opera production and of voice. By providing this synoptic view of the work of the San Francisco Opera, we hope to facilitate understanding the achievements of one of the major houses long overshadowed by its better known compatriot.
| Date | Title | Conductor | Soloists |
| 15 Oct 76 | Frau ohne Schatten | Boehm | Rysanek, Schroeder, Berry, Mattsu |
| 22 Oct 76 | Peter Grimes | Pritchard | Vickers, Harper, Evans, Nadler |
| 29 Oct 76 | Makropoulos Case | Dohnanyi | Silja, Lewis, Evans |
| 30 Sep 77 | Katya Kabanova | Kubelik | Söderström, Wolff |
| 28 Oct 77 | Ariadne auf Naxos | Ferencsik | Price, Welting, Troyanos, Cathcart |
| 4 Nov 77 | Turandot | Chailly | Caballe, Mitchell, Pavarotti, Tozzi |
| 25 Nov 77 | Ballo in maschera | Adler | Ricciarelli, Carrerras, Mazurok |
| 15 Sep 78 | Norma | Peress | Verrett, Milcheva, Todisco, Grant |
| 29 Sep 78 | Billy Budd | Atherton | Duesing, R. Lewis, Robinson, Herincx |
| 20 Oct 78 | Tosca | Peloso | Caballe, Pavarotti, Taddei |
| 3 Nov 78 | Werther | Almeida | Carreras, Ewing, Battle |
| 28 Sep 79 | Elektra | Klobucar | Mastilovic, Rysanek, Schlemm |
| 5 Oct 79 | Don Carlo | Varviso | Aragall, Tomowa-Sintow, Budai |
| 19 Oct 79 | Voix humaine | Giovaninetti | Olivero |
| 10 Oct 80 | Jenufa | Rosen | Söderström, Jurinac |
| 14 Nov 80 | Arabella | Rennert | TeKanawa, Daniels, Wixell, Mills |
| 28 Nov 80 | Cavalleria rusticana | Barezza | Stapp, Svetlev |
| 28 Nov 80 | Pagliacci | Barezza | King, Rawlins, di Bella, Saccomanni |
| 12 Jun 81 | Lear | Albrecht | Stewart, Dernesch, Shane |
| 14 Jul 81 | Rigoletto | Barezza | Manuguerra, Wise, Dvorsky |
| 26 Sep 81 | Semiramide | Bonynge | Caballe, Horne, Morris |
| 17 Oct 81 | Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk | Simmons | Silja, Trussel, Ludgin |
Macintosh users are urged to read macread.txt on this disc as well as the following.
Most of the files on this disc are recorded in MP3 format. Players for such compressed audio are available for most platforms. Since most users of personal computers when this disc was published have 32-bit Windows installed on their systems, we include a licensed browser and a freeware player which handle not only MP2 and MP3 files but also a specific format of playlist for MP3 termed M3U. Most users of these discs will find that they automatically load the browser and its support programs; in that case, all functions should be directly accessible in the same way they would be with any other browser.
Those running Windows who do not find that the browser begins automatically may start it by running I_VIEW.EXE from the root of the CD-ROM drive. Those running other systems, such as Mac and Unix boxes, will need both a browser and an installed MP3 player. Even Windows users may use their preferred browsers equipped with MP3 players. Operation with any browser other than the one on the disc requires that you point it to the CD-ROM and WELCOME.HTM as the URL.
Every effort has been made to ensure that all files are accessible to all users. The prototype of this disc was tested on a variety of computers and all reasonably modern ones have managed to work in the configurations tested. There is little that can be done if your computer has problems with these files short of upgrading the computer. As an indication of its modest needs, the disc proved fully functional on a Pentium 75 laptop with 8 MB of RAM and a 2x CD-ROM drive.
Those using their own browsers will certainly need no assistance from me. That is fortunate, since it would be difficult to cover all the options of browsers and MP3 plugins and helpers. If you are running the I_VIEW browser on the disc, you should find all operations familiar. Simply click on a link to access it. If you have trouble seeing everything in the browser, please make sure that the page is maximized by clicking the icon one to the left and one down from the top-right corner. Unfortunately, the browser does not 'remember' that setting and you will need to click the icon each time you start the program.
The WinAmp player here is not the current version. However, it is an excellent freeware release quite sufficient for the needs of this disc. It has been preset to the values needed for operation - which is fortunate, since those values cannot be recorded to the CD-ROM and therefore will return to the presets whenever the disc is first accessed. This disc contains only monaural files and is preset for monaural playback.
The recordings on this disc have been compiled and prepared by John Wegner <johnwegner@aol.com>. The producer of the disc is Mike Richter <mrichter@mindspring.com>. Feel free to contact either of us with any questions or suggestions.