I am free as a bird and will remain so, her rich and voluminous voice lightening as bird’s wing and soaring. Her range of mood and feeling was carefully sculpted, poignant, reflective, temperate, doubtful, then snap! The famous toss-off – Love? Nonsense. Dramatized and nuanced, she took the stage and let Violetta’s story unfold in few minutes. Rachel Willis-Sørensen began with Verdi’s “Sempre Libera” from “La Traviata,” in a polished and poised rendition. The concert was dubbed “The Homecoming” for important reasons.

From the moment she sprinted onto the stage and the podium, she was in business, her petite frame showing nothing petite in her conducting control and liveliness, Von Suppé’s “Light Cavalry” kicked things off, and as an old chestnut, it provided a light but necessary link to our musical heritage and what we are reestablishing now. From the start, Kim conducted with vigor and vitality, leaving nothing behind. Before the official concert began, Kim struck up the National Anthem, in observance of the 9/11 memorial event upcoming.

The program consisted of two acts, each featuring at least one orchestral piece conducted by Eun Sun Kim, and individual arias by each of the sopranos and several duets. A true San Francisco Happening? We should say so. To make it more San Francisco? They added a live transmission to San Francisco’s Oracle Stadium, Home to the San Francisco Giants Baseball Team. The concert that kicked off the season to come as well as welcomed audiences back.

Thankfully, we were now able to take our seats, and wait for the music to begin: Eun Sun Kum, San Francisco’s new music director, the San Francisco Opera Orchestra, two singers “extraordinaire,” Rachel Willis-Sørensen, soprano, Jamie Barton, mezzo-soprano.

(No applause, please we only did what we could.) The ones whose fees were unacceptable because we could bring contagion, danger, Covid. In a way we were: the ones who up until tonight, could not enter. “Finalmente! Finally.” Masked and vaccinated we arrive at the doors of the War Memorial Opera House and are welcomed as if we are the stars. Homecoming at the Opera House, San Francisco September 2021.

Sf opera homecoming