Press
An Audience With Susan Graham – Queen of Carthage in ‘Les Troyens’ at San Francisco Opera
By Sean Martinfield
Huffington Post
For mezzo-soprano Susan Graham – San Francisco Opera and the War Memorial Opera House is home. This year marks her 25th Anniversary with the company. Susan is back and currently starring as “Didon” in Hector Berlioz’s 1858 epic masterpiece,Les Troyens which opened this past Sunday afternoon and will play an additional five performances through July 1. The massive new production by David McVicar is nearly five hours in length and is produced in co-operation with the Royal Opera, Covent Garden; Teatro alla Scala and the Vienna State Opera. At the final curtain, General Director David Gockley presented Susan with the company’s highest honor, the San Francisco Opera Medal. In 1987, Susan trained here as a member of the Merola Opera Program and won the Grand Finals. In 1990, she made her company debut as the goddess Minerva in Monteverdi’s Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria and has subsequently appeared as Annius (La Clemenza di Tito), Sister Helen Prejean (Dead Man Walking), Octavian (Der Rosenkavalier), and in the title roles of Iphigénie en Tauride, Ariodante, and Xerxes. Said Susan during our recent interview, “Merola told me that I had a shot at a career.”
