The libretto is by Academy Award- and Tony Award-winning playwright Christopher Hampton; longtime Glass champion Dennis Russell Davies will conduct. Baritones Dwayne Croft and Andrew Shore take the roles of Lee and Grant, with much of the rest of the cast drawn from the current ranks of Adler Fellows, members of San Francisco Opera's young artists program.
Following tonight's premiere, there are six further performances of Appomattox at the War Memorial Opera House through October 24. At that final performance, Brian Leerhuber, who created the role of Tom Joad in Ricky Ian Gordon's The Grapes of Wrath this past season, will take the role of Gen. Lee, and on the podium will be Sara Jobin, who is 2004 became the first woman to conduct in San Francisco Opera's main subscription season.
For more information on Appomattox, visit www.sfopera.com.
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All photos by Terrence McCarthy.
