San Francisco Opera to celebrate Pride with bold, immersive concert

San Francisco Opera’s inaugural Pride Concert celebrates queer joy

The San Francisco Opera’s inaugural Pride Concert on Friday will be a celebration of queer identity, featuring music, immersive visuals, and tributes to LGBTQ history.

SAN FRANCISCO - The San Francisco Opera is turning up the volume on Pride this year with its inaugural Pride Concert. It will be a visually immersive and emotionally charged celebration of LGBTQ artists, history, and resilience.

Timed to coincide with San Francisco Pride weekend, the Friday night performance will transform the historic War Memorial Opera House into a high-tech canvas. The show will be complete with bold projections and colorful visuals designed to match the musical journey unfolding on stage.

Though the opera has supported Pride for decades, General Director Matthew Shilvock said this event marks a new level of celebration and inclusion for the institution.

A celebration of identity and artistry

"San Francisco Opera has been a part of the Pride March since the 1980s and so this year we are taking it to the next level," Shilvock said. "We’re bringing the Pride celebration right into the Opera House, and Friday night is going to be this incredible spectacle of visual, of music, and a real community of people coming together into this beautiful space."

The program, curated by the Opera’s Managing Director of Artistic Gregory Henkel, features music by LGBTQ composers, performers, and allies. It explores themes of sorrow, resilience, and authenticity. 

The show includes a mix of classical and pop music performed by a diverse cast of soloists, including opera singer Nikola Printz.

"I’m trans, nonbinary, so I use they, them, pronouns, and I kind of embody both masculine and feminine presentations," Printz said. "And I think I learned that from opera, because opera is so colorful when it comes to gender representation."

Printz says the stage is where they feel most free.

"I just want people to feel uplifted and excited and happy, because right now it’s a hard time to be queer in this country. It’s a hard time to be trans in this country," they said. "And I want people to feel invigorated by seeing all of this queer art."

Award-winning London-based designer and director Tal Rosner created the immersive video projections. 

Some of the visuals incorporate archival photos from San Francisco Pride marches dating back to the 1970s.

"I wanted each piece to tell a little story, and then there’s kind of a bigger arc of all the stories being told, one after the other," Rosner said. "Some of them are more colorful, some of them are more restrained."

Audience members can also explore Pride-centered exhibits inside the Opera House, including sections of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, materials from the GLBT Historical Society, and a community altar by The Marigold Project.

The concert runs approximately 80 minutes and concludes with a post-show dance party hosted by drag performer DJ Juanita MORE!