- November 7, 2025
-
-
Loading
Loading
There's a spark in the air at the Sarasota Opera. Cooler temperatures are here, repairs from last year's hurricanes are complete and the fall season is busier than usual. In addition to its annual children's opera, the Opera will stage a full-blown adult production after a hiatus of two years. Preparations are also underway to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Sarasota Opera House in 2026.
Sarasota Opera General Director Richard Russell recently took time out from his busy schedule to discuss the state of affairs at the Opera, which is marking its 67th season. Before becoming managing director in 2012, Russell was previously marketing director from 2005-10, giving him a keen appreciation of changing consumer tastes and which way the cultural wind is blowing.
As funding for cultural organizations has come under fire in the last two years on the local, state and federal levels, Russell has emerged as an ombudsman for the role that the arts play in Sarasota's tourist-driven economy. He recently stepped down as chair of Visit Sarasota, the local tourism organization and now serves on its executive board.
Whether he's taking a group of Sarasota opera lovers to New Mexico for the Santa Fe Opera's summer season, scouting for talent at festivals such as Glimmerglass in upstate new York and or greeting audience members in the lobby of the Opera House, Russell serves as a powerful ambassador. Always nattily dressed, Russell is polished, charming and persuasive.
He's an effective counterpart to Victor DeRenzi, the exacting maestro who has built the Sarasota Opera into a Verdi powerhouse with worldwide recognition during his tenure. DeRenzi is in his 44th season as artistic director of the Sarasota Opera, a tenure among Sarasota arts leaders only exceeded by Florida Studio Theatre Producing Artistic Director Richard Hopkins, who started at FST in 1980.
While Russell sat down for an interview in the courtyard of the Opera House, DeRenzi was inside rehearsing the chorus for Mozart's "Così fan tutte," which opens Oct. 31. As the sounds of the chorus threatened to drown out conversation, the affable Russell offered to move, but his guest demurred.
Why? The rousing soundtrack serves as a reminder of the staying power of an art created for the rich and the royal more than 400 years ago. Whether they know the difference between Puccini and prosciutto, newcomers to Sarasota cannot fail to be astonished that a small Florida Gulf Coast city is home to a world-class opera, not to mention orchestra, ballet, theater and museums.
Russell spent his summer traveling, as he usually does. This summer, he led a group of about 16 Sarasota Opera patrons to spend a week at the Santa Fe Opera, where they saw five operas.
"Normally when we take a group, we don't see all of the operas, but this year the repertoire was popular so we decided to see all of them," Russell says. The Sarasota group attended "La Boheme," "The Marriage of Figaro," "Rigoletto," Wagner's "The Valkyrie" and Britten's "The Turn of the Screw."
With its huge amphitheater seating 2,100 patrons and its integration of video and high-tech graphics into operas, some of them modern, the Santa Fe Opera is a world apart from Sarasota Opera's intimate, traditional style. Under Maestro DeRenzi, Sarasota has performed all of Verdi's operas in an historic theater that seats just 1,100.
The Sarasota Opera is the only company in the world to have performed all of Verdi’s music. The opera began its 28-year Verdi voyage in 1989 with “Rigoletto.” It completed the Verdi Cycle in 2016 with “Aida” and “The Battle of Legnano.” All over the world, the Sarasota Opera is known as the home of Verdi.
Although it did not have a full-scale production last fall, artists from the Sarasota Opera performed a concert featuring selections from Verdi operas. They were joined by the Sarasota Orchestra, which was conducted by DeRenzi.
This year, the season starts with Mozart. The prodigy wrote "Così fan tutte" while he was living in Vienna and competing with Antoinio Salieri for the favor of Joseph II, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. Like Mozart's operas "The Marriage of Figaro" and "Don Giovanni," the libretto for "Così fan tutte" was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte in Italian.
The rough translation of "Così fan tutte" in English is "women also do it," referring to unfaithfulness, but it's also known as "The School for Lovers." Research suggests that Salieri, the older rival of the genius whose full name was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, tried to set "Così fan tutte" to music but failed.
Movie fans may remember Hollywood's portrayal of the competition between the two composers in the 1984 film "Amadeus." The film starred F. Murray Abraham as the court composer Salieri, whose position is threatened by the young upstart Mozart, played by Tom Hulce. Although it takes liberties with history, Milos Forman's masterpiece is a great primer about court intrigue and Mozart's world.
His two-act comedic opera "Così fan tutte" follows two soldiers who test the fidelity of the sisters to whom they are engaged, only to learn the brides-to-be have a few tricks up their sleeves. It premiered on January 26, 1790 but was only performed five times because of the death of Emperor Joseph II.
The play was not performed again in Vienna before Mozart's death at the age of 35 in 1791. It premiered in London in May 1811 but it took more than a century for it to make its debut in the U.S., at New York's Metropolitan Opera in 1922.
Although popular culture sometimes portrays opera as exclusive and intimidating, you don't have to be rich to appreciate arias. Many Iimmigrants to the United States in the early 20th century arrived with just the clothes on their backs and a love of opera.
If you don't speak Italian and you've never been to the opera before, don't worry. The Sarasota Opera has done the translating for you. At some operas, such as Santa Fe, the translations scroll by on the seat in front of you. At the Sarasota Opera, they're above the stage.
Where opera can be challenging for newcomers is the duration of the performances. The first act of "Così fan tutte" is 83 minutes, followed by a 20-minute intermission and a second act of 82 minutes. Not everyone is ready to invest three hours of their time at opera.
One way to get your opera fix in a less demanding fashion or to find out if it's for you is with the Sarasota Opera's affordable recitals featuring arias, duets and ensembles sung by the opera's apprentice artists. On Wednesday, Nov. 5, a recital will be held at the Opera House at noon for just $10.
Another mainstay of the fall season is the Sarasota Opera's annual children's opera featuring a cast of 80 to 100 young people between the ages of 8 and 18. This year's Sarasota Youth Opera production is "Brundibár," which will play Nov. 8-9.
The tale of resilience and hope features music by Jewish Czech composer Hans Krása and libretto by Adolf Hoffmeister. It was originally performed by children at a concentration camp during World War II.
With the revival of a fall production, you could say the Sarasota Opera is returning to tradition since it performed a fall opera from 2008-22, except during COVID. Russell says the company decided to go back to a fall opera because "it's important for us to have as close to a year-round presence as we can."
For some subscribers, seeing the four productions in the annual Sarasota Opera Winter Festival (Feb. 14-March 29, 2026) "is too much" at one time, he says. Having a major opera in the fall gives them a chance to spread out their opera during the season.
The four operas in the 2026 winter festival are "La bohème" by Giacomo Puccini, "The Merry Widow" by Franz Lehár, "Il trovatore" by Giuseppe Verdi and "Susannah" by Carlisle Floyd.
Other than the film series of classic movies and HD opera, it's not "feasible to do anything during the summer in Sarasota, but a fall opera is an attractive option for arts lovers, Russell says. The classic films screened on Friday night typically draw more than 200 people, while the Sunday afternoon opera films attract fewer patrons.
There are worse places to be than the beautiful, air-conditioned Opera House on a hot August night. The majestic surroundings elevate any film on its screen or production on its stage, where performers are following in the footsteps of entertainers ranging from Will Rogers to Elvis Presley.
