Now that Pamela Rosenberg accepted SF Opera Center director Richard
Harrell's resignation, the question is who will get the job.  Logically
(and understandably), the San Francisco Opera's new general manager,
coming from the "outside," is expected to "bring in" somebody to head the
company's important Center - which administers a cluster of education,
training and outreach programs, including Merola and Western Opera.

While going outside the company is the likely course, it is ironic that the
Center's faculty has an amazing wealth of talent and experience to fill the
position - handicapped only by "prophet-at-home" syndrome.

A quick, informal survey of rank-and-file in and around the War Memorial
Opera House shows overwhelming sentiment for Kathryn Cathcart to be
elevated (or demoted) from master coach to director.  As a conductor,
coach, teacher, manager, Cathcart has accumulated credit galore, in
addition to being one of the best-liked people around the company.

But there are many more Center faculty possibilities, even after taking
off the list Regine Crespin, Lotfi Mansouri, and (for the time being) Carol
Vaness.  Being too busy elsewhere also eliminates such admirable choices
from the faculty as SFO chorus master Ian Robertson, director John Copley,
pianists Warren Jones and Martin Katz.  Other master coaches (Bryndon
Hassman, Mark Morashand among them), even diction coaches (for example,
Patricia Kristof Moy, French; Elena Servi and Alessandra Cattani, Italian)
could all figure in the selection process - if only that process were not
already completed somewhere in the wilderness of Europe.

Janos Gereben/SF
[log in to unmask]