Photo Credit: ©Drew Altizer Photography

Hockney Presented With “Gold Medal” Following SFO’s Turandot

San Francisco Opera General Director Matthew Shilvock presented British artist David Hockney with the Company’s highest honor, the San Francisco Opera Medal, following a matinee performance of Puccini’s Turandot this season.

 “Since 1975, David Hockney has been a powerful force in advancing opera as an art form,” said Shilvock. “His productions are bold expressions of archetypal emotions, deeply rooted in a strong sense of spatial resonance and scale. His productions take us—audiences and artists alike—on journeys that allow us to see our world more clearly. He finds rhythm in color and design, and creates portals that we enter with thrilling excitement.”

Cultural Currents has featured several interviews with SFO celebrities including Shilvock, who told us last June that opera’s power is that it holds up a mirror to the intensity of the human condition and allof its deep emotions.

“Opera conveys emotions as soaring expressions on stage, so large and archetypal that we can all see ourselves reflected back,” he added. “Love and loss are two of the most powerful emotions of opera, just as they are the most powerful emotions of life.”

While Cultural Currents eschews reviews, we are happy to share this observation on Turandot by San Francisco Chronicle critic Joshua Kosman:

“All the principal singers began to blossom afresh. The conducting of Music Director Nicola Luisotti — who would end the evening by receiving the San Francisco Opera Medal in recognition of his nine years of service to the company — took on new concision and urgency.”

More SFO “medal” news can be found on its website.