Tune into WRTI on Saturday, Sept. 26 at 1 p.m. to hear a recording of conductor James Conlon’s 2026 farewell concert. After 20 years with the LA Opera, Conlon departed with a performance featuring excerpts from three pivotal comedies: Verdi’s La forza del Destino, Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, and Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. WRTI will carry this broadcast as a part of the WFMT Opera Series.
The program opens with acts three and four of Verdi’s La forza del Destino. In his note on the program, Conlon rejects criticisms of the opera’s excessive dramatism and length, claiming it as the only work of Verdi’s “that can be meaningfully compared to epic literature or drama.” La forza is followed up by the act two finale of Mozart’s beloved Marriage of Figaro. Conlon notes that this work “brought comic opera to an unprecedented level of emotional depth and psychological insight, elevating it beyond farce into a new realm of complexity and sophistication.” The program concludes with excerpts from act three of Wagner’s colossal Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, an opera which Conlon feels “is, above all, a work about art itself.”
Conlon reflects on the essentiality of music in opera and his choice to deliver his farewell performance as a concert opera. He writes, “I chose the format of ‘concert opera’ quite deliberately. In such a setting, the centrality of music can shine — perhaps even more brightly — in the absence of a fully staged production.”
In this recording, Conlon leads the LA Opera Orchestra and Chorus, as well as a number of the company’s most critical soloists.
Performers:
Acts three and four of La forza del Destino:
Rodrick Dixon as Don Alvaro
Ernesto Petti as Don Carlo di Vargas
Craig Colclough as Surgeon
Sarah Saturnino as Preziosilla
Yuntong Han as Trabuco
Act two finale of The Marriage of Figaro:
Hyungjin Son as Count Almaviva
Nicole Heaston as Countess Almaviva
Gabrielle Turgeon as Susanna
Craig Colclough as Figaro
Vinícius Costa as Antonio
Hyona Kim as Marcellina
Nathan Bowles as Don Basilio
Excerpts from act three of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg:
Martin Gantner as Hans Sachs
Nicole Heaston as Eva
Nathan Bowles as Walther von Stolzing
Hyona Kim as Magdalena
Yuntong Han as David
Craig Colclough as Veit Pogner
James Conlon conducts the LA Opera Orchestra & Chorus.