SAC Opera Gala to stage highlights from popular opera pieces

The Seoul Arts Center is scheduled to stage SAC Opera Gala featuring popular opera arias and songs at the Opera Theater from Friday to Sunday.

The SAC Opera Gala will offer three different nights of opera performances -- Opening Night, Mozart Opera Highlights and Special Gala performance -- with different combinations of conductors, opera singers, orchestras and choirs.

KBS Symphony Orchestra will take the stage with Noi Opera Chorus, under the baton of conductor Toshiyuki Kamioka on Friday and Sunday, while conductor Gerd Herklotz will perform with the Korean Chamber Orchestra on Saturday.

Twenty-four opera singers including sopranos Seo Sun-young, winner of the International Tchaikovsky Competition in 2011, and Hwang Su-mi, winner of the Queen Elisabeth Competition in 2014, will sing timeless classics.

The three-day opera gala will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Friday. The selections for the Opening Night program include popular arias such as Bizet’s “Carmen,” Puccini’s “La Boheme” and “Turandot.”

On Saturday, Mozart Opera Highlights, starting at 7:30 p.m., will highlight scenes from Mozart masterpieces, including “The Magic Flute,” “Don Giovanni” and “The Marriage of Figaro.”

On Sunday, the special gala performance will begin at 3 p.m. The entire second act of Puccini’s “Tosca” and the third act of Verdi’s “Rigoletto” as well as some major scenes from “Cavalleria Rusticana” will be performed.

Tickets are available through the official website of the Seoul Arts Center or Interpark Ticket. Ticket prices range from 10,000 won to 80,000 won.

In September, Chang Hyoung-joon, the newly appointed president of the Seoul Arts Center, unveiled an opera program plan for the next three years, seeking to restore SAC’s function as an opera house.

Starting with this opera gala, SAC will stage “Turandot” and Bellini’s two-act “Norma” in 2023; Verdi’s “Otello” in 2024; and an original opera in 2025.