Clelia Cafiero makes her debut at the San Francisco Opera

Elza van den Heever Jennifer Holloway Alexander Soddy Simone Young Wolfgang Koch Anja Kampe Jaap van Zweden Magnus Dietrich Paul Pigster Tara Erraught Annette Dasch Thomas Guggeis Joana Mallwitz Kwangchul Youn Tanja Ariane Baumgartner Maria Bengtsson Bertrand De Billy Eve-Maud Hubeaux Kirill Serebrennikov Kirill Petrenko
Written by Gabriele Fauchet

CLELIA CAFIERO
HOME DEBUT AT THE SAN FRANCISCO OPERA
THEA MUSGRAVES MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS

Clelia Cafiero makes her San Francisco Opera debut this fall, conducting Thea Musgrave's Mary, Queen of Scots in a production directed by Stewart Laing, a co-production with the English National Opera.

This debut marks the culmination of an extraordinary run of success for Cafiero, which in April 2025 saw a much-discussed last-minute replacement for Verdi's Don Carlos at the Opéra national de Paris which caused a sensation. Numerous further debuts followed in recent seasons, including at the English National Opera, Cincinnati Opera – her US operatic debut – Opera Australia, the Staatsoper Unter den Linden and the Semperoper Dresden .

The engagement at San Francisco Opera will not be a one-off collaboration: Cafiero will return to the house next summer to conduct Puccini's Tosca . San Francisco will thus form the framework of her season and is developing into a central artistic collaboration for her 2026/27 season.

SEPTEMBER 20, 2026, WAR MEMORIAL OPERA HOUSE, SAN FRANCISCO
SEPTEMBER 24, 2026, WAR MEMORIAL OPERA HOUSE, SAN FRANCISCO
SEPTEMBER 26, 2026, WAR MEMORIAL OPERA HOUSE, SAN FRANCISCO
SEPTEMBER 29, 2026, WAR MEMORIAL OPERA HOUSE, SAN FRANCISCO
OCTOBER 2, 2026, WAR MEMORIAL OPERA HOUSE, SAN FRANCISCO
OCTOBER 4, 2026, WAR MEMORIAL OPERA HOUSE, SAN FRANCISCO

Gabriele Fauchet
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