On June 10–12, Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen returns to the San Francisco Symphony to lead a new staged production of Stravinsky’s Oedipus rex and Symphony of Psalms in collaboration with acclaimed theater director Peter Sellars.
These performances feature tenor Sean Panikkar in the title role, mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges as Jocasta, bass-baritone Sir Willard White as Creon/Messenger/Tiresias, tenor Jose Simerilla Romero as the Shepherd, actor Breezy Leigh as Antigone, dancer Laurel Jenkins, and the San Francisco Symphony Chorus.
The Sellars-Salonen production also features visual design, in part informed by the sculptures of Ethiopian artist Elias Sime, which Sellars called “haunting and spiritually potent.”
This production marks the beginning of a recently announced new partnership between Esa-Pekka Salonen and the San Francisco Symphony with Peter Sellars to stage four large-scale works over four years, between 2022 and 2025.
The program is also part of a larger focus on Stravinsky’s music throughout the 2021–22 season, both through live concert performances and in digital content released on SFSymphony+, the orchestra’s free online video streaming service.