Sarasota Opera plans a season of favorites and rarities

Sarasota Opera 2020-21 season

61 N. Pineapple Ave. Sarasota

941-328-1300; sarasotaopera.org

“Don Giovanni,” Nov. 1-15

“Tosca,” Feb. 6-21, 2021

“The Daughter of the Regiment,” Feb. 13-March 13, 2021

“The Pearl Fishers,” Feb. 20-March 20, 2021

“Attila,” March 6-21, 2021

“The Hobbit,” Sarasota Youth Opera, Nov. 13-14

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Sarasota Opera will bring back several of its most popular productions and a couple of rarely performed works for its 2020-21 season.

Artistic Director Victor DeRenzi and Executive Director Richard Russell announced plans for the company’s 62nd season Tuesday afternoon with the help of several singers performing selections from the new season.

The winter season will bring a revival of Puccini’s “Tosca,” which has become one of the company’s most popular works, and was most recently produced in 2009 and 2015, Russell said.

“It has to be popular as the first opera of the winter season because it has the most performances, and we try to do those very popular pieces in six-year intervals.”

The company also will bring back Georges Bizet’s “The Pearl Fishers,” which was such a hit in 2000 that the company brought it back in 2003, and then again in 2013.

“People neglected ‘The Pearl Fishers’ for a long time and then it was rediscovered and people discovered there was such incredible music, and we have a beautiful production,” Russell said.

The winter season also includes Donizetti’s playful “The Daughter of the Regiment,” which has not been done in Sarasota since 1987, and Verdi’s “Attila,” which was presented in 2007 as part of the company’s Verdi Cycle, which featured performances of every opera by the composer.

“Attila” was last produced before renovations to the opera house began. “Since the finish of the Verdi Cycle, we have not been doing Verdi with the same frequency, but we do want to bring pieces back on a regular basis, and we try to do Verdi every year, but alternating between the fall and winter seasons. It’s an opportunity to continue our brand as Verdi’s American home,” Russell said.

An opera like “Daughter of the Regiment” is made easier by the company’s recent acquisition of a major international costume collection, which is now being established in Sarasota. “It gives us a lot to choose from for the production, which we will be building from scratch.”

The fall season will feature Mozart’s popular “Don Giovanni,” which was last presented in 2011. It’s a tale of the famous lover Don Juan, who became known as much for loving as leaving women behind.

Russell said audiences have been requesting a new production for some time.

For young singers (and audiences), the Sarasota Youth opera will bring back Dean Burry’s “The Hobbit,” based on the popular novel by J.R.R. Tolkien. It was last produced in 2014 and is one of several works that get staged with a new generation of singers every few years, Russell said.