Program
San Francisco Opera Orchestra
Robert Mollicone, conductor
Jesslyn Thomas, soprano
Gioachino Rossini: Overture to The Barber of Seville (1816)
Mozart: "Giunse alfin il momento…Deh vieni, non tardar" from Le Nozze di Figaro (1786)
Richard Strauss: Serenade in Eb Major for 13 winds, op. 7 (1881)
from Heitor Villa-Lobos: Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5
for soprano and orchestra of violoncelli
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Aria (Cantilena) (1938)
Franz Schubert: Symphony No. 8 in b minor ("Unfinished") (1822)
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Allegro moderato
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Andante con moto
About By the Bay Health
By the Bay Health’s donor-supported programs include charity care, bereavement services, pediatric hospice care and By the Bay Camp, an annual youth grief support retreat.
As healthcare increasingly operates on a market model, independent nonprofit hospice providers like By the Bay Health fill an essential role, caring for patients and families who fall outside what the system is designed to serve – the children, the unhoused, the most vulnerable in our communities across the Bay Area. By the Bay has been recognized nationally for delivering clinically-advanced care to all patients and their caregivers, regardless of the patient’s ability to pay or where they call home.
Robert Mollicone
Sought after for his ‘finely-calibrated leadership’ and ‘ebullient performance[s]’, conductor, recitalist and coach Robert Mollicone has become a familiar face in opera houses across the US and Europe. As a member of San Francisco Opera’s music staff, he has acted in capacities including assistant to former Music Director Nicola Luisotti, assistant conductor, prompter and coach/pianist, and has worked on 40+ productions spanning the breadth of the repertoire, including Rusalka, Der Ring des Nibelungen, Les Troyens, and Don Carlo. Equally committed to the development of the American operatic canon, he has helped bring several new operas by composers such as Jake Heggie, Tobias Picker, and John Adams to life.
In the San Francisco Bay Area, he has conducted performances with Opera San Jose (Where Angels Fear to Tread, Silent Night), San Francisco Opera (Opera in the Park 2014/2019, Christmas with Sol3 Mio), and West Edge Opera (Elizabeth Cree, L’arbore di Diana), where he “presided [...] with a fine feeling for pacing and detail”. He made his house debut at Festival Opera conducting Carmen in August 2023.
Other recent debuts include Austin Opera (Ariadne auf Naxos) and Florentine Opera (L’enfant et les sortilèges), where he will return to conduct Songbird/La Périchole in 2024. Additionally he served as cover conductor for the European premiere of John Adams’ Girls of the Golden West at De Nationale Opera in Amsterdam and for La Damnation de Faust at St. Louis Symphony under Stéphane Denève.
Mollicone also regularly shares the recital stage with artists including Denyce Graves, Joyce El-Khoury, Brian Jagde, Ailyn Pérez, Nicholas Phan, and Jamie Barton, with whom he was lauded for ‘miracles of sensitive expression’. He made his Carnegie Hall debut alongside soprano Melody Moore in May 2016. He is also engaged to train emerging artists as faculty member of the Adler Fellowship and Boston Wagner Institute, and is a regular guest coach at San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
He is a graduate of San Francisco Opera's Adler Fellowship, as well as of the Cafritz Young Artist Program at Washington National Opera. He holds a M. Mus. from Boston University, where he studied with Shiela Kibbe.
Jesslyn Thomas is a Bay Area-based soprano residing in Daly City, where she lives with her husband, Jorge, and their son, Luis. She is currently and has been a member of the San Francisco Opera regular chorus since 2018. With them she has been a featured soloist in productions including Le Nozze di Figaro (2019), Manon Lescaut (2019), It's a Wonderful Life (2018), and also in chorus concerts. She completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Southern Maine where she was a frequent soloist with the USM chamber singers and the vocal jazz ensemble. Her operatic roles at USM included, First Knitter in Seymour Barab's, A Game of Chance, and Lauretta in Puccini's, Gianni Schicchi. While in Maine, Ms. Thomas was a young artist with PORTopera (now Opera Maine) and performed the role of Carolina in Cimarosa's, The Secret Marriage. She received her Master’s degree in 2012 from the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music, where she studied with William McGraw. In collaboration with Cincinnati Opera, she workshopped the role of Sister Aloysius in Douglas Cuomo's recent opera, Doubt. She also performed the role of Despina in Mozart's, Così Fan Tutte with CCM's summer program. In 2013, Ms. Thomas covered the roles of Fatima in Weber's, Abu Hassan, and the title role in Mozart's, Zaide with Queen City Opera in Cincinnati. Ms. Thomas occasionally enjoys teaching voice in her spare time and she is also currently the soprano soloist at Orinda Community Church in Orinda, CA.