Ferruccio Busoni's Doctor Faustus ended the 2003-2004 season at San Francisco Opera. It was a co-production with Staatsoper Stuttgart, which was immediately apparent, as the set looked very much like the inside of a laboratory. I felt I was suddenly transported back to Munich! The music was unmemorable, neither pleasing nor displeasing. Rodney Gilfry's voice is quite good, but the music did not show this.
The saving grace of Leoš Janáček's The Cunning Little Vixen is this opera's brevity, a mere 1 hour and 45 minutes. San Francisco Opera's co-production with the Bregenzer Festspiele and Grand Théâtre de Genève closed Thursday, 1. July 2004. The set and costumes were all quite bright, something out of a fairytale. I'll admit that I enjoyed the frog in his raincoat and galoshes and also the chickens. I find Janáček's music unbearably boring though.