The season opens on Jan. 30, with Giacomo Puccini’s incredibly popular La bohème. This bittersweet tragedy, about two “bohemians” – a poet and a seamstress – who discover love and loss go hand in hand, features the Company debut is Polish tenor Piotr Beczala as Rodolfo who will sing this role just weeks before reprising it at the Metropolitan Opera. Not yet 30, exciting soprano Ellie Dehn makes her Company debut as Mimì. San Diego’s very own international opera star, the Indian-born soprano Priti Gandhi, sings her role debut of Musetta. Stage director E. Loren Meeker makes her San Diego Opera directing debut and San Diego Opera’s resident conductor Karen Keltner leads from the podium.

Verdi’s rousing ode to freedom, Nabucco, opens Feb. 20. Following the plight of the Jews and their persecution by the Babylonian King Nabucco, this opera has not been performed by San Diego Opera since 1981. French soprano Sylvie Valayre, who made her Company debut last season in Tosca, returns to sing Abigaille. Making Company debuts are Yugoslavian baritone Îeljko Lucic as Nabucco and American bass Raymond Aceto as Zaccaria. Lotfi Mansouri returns to direct the staging and Edoardo Müller leads the orchestra.

Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet opens on March 13, as the third opera of the season. Shakespeare’s timeless tragedy comes to the stage with real-life husband and wife duo; tenor Stephen Costello, winner of the 2009 Richard Tucker Award, and soprano Ailyn Pérez as Romeo and Juliet. Stage director Cynthia Stokes makes her Company debut and San Diego Opera’s Karen Keltner bring her mastery of the French repertoire to the podium.

The 2010 season concludes with Verdi’s La traviata which opens on April 17. American soprano Elizabeth Futral, last seen as Nedda in Pagliacci, returns to sing Violetta and Romanian tenor Marius Brenciu makes his Company debut as Alfredo with English baritone Alan Opie singing Germont. Australian stage director Andrew Sinclair returns to stage the opera and Italian conductor Renato Palumbo makes his Company with these performance.

“Our 2010 season is the ideal way to enjoy extraordinary singers while hearing some of the most sublime music opera offers. You may have seen La bohème, you may recall La traviata and you may remember the beauty of Romeo and Juliet but opera is about more than just seeing; it is also about hearing and San Diego Opera continues its tradition of engaging the best voices in the world,” comments San Diego Opera General and Artistic Director Ian Campbell. “In La bohème we will hear two of the most elegant and exciting singers today, Piotr Beczala and the young Ellie Dehn who is not yet 30 and already singing at the world’s greatest houses. Verdi’s Nabucco, heard here only once in previous seasons, brings the powerful Îeljko Luãiç to San Diego to sing the title role. Romeo and Juliet features an exciting new American tenor, Stephen Costello with his real life wife, Ailyn Peréz, to provide as romantic a Romeo and Juliet as you’ll ever see and hear. In La traviata, Elizabeth Futral and another new tenor, Marius Brenciu, will bring their glorious voices together to showcase the wonderful melodies you’ve come to love. We welcome two stage directors for the first time, E. Loren Meeker (La bohème) and Cynthia Stokes (Romeo and Juliet), joining Lotfi Mansouri and Andrew Sinclair who return for Nabucco and La traviata. We also introduce an Italian conductor new to us, Renato Palumbo, who joins Karen Keltner and Edoardo Müller to lead the San Diego Symphony. New singers, a new conductor, new stage directors, and a mix of popular and rarely heard operas ensures that there is much to see and hear in the 2010 season.

As part of the ongoing effort to keep opera accessible and affordable to as wide an audience as possible, the lowest seat price for subscribers is $30, making subscription packages for three operas available for as little as $90, and a full season available for only $120.

A Desire for Love: Puccini’s La bohème opens the season with the debut of tenor Piotr Beczala as Rodolfo and soprano Ellie Dehn. San Diego’s own Priti Gandhi sings Musetta in the return of this widely popular production.

A Desire for Freedom: Last seen in San Diego in 1981, Verdi’s biblical epic Nabucco (Nebuchadnezzar) features French soprano Sylvie Valayre as Abigaille and the Company debuts of Yugoslavian baritone Îeljko Luãiç as Nabucco and American bass Raymond Aceto as Zaccaria

A Desire for Passion: Gounod’s tragic Romeo and Juliet welcomes the Company debuts of American tenor Stephen Costello as Romeo and his real life wife, Ailyn Pérez, as Juliet.

A Desire to Live: San Diego favorite, La traviata, closes the season with American soprano Elizabeth Futral as Violetta and the Company debut of Romanian tenor Marius Brenciu as Alfredo.

Subscriptions begin at $90 for three operas and $120 for a full-series of operas.

Three or four-opera subscriptions for the 2010 International Season are now available. Regular subscriptions range from $90 - $720 (some Saturday subscriptions slightly higher) and can be purchased by calling (619) 533-7000 or online at www.sdopera.com.

For information about single tickets, visit www.sdopera.com