If I Were You (World Premiere)
Merola Opera Program

If I Were You (World Premiere)

Company
Merola Opera Program
Year
2019

After years of working as assistant director and choreographer for Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer’s new operas, they asked Keturah to come on as director for If I Were You, Merola Opera Program’s first ever commissioned new work.  Featuring a shape-shifting devil and a soul hopping main character, Keturah’s love of magical realism and the dark and scary was on full display.

Cast

Cara Collins/Brennan Blankenship  Brittomara
Esther Tonea/Anne Marie MacIntosh Diana
Michael Day/Nicholas Huff Fabian
Patricia Westley/Elisa Sunshine Selena
Tim Murray Paul
Brandon Russell  David
Rafael Porto  Putnam
Edith Grossman Rachel
Edward Laurenson  Jonathan

Creatives

Keturah Stickann  Director
Nicole Paiement
 Conductor
Liliana Duque Piñiero
 Set Designer
Alina Bokovikova
 Costume Designer
J. Isadora Krech
 Lighting Designer
Teddy Hulsker  Sound Designer
Peter Torpey
 Projections Designer
Jonathan Rider
 Fight Choreography

"Director Keturah Stickann is building an exciting career with innovative work at West Edge Opera and San Francisco Opera. Using every inch of the challengingly small Herbst stage, she created a dynamic, almost cinematic production, greatly helped by scenic designer Liliana Duque Pineiro and Lucas Krech's atmospheric lighting.”
Philip Campbell, Bay Area Reporter
“Keturah Stickann’s fluid staging and Liliana Duque Piñeiro’s striking scenic design work well on Herbst’s historic and minuscule stage.”
Janos Gereben, Classical Voice North America
“In my review of West Edge Opera’s Pelléas et Mélisande last year, I noted how director Keturah Stickann could achieve so much with so little resources that she had. I guess she made a career out of it, as once again it was proven true with this production.”
Michael Anthonio, Parterre
“Keturah Stickann has directed the proceedings with a wealth of imagination and dexterity. Ms. Stickann has succeeded in not only clarifying the complicated premise but has also invested it with great entertainment value. Her success in creating compelling stage pictures is exceeded only by her triumphant management of complicated, multi-layered relationships. It is difficult to overpraise her achievement in bring If I Were You to triumphant realization.”
James Sohre, Opera Today
“Director Keturah Stickann assembles a great creative team whose visual elements accentuate the contours of the score.”
Victor Cordell, For All Events
“Despite the limitations of Herbst Theatre—a rehabbed meeting hall, hardly an opera house—the quintet of designers made a silk purse out of a sow’s ear with special effects and changes required through 13 scenes. In a confined space, with Fabian’s auto wreck dangling precipitously from a tree, Stage Director Keturah Stickann manipulated the nine solo singers and small chorus adroitly.”
Paul Hertelendy, Arts SF
“Appealingly, Diana, intrigued by Fabian, goes on her own equally compelling soul-searching and fact-facting journey in the visually striking production directed by Keturah Stickann.”
Leslie Katz, San Francisco Examiner

Behind the Scenes

Keturah with Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer at the workshop 2018

Photography © Kristen Loken and Frank Wing