David Gockley has been General Director Emeritus of the San Francisco Opera since 2016. From 1972 until 2005, Gockley had been the General Director of the Houston Grand Opera, where he cultivated an international reputation for producing operas that have the rare combination of being new, critically acclaimed, and popular. After training as an opera singer with the Santa Fe Opera, Gockley moved to New York to work in arts administration at Lincoln Center. He earned an MBA from Columbia Business School, and combined his talent in administration with his desire to shepherd new American operas and voices to the stage, embracing techniques and technologies from new marketing strategies to rock show stagecraft. In 2018, he was presented with the San Francisco Opera Medal.
Title
David Gockley: Cultivating New American Opera in Houston and San Francisco, 1972–2016
Published
Berkeley, CA, 2020
Full Collection Name
San Francisco Opera Oral Histories
Type
Text
Archive
The Bancroft Library Oral History Center
Note
David Gockley, “David Gockley: Cultivating New American Opera in Houston and San Francisco” conducted by Paul Burnett in 2019, Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, © San Francisco Opera Association, 2020.
Interview date(s) 2019
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