Opera star Ruth Ann Swenson receives the San Francisco Opera Medal
By Bruce Bellingham

If anyone deserves to have a medal pinned on her, it is Ruth Ann Swenson, the international opera star who got her start as a fledgling soprano 27 years ago in San Francisco’s Merola Program for young, promising singers.

San Francisco Opera general director David Gockley says Ms. Swenson will receive her Opera Medal, the 35th one to be bestowed, onstage at the Opera House at the closing performance of Handel’s Ariodante on July 6.

This also marks Ms. Swenson’s 25th year with the San Francisco Opera.
In 2006, Ms. Swenson received an honorary doctorate from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she still gives master classes. That same year, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She underwent treatment and returned triumphantly last year to the stage at New York’s Metropolitan Opera as Marguerite in Gounod’s Faust. Ms. Swenson is now a fierce advocate for cancer research and has joined forces with the Susan G. Komen Foundation, offering her talent as a fundraising vehicle.
She says she feels very well these days, and is busier than ever. But she doesn’t work as hard as she did before.

“Cancer has taught me how to conserve my energy,” she says. “I found that less is more, and I guess that cancer has given me a gift, in a way. I perform better than before. I said to myself that I’m going to beat this because I want to sing.”
The old adage about singers is “You are the instrument.” Ms. Swenson says she’s taken that idea to heart. She became a strict vegetarian, taking some protein to keep up her stamina during chemotherapy. She plans to have reconstructive surgery this month.
And through all this, she sings – does she ever. Ariodante, Handel’s rarely performed operatic treasure, is not for the faint of heart. Recent engagements include a concert performance of Maria Stuart in Lyon and Paris ... The Merry Widow with the Dallas Opera ... and La Traviata at the Met.

She made her professional debut in 1983 with the San Francisco Opera as Despina in Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte. She’s performed with the company over a dozen times in major roles. Ms. Swenson made her debut at the Met in 1991 as Zerlina in Mozart’s Don Giovanni.

As a San Francisco Opera Medal recipient, she joins such luminaries as Dorothy Kirsten (1970); Leontyne Price (1977); Joan Sutherland (1984); Marilyn Horne (1990); Licia Albanese (1991); Placido Domingo (1994), and her friend, Frederica von Stade (1997).