David Gockley

David Gockley (born July 13, 1943, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American opera company administrator. He served as general director of Houston Grand Opera from 1972 to 2005 and San Francisco Opera from 2006 to 2016.

Richard David Gockley was born in Philadelphia and grew up in Wayne, Pennsylvania. He holds a bachelor's degree from Brown University, where he sang with the Jabberwocks, and a master's degree from Columbia University. According to San Francisco Opera’s website, his father was an athletic coach and inspired his early love for sports, and he inherited a passion for music from his mother. He is the father of three children: Meredith, Lauren, and Adam.

He has served as president of OPERA America and is currently a board member.

In 1970, Gockley joined Houston Grand Opera as business manager and was appointed general director in 1972. Under his tenure, Houston Grand Opera presented 35 world premieres and six American premieres. Gockley oversaw the founding of the Houston Grand Opera Studio in 1977, the company’s young artist development program, and the opening of the Wortham Theater Center in 1987. He introduced “plazacasts”, free broadcasts of mainstage opera productions to outdoor audiences; created OperaVision, a series of screens located throughout the Wortham Center that projected close-up shots of the action on stage; and began annual radio broadcasts of Houston Grand Opera performances in the U.S. and abroad.

After a 33-year tenure as general director, Gockley resigned from Houston Grand Opera in 2005 to assume the post of general director for San Francisco Opera.

Gockley became San Francisco Opera's sixth general director on January 1, 2006. Under Gockley's leadership, San Francisco Opera (SFO) has presented the world premieres of Appomattox by Philip Glass and Christopher Hampton in 2007; The Bonesetter's Daughter by Stewart Wallace and Amy Tan in 2008; and Christopher Theofanidis and Donna Di Novelli's Heart of a Soldier in 2011.

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