Once again, the annual Schwabacher Recital Series will begin a week earlier than it did last year. This series of programs presented jointly by the San Francisco Opera (SFO) Center and the Merola Opera Program is now in its 41st year. Regular readers probably know by now that the series is named after James Schwabacher, who was a co-founder of the Merola Opera Program; and it provides an opportunity to showcase the talents of the exemplary artists who have participated in the training programs of the Merola Opera Program and/or the SFO Center.
As was the case last year, there will be three recitals: one each in the months of February, March, and April. This year, there will be only one solo recital, the final program in April. The preceding program will present both two pianists and two vocalists. The series will begin with a program curated by tenor Nicholas Phan with one pianist accompanying four vocalists.
This year there will be two different venues. The first and last programs will take place in the Dianne and Tad Taube Atrium Theater beginning at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday evenings. The second recital will take place in the Barbro Osher Recital Hall, also at 7:30 p.m. on a Wednesday evening. Program specifics have not yet been finalized, but here is the information currently available:
February 13: The vocalists to be curated by Phan will be sopranos Georgiana Adams and Caroline Corrales, tenor Thomas Kinch, and baritone Samuel Kidd. They will be accompanied at the piano by Julian Grabarek. The “core” of the program will consist of three songs by Richard Strauss coupled with George Butterworth’s song cycle Six Songs from A Shropshire Lad. There will also be selections by four women (in order of appearance): Amy Beach, Vítězslava Kaprálová, Rebecca Clarke, and Alma Mahler. The program will conclude in the twentieth century will Claude Debussy’s Trois ballades de François Villon and Kurt Weill’s “Youkali.”
March 6: The two vocalists for this program will be tenor Michael John Butler and baritone Olivier Zerouali. The two pianists will be Julian Garvue and Ji Youn Lee. This program will also include songs by Strauss, along with works by Francis Poulenc, Lee Hoiby, Hakjun Yoon, Young-shim Noh, and Robert Schumann.
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Leah Crocetto (photograph by Jiyang Chen, courtesy of SFO)
April 10: The solo recitalist will be soprano Leah Crocetto. She will be accompanied at the piano by Carrie-Ann Matheson. The program has not yet been finalized; but it will include selections by Clara Schumann, Sergei Rachmaninoff, and Gustav Mahler.
The Taube Atrium Theater is part of the Diane B. Wilsey Center for Opera, which is located in the Veterans Building (on the fourth floor) at 401 Van Ness Avenue on the southwest corner of McAllister Street. The Osher Recital Hall is on the eleventh (top) floor of the Bowes Center at 200 Van Ness Avenue. General admission will be $30, and the “series package” of all three recitals may be purchased for $75. Single tickets may be purchased in advance online through an event page on the San Francisco Opera Web site. Those wishing to attend the entire series should call the Box Office at 415-864-3330. Note that it is possible to select the option of Wheelchair Accessible seats. In addition, subject to availability, student rush tickets will go on sale at 7 p.m. at the reduced rate of $15. There is a limit of two tickets per person, and valid identification must be shown.
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