Friday, March 8, 2019

Schwabacher Recitals to Continue Next Month

Tenor Christopher Oglesby (courtesy of the San Francisco Opera)

Next month will see the final two concerts to be offered by the 36th season of the Schwabacher Recital Series, presented jointly by the San Francisco Opera Center and the Merola Opera Program. The first of these will take place at the beginning of the month and will feature three Merola alumni: soprano Mary Evelyn Hangley (2016, currently an Adler Fellow), tenor Christopher Oglesby (2018, also currently an Adler Fellow), and pianist Mark Morash (1987, Director of Musical Studies at the San Francisco Opera Center).

The program will begin with two songs for tenor, whose instrumentation also requires a horn, Franz Schubert’s D. 943 “Auf dem Strom” (on the stream) and Benjamin Britten’s Opus 55, “Still falls the rain: The raids 1940. Night and dawn.” The latter is the third in Britten’s series of five canticles, setting a text by Edith Sitwell. These selections will be followed by the six tenor songs in Richard Strauss’ Opus 19. Hangley will be featured in Antonín Dvořák’s Opus 55 setting of seven poems by Adolf Heyduk, collected under the title Cigánské melodie (gypsy songs). The remainder of the program will be devoted to selected songs by both Charles Ives and Gabriel Fauré, as well as Italian duets by several different composers.

Like the other Schwabacher Recital programs, this concert will take place in the Taube Atrium Theater, 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. It will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, April 3. General admission will be $30. Tickets may be purchased in advance online through an event page on the San Francisco Opera Web site.

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