Three New Original Digital Series from SFO

As was announced this past Wednesday, the second category of new offerings for the Spring 2021 season of the San Francisco Opera (SFO) will involve three series of short-form digital content. These are very much work-in-progress projects, which means that only one release date has been announced thus far. Nevertheless, it is worth reviewing the plans for these offerings, since that only release date takes place in a little less than two weeks. Here is what has been announced thus far for each of these series:

In Song: This will provide the opportunity to learn more about SFO performers through a series of intimate video portraits. The current plan is to release six of these programs, each of which will have roughly ten minutes’ duration. As of this writing, vocalists have been finalized for the first three of these programs, the first of which has been given a release date:

Mezzo J’Nai Bridges (photograph by Taylor Ballantyne, courtesy of San Francisco Opera)

• March 11: The first vocalist to be highlighted will be mezzo J’Nai Bridges. She will sing “Widmung” (dedication), the first song in Robert Schumann’s Opus 25 Myrthen (myrtles) cycle, accompanied at the piano by Damien Sneed. She will also perform a medley of spirituals including “I’m Determined to Walk with Jesus” and “I Don’t Feel No Ways Tired.” For accompaniment Sneed will lead a trio, whose other members will be drummer Jonathan Barber and Michael Olatuja on bass. The performance was filmed at the Blue Gallery in New York this past January 29.
• The second vocalist will also be a mezzo, Jamie Barton. Indeed, in the Opera is ON presentation of Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen (the ring of the Nibelung) taking place next month, Barton will be found in two of the operas, singing three different roles: Fricka in Das Rheingold, the Second Norn in the Prologue to Götterdämmerung and Waltraute in the final scene of the first act (allowing plenty of time to get out of one character and into another). Barton will use her In Song program to reflect on her roots in a region of Georgia known as “The Pocket;” and her selections will range from classical to bluegrass.
• The third program will feature the husband-and-wife duo of tenor Pene Pati and soprano Amina Edris. They reflect backgrounds roughly half a world apart, and they will use their program to highlight both of them. Edris will offer examples of the traditional music she learned while growing up in Cairo, Egypt. Pati, on the other hand, will perform traditional Samoan and Maori music, accompanying himself of both guitar and ukulele.

Late in March the first episode of North Stage Door will debut. This will be a podcast that will focus on all the backstage activity essential for any opera production. There will be interviews with opera stars, composers, directors, writers, craftspeople and musicians. The first episode will focus on mounting the production of Gioachino Rossini’s The Barber of Seville that will be given eleven drive-in live performances on the Marin Center campus. The entire series will consist of four episodes, each 45 minutes in duration.

Atrium Sessions will present performances taking place in the Dianne and Tad Taube Atrium Theater, part of the Diane B. Wilsey Center for Opera on the fourth floor of the Veteran’s Building, across the courtyard from the War Memorial Opera House. The series of short performances will begin with videos of graduates of the SFO Center’s training programs. These will include soprano Rhoslyn Jones, mezzo-soprano Laura Krumm, baritones Edward Nelson and Efraín Solís and bass-baritone Michael Sumuel. The plan is to release the first video in April with the following videos to be shared every few weeks.