This year the annual Summer Festival of the Merola Opera Program will get under way at the same time that San Francisco Opera will be presenting the final performances of the three remaining operas scheduled to conclude its Centennial Season. This year there will be 28 artists in the training program, eighteen from the United States, along with two from both South Korea and the United Kingdom, and one each from Canada, China, Costa Rica, Cuba, France, and Taiwan. This will amount to six sopranos, four mezzos, one contralto, five tenors, four baritones, two bass-baritones, five pianists also serving as coaches, and one stage director. The complete schedule of performances is as follows:
Thursday, June 29, 7:30 p.m., San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM) Concert Hall: Metamorphosis: Recovery, Renewal, and Rebirth will be a vocal recital with piano accompaniment. The program will feature a rich array of songs that explore the many facets of transformation. It will be curated by Carrie-Ann Matheson, Artistic Director of the San Francisco Opera Center, and tenor Nicholas Phan. English supertitles will be provided. The selections themselves will account for an impressive diversity of composers, a few of whom are Alma Mahler, Florence Price, Samuel Barber, and Aaron Copland.
Thursday, July 13, 7:30 p.m., and Saturday, July 15, 2 p.m., Herbst Theatre: The fully-staged opera of the Festival will be Benjamin Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia. Unless I am mistaken, this opera was last presented by Merola in the summer of 2013. This is probably Britten’s best-known chamber opera; and it is as intense as Peter Grimes, the opera that preceded it in the Britten catalog. German director Jan Eßinger will provide the staging, making his United States debut. The conductor will be Judith Yan.
Thursday, August 3, 7:30 p.m., and Saturday, August 5, 2 p.m., SFCM Concert Hall: This will be the annual Schwabacher Summer Concert with its usual program format structured around staged scenes. As usual, the program will encompass works by leading opera composers, such as George Frideric Handel, Gaetano Donizetti, and Giuseppe Verdi. The performances will be sung with English supertitles. Staging will be directed by Omer Ben Seadia, a Merola “alumnus” from 2014; and Steven White will conduct.
Saturday, August 19, 7:30 p.m., War Memorial Opera House: As usual, the concluding program will feature all of the young artists in a dazzling array of many of the major works in the repertoire of grand opera. This will also provide Merola stage director Tania Arazi-Combs with the opportunity to exercise her skills. The conductor will be Kelly Kuo, who made his debut during last season’s performance of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 620 opera The Magic Flute.
As usual, there will be a post-performance reception. This will take place in the Green Room at the Veterans Building, which is adjacent to the Opera House. All tickets may be purchased online through a separate Web page. All other tickets may be purchased online through the hyperlinks attached to the above dates.
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