Merola Grand Finale 2024

The Merola Opera Program, a summer-long training session for aspiring opera professionals, closed out its 2024 iteration with a Grand Finale in the San Francisco Opera House last Saturday night. Though I didn't attend any of their public concerts this summer, the consensus from friends was that this year's roster featured a particularly talented group of singers. The grab-bag Grand Finale concert, with 23 singers performing 20 different operatic scenes, proved them right. (All production photos are by Kristen Loken.)

Here are a few of my favorite moments: Moriah Berry was an expert stage comedian and her soprano perfectly crystalline as Norina in Donizetti's Don Pasquale ("Pronta io son"). She was ably supported by baritone Olivier Zerouali as Malatesta.

A rather dull duet from Mozart's Cosi fan tutte ("Ahime! Che cosa avete?...Il core vi dono") was enlivened by the lovely interplay between mezzo-soprano Lucy Joy Altus as Dorabella and baritone Justice Yates as Guglielmo. Yates also returned for a great solo aria from Terence Blanchard's Fire Shut Up in My Bones ("Lord, take this wanting from me").

A rarity from Mascagni, L'amico Fritz ("Suzel, buon di") was sensitively sung by tenor Michael John Butler as Fritz and soprano Viviana Aurelia Goodwin as Suzel, depicting a gentle flirtation while springtime is busting out all over with ripening cherries.

The showstopping number of the night was the famous duet from Bellini's Norma ("Mira, o Norma..."), performed by soprano Lydia Grindatto and mezzo-soprano Simona Genga as Adalgisa. They sang it better than a few professional sopranos I have heard over the decades at the San Francisco Opera. Grindatto also performed the title role in a quintet from Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor and an operetta ditty from Emmerick Kalman's Die Czardasrustin ("Tanzen mocht ich"), and was superb in all three.

I have always wondered how the assignments at the Grand Finale are chosen because sometimes singers appear in two or three scenes while others barely get one. One example was mezzo-soprano Lindsay Martin as Sister Helen and soprano Elizabeth "Hanje" Hanje as Sister Rose in a scene between two nuns from Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking ("Now and at the hour of our death"). I would have loved to hear more from Hanje but this was it for the evening.

At least there were two appearances by the brilliant young tenor Giorgi Guliashvili, in the Lucia di Lamermoor scene and in a duet with soprano Alexa Frankian from Tchaikovsky's Iolanta.

The final 20 minutes of the long concert leaned into "light classical," beginning with Longing for Diamond Mountain, a Korean art song by Young Sup-Choi. It was performed beautifully by soprano Hannah Cho, baritone Hyungjin Son, and bass-baritone Donghoon Kang. All three of them were outstanding in various scenes on the program, as was Kara Morgan in her brief appearance as Charlotte in Massenet's Werther. Good luck to all of the young artists embarking on a professional career.