2016 Schwabacher Debut Recitals to Feature Baritone Efrain Solis & Pianist Robert Mollicone

The 33rd season of the Schwabacher Debut Recitals continues on Sunday, March 20 at the new Dianne and Tad Taube Atrium Theater with baritone Efraín Solís and pianist Robert Mollicone.

Mexican-American baritone Efraín Solís has sung leading roles with San Francisco Opera, notably Papageno in Mozart's The Magic Flute and Dandini in Rossini's La Cenerentola, and is a recent San Francisco Opera Adler Fellow and 2013 Merola Opera Program participant. He was also a finalist for the 2013 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. Praising his interpretation of Slook in the San Francisco Opera Center and Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra co-production of Rossini's La Cambiale di Matrimonio, the San Francisco Chronicle said, "For theatrical charisma and musical bravado, it would be hard to top the performance of baritone Efraín Solís, who made Slook a figure of comic fun and unexpected nobility."

The March 20 recital will feature Histoires Naturelles, Maurice Ravel's witty and charming five-song cycle set to poems of Jules Renard; songs by the pioneering Mexican composer and songwriter María Grever (1894-1951), writer of such hits as "Volveré" and "What a Difference a Day Makes"; music by Franz Schubert and Erich Wolfgang Korngold; and Russian and Spanish works.

Since 1983, the Schwabacher Debut Recitals have introduced the artistry of many acclaimed international singers including Anna Netrebko, Deborah Voigt, Susan Graham, Brian Asawa and Thomas Hampson. The annual series showcases exemplary artists who have participated in the prestigious training programs of San Francisco Opera Center and the Merola Opera Program, whose performance-oriented residencies offer intensive individual coaching and performance opportunities to young professional international artists. The recitals allow Bay Area audiences to experience exciting young talent perform a wide-ranging and eclectic repertoire of song literature in the intimate setting of the state-of-the-art Taube Atrium Theater, which boasts the innovative Meyer Sound Constellation acoustic system.

The Schwabacher Debut Recitals are endowed in perpetuity by the generosity of the late James Schwabacher and sponsored by the Jack H. Lund Charitable Trust. A celebrated Bay Area singer, recitalist, scholar and teacher, James Schwabacher was a co-founder of the Merola Opera Program.

Schwabacher Debut Recitals take place at the Dianne and Tad Taube Atrium Theater at the new Diane B. Wilsey Center for Opera, located on the fourth floor of the Veterans Building (401 Van Ness Avenue, at McAllister, in San Francisco). Single tickets are $30; general seating. Tickets may be purchased at the San Francisco Opera Box Office in person or by phone at (415) 864-3330 or online at sfopera.com. Student rush tickets, subject to availability, are available for $15 at the Atrium Theater 30 minutes prior to each recital (limit of two tickets per person; valid ID is required; subject to availability). Artists, programs, schedules and ticket prices are subject to change.

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