39th Season Of Schwabacher Recital Series Begins Next Month

The 39th season of the Schwabacher Recital Series, presented by San Francisco Opera Center and the Merola Opera Program, opens on March 1 with soprano Meigui Zhang and pianist John Churchwell and continues on March 22 with a program curated by Nicholas Phan featuring five San Francisco Opera Adler Fellows and Merola alumni. Both concerts take place at San Francisco's Dianne and Tad Taube Atrium Theater in the Veterans Building.

The Schwabacher Recital Series presents emerging and esteemed artists from around the globe, performing an eclectic selection of song literature and new works in the intimacy of a recital setting, Recitals later this season feature countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen and pianist Carrie-Ann Matheson on April 12 and mezzo-soprano Erin Wagner and pianist Shawn Chang on May 18.

On March 1, Merola alumni soprano Meigui Zhang (2018) and pianist John Churchwell (1996) will perform a program of art songs and arias in four languages: German, French, Italian and Chinese. Zhang, a native of Chengdu, China, said about one of the Chinese repertoire highlights of this concert: "I deliberately chose a very representative Chinese art song adapted from the ancient poems of the Song dynasty and my favorite song: Ding Shande's 'Sunflower from my lover.' I look forward to sharing these most beautiful melodies with the audience in San Francisco."

Meigui Zhang made her San Francisco Opera debut in Summer 2022 as Dai Yu in Bright Sheng and David Henry Hwang's Dream of the Red Chamber and returned last November in another role debut in Gluck's Orpheus and Eurydice, garnering praise from Opera News as a "touchingly expressive, plush-voiced Eurydice." Zhang is also the subject of an episode of the Company's award-winning video portrait series, In Song, in which she performed Eva Dell'Acqua's "Villanelle," a French song that is also part of this recital's program.

San Francisco Opera's Head of Music Staff John Churchwell was recently appointed co-director, with mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke, of the Lehrer Vocal Institute at Santa Barbara's Music Academy of the West. He has assisted on more than 140 productions and collaborated with the world's leading conductors, including Eun Sun Kim, Nicola Luisotti, Donald Runnicles, James Conlon, Marco Armiliato and Fabio Luisi and was an assistant conductor at the Metropolitan Opera. He has collaborated in recital with many acclaimed artists, notably Renée Fleming, Joyce DiDonato, Susan Graham, Lawrence Brownlee, Lisette Oropesa, Isabel Leonard and Michael Fabiano.

The second Schwabacher recital of the season, on March 22, features five second-year San Francisco Opera Adler Fellows and Merola alumni: soprano Mikayla Sager, mezzo-soprano Gabrielle Beteag, tenors Victor Cardamone and Edward Graves and pianist Marika Yasuda. The artists will perform rarely heard musical selections in a program curated by tenor Nicholas Phan that spans from Brahms, Schumann and Monteverdi to Pauline Viardot, Nora Holt and Ruth Crawford Seeger.

Phan said, "The program is centered around the theme of night. The recital's wide-ranging repertoire explores sunset to sunrise and all of the fun, drama and beauty that happens in between. This is always a special opportunity to collaborate with the Adler Fellows in curating and preparing their Schwabacher recitals. Recital singing requires sophisticated vocal and interpretive techniques to capture the subtleties of the music and poetic texts, and working on these skills with these talented, young artists gives me much reassurance that this tradition has a bright future."

Canadian soprano Mikayla Sager first appeared with the Company in the Eun Sun Kim Conducts Verdi concert last summer and returned to the War Memorial Opera House stage in October as Sister Felicity in Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites. Beginning March 10, Sager will share the role of Mimì in San Francisco Opera's touring production of Bohème Out of the Box.

Mezzo-soprano Gabrielle Beteag first bowed with San Francisco Opera in Bright Sheng and David Henry Hwang's Dream of the Red Chamber in 2022. During the Company's Centennial Season, Beteag created the role of Iras in the world premiere of John Adams' Antony and Cleopatra and made her role debut as Sister Gertrude in Dialogues of the Carmelites. Prior to the Adler Fellowship Program, Beteag was a Grand Finals Winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 2020.

As a first-year Adler Fellow in 2022, tenor Victor Cardamone made his San Francisco Opera debut in Dream of the Red Chamber. This March and April, he shares the role of Rodolfo with Edward Graves in San Francisco Opera's Bohème Out of the Box. He previously participated in the first workshops/studio recordings for Matthew Aucoin's Eurydice, Scott Davenport Richards' Blind Injustice and Kevin Puts' The Hours.

This spring, tenor Edward Graves shares the role of Rodolfo with Victor Cardamone in San Francisco Opera's Bohème Out of the Box which will visit venues in Alameda, South San Francisco, Los Gatos and Dublin. Graves made role debuts with the Company in Dream of the Red Chamber and most recently as Gastone in a new production of La Traviata. He created the role of Policeman 2 in Jeanine Tesori and Tazewell Thompson's Blue at The Glimmerglass Festival. Later this year he makes his Spoleto Festival USA debut as Anatol in Barber's Vanessa.

Pianist and vocal coach Marika Yasuda is a recent graduate of the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University where she is a doctoral candidate in Collaborative Piano. She has served on productions of The Barber of Seville, La Bohème, Gianni Schicchi, West Side Story and Mason Bates and Mark Campbell's The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs. In 2022, she was on music staff for San Francisco Opera's productions of Dream of the Red Chamber and La Traviata and later this spring will perform at Bohème Out of the Box.

Nicholas Phan is a Grammy-nominated American tenor who is recognized as an opera and concert soloist and an avid recitalist. Co-founder of Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago, an organization devoted to promoting underserved repertoire, Phan is also a sought-after curator and programmer. He has created programs for Merola Opera Program, San Francisco Performances, WFMT, WQXR, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society and Bravo! Vail Music Festival. His programs often examine themes of identity, highlight unfairly underrepresented voices from history and strive to underline the relevance of music from all periods to the currents of the present day.

Tickets (general seating) are $30; a series package for all four recitals is $100. Tickets can be purchased at the San Francisco Opera Box Office (301 Van Ness Avenue) in person, by phone at (415) 864-3330 and online at sfopera.com/srs.

Please note: The four-recital package is available only in-person or by phone. Student rush tickets, subject to availability, are available for $15 at each venue 30 minutes prior to each recital. (Limit of two tickets per person; valid ID is required.) Artists, programs, schedules and ticket prices are subject to change.

The Dianne and Tad Taube Atrium Theater is a state-of-the-art performance venue utilizing the Constellation acoustic system from Berkeley-based Meyer Sound. The Taube Atrium Theater is part of San Francisco Opera's Diane B. Wilsey Center for Opera, located on the fourth floor of the Veterans Building at 401 Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco.

The San Francisco Conservatory of Music's Barbro Osher Recital Hall is located at 200 Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco.

For complete information about the Company's health and safety protocols, visit sfopera.com/safetyfirst.

To ensure flexibility for patrons, no-fee exchanges will be accepted up to two hours before performances. Patrons may donate tickets for a tax deduction until curtain time.

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