Festival Opera to Host SALON SERIES at Piedmont Center for the Arts
Baritone Efraín Solís and pianists Daniel Lockert and Marika Yasuda headline the intimate concert series.
With the return of autumn, Festival Opera will offer its annual Salon Series, a highly popular trio of concerts September through November, featuring innovative programming and artists presented at the intimate Piedmont Center for the Arts, 801 Magnolia Avenue, Piedmont. Each Salon includes a convivial post-performance reception with the artists. Tickets are $40 per concert or $95 for a subscription to all three and may be purchased online.
Sunday, Sept. 27, 2026 at 7.30 p.m
The new Salon Series will begin with the inaugural class of Festival Opera's Resident Artists featuring soprano Marielle Leiboff; soprano Rachel Nelson; mezzo-soprano Phoebe Dinga; tenor Spencer Greene; and baritone Liam Daley, with Festival Opera veteran pianist Daniel Lockert.
The program will present these young, talented artists singing cherished opera arias, scenes and contemporary works by Handel, Mozart, Verdi, Leoncavallo, Lehár, R. Strauss, Massenet, Rachmaninoff, Jeanine Tesori, and Leonard Bernstein.
Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026 at 4 p.m
“Operatic Mad Scenes” with sopranos Aura Veruni and Lila Khazoum with pianist Daniel Lockert, performing musical excerpts from Idomeneo, Macbeth, The Magic Flute, Anna Bolena, Hamlet, and Lucia di Lammermoor with costumes by designer Marina Polakoff—who recently created the extraordinary costumes for Festival Opera's acclaimed Alcina—and props to help with the storytelling. This concert will lean into the macabre and unhinged mad scenes of opera, just in time for Halloween.
Sunday, Nov. 22, 2026 at 4 p.m
The series will reach its finale with the Festival Opera debut of critically acclaimed baritone singer, Efraín Solís. Praised for his "theatrical charisma and musical bravado," Solís recently gave his first Metropolitan Opera performance as Salvador Dalí in the world premiere of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Mason Bates. A graduate of San Francisco Opera's Merola Program and Adler Fellowship, and now performing with opera companies nationwide, Solís will be joined by “virtuosic” San Francisco Opera pianist Marika Yasuda. The program will begin with music by Poulenc, Mexican composer Manuel Ponce, Argentinean composer Julián Aguirre, and a trio of Russian composers, Tchaikovsky, Sviridov and Rachmaninoff.
A highlight of the November Salon will be the world premiere of Borders of Dreaming, a newly commissioned song cycle by acclaimed Colombian composer Juan Sebastián Cardona Ospina with text by Michael Colbruno. Inspired by the extraordinary true story of Andry José Hernández Romero, the gay makeup artist wrongfully deported to El Salvador's notorious CECOT prison, the work transforms a contemporary human rights story into a moving musical testament to justice, resilience, and the enduring strength of the human spirit. Its themes are certain to resonate powerfully with Bay Area audiences and provide a memorable conclusion to Festival Opera's 35th anniversary.
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Ride the Cyclone City Lights Theater Company (7/16-8/23) |