Merola Opera Program and San Francisco Opera Center Reveal 2026 Schwabacher Recital Series

Now in its 42nd year, the Schwabacher Recital Series, presented by Merola Opera Program and San Francisco Opera Center, will return this spring with a series of three recitals at San Francisco Opera's Dianne and Tad Taube Atrium Theater (April 1), First Unitarian Universalist Society of San Francisco (May 5) and San Francisco Conservatory of Music's Barbro Osher Recital Hall at the Bowes Center (June 16). All concerts begin at a new curtain time of 7 p.m. The series presents emerging and esteemed artists from around the globe, primarily alumni or faculty of Merola Opera Program, performing an eclectic selection of song literature in the intimacy of a recital setting.

The series opens on April 1 with three 2024 Merola alumni and second-year San Francisco Opera Adler Fellows: soprano Mary Hoskins, baritone Olivier Zerouali and pianist Ji Youn Lee. The evening's program, curated by tenor Nicholas Phan, will be Hugo Wolf's Italienisches Liederbuch, a set of 46 German songs with text drawn from Paul Heyse's poetry.

Soprano Mary Hoskins - Last year with San Francisco Opera, she performed roles in Mozart's Idomeneo and Jake Heggie and Terrence McNally's Dead Man Walking, and covered Kitty Hart in Dead Man Walking and Second Flower Maiden in Parsifal. As a participant of the Merola Opera Program, her assignments included the title role in the final scene of Ariadne auf Naxos in the Schwabacher Summer Concert, as well as an excerpt from Fidelio and Strauss' showstopping aria “Zweite Brautnacht” from Die Ägyptische Helena for the Merola Grand Finale concert. Hoskins won first place at the 2024 Palm Springs Opera Guild Vocal Competition and in 2022 and 2023 performed as a studio artist with Wolf Trap Opera, covering the title role of Pauline Viardot's Cendrillon and performing in the festival's 2020 recorded scenes concert as Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte, Mimì in La Bohème, Mary in Gregory Spears' Fellow Travelers and the First Lady in Die Zauberflöte. Other notable roles include the title roles of Puccini's Suor Angelica and Handel's Theodora. She is a two-year alumna of Dolora Zajick's Institute for Young Dramatic Voices.

Last year with San Francisco Opera, baritone Olivier Zerouali performed the roles of Marullo in Rigoletto, Motorcycle Cop in Dead Man Walking and a Trojan Man in Idomeneo and covered the role of Schaunard in La Bohème. While in the Merola Opera Program, he sang Silvio in the love duet from Pagliacci, was a featured soloist on the chamber music recital: Song As Drama, covered the role of Masetto in Don Giovanni and performed Malatesta in a scene from Don Pasquale at the Merola Grand Finale. He has sung the roles of Robert in Iolanta, Slook in Rossini's Il Cambiale di Matrimonio, Betto in Gianni Schicchi and Brother in Kurt Weill's Seven Deadly Sins, all with Yale Opera Theatre. In 2023 he bowed as Mercutio in Roméo et Juliette for his debut with the Glimmerglass Festival. Other roles include Papageno in Die Zauberflöte, Pandolfe in Massenet's Cendrillon, the title role of Le Nozze di Figaro and Zaretsky/Captain in Eugene Onegin. He workshopped two new operas with Highlands Opera Studio: Olivia Shortt's The Museum of the Lost and Found and Ashley Au's Inertia. Zerouali completed his undergraduate studies at SUNY Purchase's Conservatory of Music and his master's degree at Yale University.

Adler Fellow Ji Youn Lee is an accomplished pianist who recently completed her Master's of Music in Collaborative Piano at The Juilliard School. She earned a Bachelor's of Music in Piano Performance from the New England Conservatory (NEC), graduating with honors in 2020. While at NEC, she was awarded first place in the Concerto Competition and performed with the New England Conservatory Symphony at Jordan Hall. Last year, she was on the San Francisco Opera music staff for La Bohème, Dead Man Walking and Bohème Out of the Box. Lee has previously collaborated with the Brockton Symphony, the Broad Street Orchestra and the Hawaii Symphony. Other notable achievements include prizes from the Duo Competition at the Music Academy of the West, the Ke'alohi International Piano Competition and the Jacob Flier International Piano Competition. During her time in the Merola Opera Program, Lee played and coached the third act of La Bohème for the Schwabacher Summer Concert and helped musically prepare Don Giovanni. Her rich experiences with Merola deepened her understanding of vocal collaboration and enhanced her appreciation of the opera art form.

Nicholas Phan is a Grammy Award-winning lyric tenor, curator and educator celebrated for his expressive artistry and versatility across a wide-ranging repertoire spanning nearly 500 years. In 2010 he co-founded Art Song Chicago, where he serves as artistic director, to promote art song and vocal chamber music. His programs examine themes of identity, highlight underrepresented voices from history and illuminate the relevance of music from all periods to the present day.

The second recital, Paths of the Heart, on May 5, features two 2025 Merola Opera Program graduates: baritone Gabriel Natal-Báez and pianist Tzu Kuang Tan. The artists will perform in a program starting with selections from Songs of Travel by Vaughan Williams and songs by Franz Schubert. The duo then embarks on an exploration of Spanish literature with Don Quichotte à Dulcinée by Maurice Ravel (based on the Cervantes classic novel) and M. Ortega's Dos Canciones del Romancero Gitano de Federico García Lorca, which was inspired by García Lorca's poetry about the romances of Romani women. The concert closes with Latin-American songs by Luis Antonio Ramírez, Manuel Ponce, Astor Piazzolla and Alfonso Esparza Oteo.

Gabriel Natal-Báez is a Puerto Rican baritone and first-year Adler Fellow with a blossoming career in opera, art song and concert work. As a versatile singer with a repertoire that spans from the Baroque and Classical eras to contemporary works, Natal-Báez finds his greatest artistic expression in the Romantic and Bel Canto repertoire. A 2026 semi-finalist in the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition, Natal-Báez has performed Marullo in Rigoletto with Teatro Lirico d'Europa and Le Podestat in Le Docteur Miracle. At Rice University, he has appeared as Beaumarchais in The Ghosts of Versailles and Aeneas in Dido and Aeneas, and covered Tarquinius in The Rape of Lucretia. In May 2025, he premiered the role of the Explorer in Theo Chandler's new chamber opera, Breathe in Light. As a participant in the Merola Opera Program, he covered the role of Raimbaud in Le Comte Ory and performed on Songfest: A Grand Night for Singing. His versatility also extends to the vibrant world of Zarzuela, where he has participated in multiple productions with Ópera de Puerto Rico. Recently, he sang alongside his teacher and renowned soprano Ana María Martínez in Noche Española, a concert celebrating Latino Heritage Month with Zarzuela and Latin American repertoire. In addition to his work as a singer, Natal-Báez holds a bachelor's degree in humanities with a concentration in painting.

Originally from Malaysia, Pianist Tzu Kuang Tan has performed as a song pianist and chamber musician in many venues throughout the United States, Singapore, Austria and Malaysia. He recently released the single “Aubade With A Chance of Rain” by Tom Cipullo, alongside mezzo-soprano and former Merolini Joanne Evans. Recent career highlights include a 2023 performance at the Music Academy of the West, where he appeared with Evans as part of the Marilyn Horne Song Competition prize. In 2024, he made his Carnegie Hall debut in Zankel Hall, performing alongside mezzo-soprano Ruby Dibble (Merola, 2025), as a participant in Carnegie Hall SongStudio. Tan is a member of Houston Grand Opera's Butler Studio. Previously, he was a member of the music staff at the Butler Opera Center at the University of Texas at Austin, where he conducted his first opera, Audition Fever by Tzu-Chin Hsu. Tan is currently pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the University of Texas at Austin, where he studies under Tamar Sanikidze.

On June 16, the final concert of this year's Schwabacher series will showcase the artistic collaboration between bass-baritone Kyle Ketelsen and pianist Carrie-Ann Matheson. Their program will feature songs by Ravel, Bizet, Gounod and Mozart.

American bass-baritone Kyle Ketelsen is in regular demand by the world's leading opera houses and orchestras for his vibrant and handsome stage presence and distinctive vocalism. He made his San Francisco Opera debut as Escamillo in Carmen in 2006, and he reprised the role in 2019. At the beginning of the 2025–26 Season, Ketelsen returned to the Metropolitan Opera in the title role of Don Giovanni. With San Francisco Opera from June 7–27, he sings Orest in Elektra under the baton of Music Director Eun Sun Kim. Also this season, he appears at Munich's Bavarian State Opera in a new production of Gounod's Faust and a revival of Weber's Der Freischütz. He joins Hamburg State Opera for performances of Salome and Elektra, and appears with the Madison Symphony Orchestra for its annual Christmas concert series. In the 2024–25 Season, Ketelsen made his Salzburg Festival debut as Leporello in Don Giovanni, which he also sang in Munich. He appeared in a new production of Faust with the Canadian Opera Company as Méphistophélès and sang Adahm in Die ersten Menschen with the Dutch National Opera. He returned to Hamburg for his role debut as Orest and appeared as Howard in Lyric Opera of Chicago's premiere of Missy Mazzoli's The Listeners. In concert, he performed Der Freischütz with Kammerakademie Potsdam.