Merola Opera Program Concludes Season With Merola Grand Finale

Merola Opera Program’s 2023 Summer Festival comes to a triumphant conclusion with the Merola Grand Finale, featuring all of this year’s young artists performing a dazzling array of opera’s most brilliant arias, duets, and more, on the stage of the War Memorial Opera House. Conducted by Maestro Kelly Kuo and directed by 2023 Merola Stage Director Tania Arazi Coambs, this evening showcases the extraordinary talent of the 2023 cohort.

Kuo made his Merola debut last season, conducting the company’s critically acclaimed production of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte. A post-performance reception with the artists will be held immediately following the performance in The Green Room (additional ticket required). The Merola Grand Finale will be presented at 7:30pm, Saturday, August 19, 2023 at the War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Ave, San Francisco. 

For more information or to purchase tickets ($10*/$55/$80), the public may visit merola.org/summer or call the San Francisco Box Office at (415) 864-3330. *For audience members who have never attended a Merola production, a limited quantity of $10 tickets will be available with the code MEROLANEW. These Community Access tickets are sponsored by TogetherSF. Tickets ($75) to the post-performance reception, which will be held in The Green Room at the Veterans Building, must be purchased separately.

The repertoire for the Merola Grand Finale will showcase selections from a wide range of operas and musical theatre pieces that include Wagner’s Tannhäuser and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Britten’s Peter Grimes, Rossini’s L'italiana in Algeri and La Cenerentola, Bizet’s Les pêcheurs de perles, Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra, Richard Danielpour’s Margaret Garner, Gregory Spears’ Fellow Travelers, Mozart’s Don Giovanni and La clemenza di Tito, Pauline Viardot’s Cendrillon, Ruperto Chapí’s Las hijas del Zebedeo, Federico Moreno Torroba’s Luisa Fernanda, Puccini’s La bohème, Verdi’s Otello, Richard Rodgers’ The Boys from Syracuse, and Mitch Leigh’s Man of La Mancha.

The young artists performing are: 

• Georgiana Adams (Soprano)
• Lucy Joy Altus (Mezzo-soprano)
• Juliette Chauvet (Soprano)
• Nicole Marie Cloutier (Pianist/Coach)
• Caroline Corrales (Soprano)
• Eleomar Cuello (Baritone)
• Daniel Luis Espinal (Tenor) 
• Joanne Evans (Mezzo-soprano)
• Simona Genga (Mezzo-soprano)
• Kevin Godínez (Baritone)
• Julian Grabarek (Pianist/Coach)
• Shan Hai (Soprano)
• Hyemin Jeong (Pianist/Coach)
• Chance Jonas-O'Toole (Tenor)
• Samuel Kidd (Baritone) 
• So ry Kim (Soprano)
• Thomas William Kinch (Tenor) 
• Natalie Lewis (Mezzo-soprano)
• Pei-Hsuan Tiana Lin (Pianist/Coach)
• James McCarthy (Bass-baritone)
• Cecelia Steffen McKinley (Contralto) 
• Olivia Prendergast (Soprano)
• Deborah Robertson (Pianist/Coach)
• Cameron Rolling (Baritone)
• Finn Sagal (Bass-baritone)
• Sahel Salam (Tenor) 
• Demetrious Sampson, Jr. (Tenor)