Merola Opera Program to Kick Off Summer Season With THE SONG AS DRAMA

San Francisco’s Merola Opera Program will kick off its 2024 Summer Festival with The Song as Drama, a vocal chamber recital that explores the narrative arc of song. Ten artists from the 2024 Merola program (five singers and five pianists) will be joined by members of the San Francisco Opera Center Orchestra to perform works from a diverse range of eras and styles. Merola Artistic Director Carrie-Ann Matheson and noted lyric tenor and music educator Nicholas Phan – who collaborated on last season’s Metamorphosis: Recovery, Renewal, and Rebirth and in 2021 on What the Heart Desires – team up once again to co-curate this recital. 

The Song as Drama will be presented at 7:30pm, Thursday, June 27, 2024 at the Dianne and Tad Taube Atrium Theater, 401 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco. For more information or to purchase tickets ($35 for general admission/$10 for ages 25 and under or those attending their first Merola production), the public may visit merola.org or call the San Francisco Box Office at 415-864-3330.  

The Merola artists featured in The Song as Drama include soprano Alexa Frankian, soprano Elizabeth “Hanje” Hanje, mezzo-soprano Kara Morgan, tenor Angelo Silva, baritone Olivier Zerouali, and pianists Sujin Choi, Julian Garvue, Hyemin Jeong, Yedam Kim, and Ji Youn Lee. 

The 90-minute recital with English supertitles will encompass eight works offering audiences moving and dramatic stories, each conveyed through compelling music and text. Works by modern composers such as Anahita Abbasi, Clarice Assad, Jake Heggie, Mary Kouyoumdjian, and Kamala Sankaram will be featured in The Song as Drama along with celebrated composers from past eras including Ernest Chausson, Rebecca Clarke, and Barbara Strozzi. 

The Merola Opera Program is widely regarded as the foremost opera training program for aspiring singers, pianists, and stage directors. Merola nurtures the opera stars of tomorrow through master classes and private coaching with opera’s most accomplished singers, conductors, and directors. Participants also receive training in operatic repertoire, languages, diction, acting, stage movement, and professional development. Offered free of charge to all participants, the Merola Opera Program is unique in the industry in many ways. It is the only young artist program to provide financial support to developing artists for five years following their participation, offering aid for essential career development expenses including coaching, language classes, and audition travel. Since Carrie-Ann Matheson and Markus Beam formed the new Merola artistic team in 2021, the program has redoubled its efforts to provide exciting new curricula and added focus on preparing the burgeoning artists for extramusical aspects of a performance career. Learn more at merola.org.  

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