Very Merola Christmas Virtual Recital

* Notes *
Merola, San Francisco Opera's training program, held a third virtual recital yesterday afternoon via Zoom with pianist Ronny Michael Greenberg, soprano Maria Valdes, mezzo-soprano Alice Chung, tenor Casey Candebat, and bass-baritone Christian Pursell. It was a lovely 50 minutes of wide-ranging music from these musicians that live all over the country.

Candebat and Chung began the performance with a warm rendition of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" accompanied by Greenberg. They were video edited to be in the same scene by Pursell, who did this work for the whole recital in addition to his contribution as a bass-baritone. Greenberg did the introductions for the rest of the pieces, starting with Pursell singing "Sibilar gli angui d'Aletto" from Händel's Rinaldo, with a bit of Messiah interpolated in before the da capo. It was a bit startling to hear the English text pop up in the middle, but Pursell sang robustly. Valdes joined him for the beautiful duet from Die Zauberflöte "Bei Männern," after she sang "O Holy Night" as a solo. Her voice is very clean and has a precise delicacy.

Chung sang "Mon Coeur S’ouvre à ta voix" from Samson et Dalila. Her rich tones and the depths of her voice are evident even over Zoom. Candabat gave a vivid performance of "Ch'ella mi creda" from La fanciulla del West. The encores were Greenberg playing "La campanella" by Liszt and "Carol of the Bells." It was impressive how bell-like the piano and the voice can sound.

Tattling * 
There were a few small glitches in the sound every now and again. Candabat joked that we don't want the virtual recitals to be too good, or else no one will get back to the theater in person.

I cried during  the Mozart duet, I so miss going to the opera house. Seeing The Magic Flute at the Met last year seems so remote from now, when we can't even go to the drive in to see Tosca because of the huge spike in Covid cases and subsequent safer at home order.