Merola Grand Finale 2024

* Notes *
This year's Merola Grand Finale was held last night at San Francisco Opera. It is always interesting to hear singers on the main stage with the full orchestra, conducted here by Steven White.

The set was from Tristan und Isolde, which opens next month. There were lighting effects and two stagehands would move a bench about in between numbers.I'm not sure how effective director Anna Theodosakis work was, especially with this bench, but it was amusing.

There were often exaggerated mannered movements in the comedic scenes like soprano Moriah Natasha Berry and baritone Olivier Zerouali in "Pronta io son" from Donizetti's  Don Pasquale  or  bass-baritone Donghoon Kang, bass-baritone Benjamin Sokol, and tenor Angelo Silva in "Pappataci! Che mai sento?" from Rossini's L'Italiana in Algieri (pictured, photograph by Kristen Loken). The singing in this duet and trio was great, all very charming and light. I particularly liked how sweet tenor Silva was.

The more weighty pieces were most impressive. The quartet "Mir ist so wunderbar" from Fidelio was absolutely lovely. Soprano Hannah Cho is a dainty and hopefully Marzellina, bass-baritone Donghoon Kang sounds very warm as Rocco, and tenor Nathan Bryon held his own. But best of all was soprano Mary Hoskins as Leonora, whose voice is clear and utterly effortless. I also really liked hearing mezzo-soprano Simone Genga (Adalgisa) and soprano Lydia Grindatto (Norma) sing together in "Mira, o Norma...Si fino all'ore estreme."

There were some more unusual pieces selected, including "Lord, take this wanting from me" from Terence Blanchard's Fire Shut Up in My Bones, Now and at the hour of our death from Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking, and "Longing for Diamond Mountain" a song in Korean by Young Sun Choi. Baritone Justice Yates did well in the Blanchard, as did soprano Elizabeth Hanje in the Heggie, I definitely would like to hear both these singers again. It was fun to hear the three Korean singers, soprano Hannah Cho, baritone Hyungyin Son, and bass-baritone Donghoun Kang sing in their native language.

Also impressive was soprano Alexa Frankian and tenor Giorgi Guliashvili (pictured, photograph by Kristen Loken) in "Tvoyo mol? an'e peponyatno?" from Iolanta.The singing was powerful and moving.

Our ending piece which has all the Merolini on stage was Noel Coward's "I'll see you again" from the 1929 operetta Bitter Sweet.

*Tattling * 
As with last year in lieu of an overture we had talking. The new Executive Director of Merola Sean Waugh wpoke first, and three current Adler Fellows (Olivia Smith, Arianna Rodriguez, and Caroline Corrales).

The audience was quiet and engaged. I was surrounded by blogger friends who all are very well-behaved. The main thing I noticed was that people really want to look at their programs even though it's very dark in the hall during the performance. On the aisles there are lights illuminating the row letter, and many people that could would use this to see where we were in the sequence of the concert.