Besides the joy of hearing young talent a few years before they make
their mark in opera houses and recital halls, the annual SF Opera Merola
Program farewell concerts in the War Memorial also provide a fine
opportunity for believable Sally Field responses.

There was nothing rehearsed or artificial this evening, at the Grand
Finale, when Elza van den Heever first showed amazement, then allowed a
huge smile spread on her face, the young South African mezzo revelling
in the ovation she received for a wonderfully musical performance of
Salome's "Il est doux, il est bon," from Massenet's Herodiade.

"You like me, you really like me" was also the expression of genuine
delight, mercifully without the speech, when the house exploded after
amazing vocal fireworks from Nikki Einfeld.  The pint-sized redhead
from Winnipeg (a student and clone of Tracy Dahl) nailed the impossible
coloratura runs in "O legere hirondelle," from Gounod's "Mireille." She
substituted her own final phrases for the composer's, but nobody minded,
nor should they.

Youthful, sincere enthusiasm was also flooding the stage when Meredith
Arwady's contralto profunda boomed out with "Reverenza!" in a scene from
Verdi's "Falstaff," the Michigan native teasing and hoodwinking Todd
Robinson's Sir John mercilessly.

Among the men, North Carolina tenor Brian Carter was notable in Max's
difficult aria from Weber's "Der Freischutz." Another North Carolinian,
baritone Lucas Meachem - so impressive as Figaro in last week's Merola
production of "Barbiere" - had limited exposure at this concert,
participating in the "Lucia di Lammermoor" Sextet, which featured Nova
Scotia soprano as Lucia.

Joseph Kaiser was also impressive, the Montreal tenor exhibiting a fine
lyric voice in a scene from Puccini's "Edgar." He was in good company:
Atlanta mezzo Magdalena Wor (originally from Poland) and Manila baritone
Andrew Fernando.

Fernando had an impressive solo scene, from Britten's "The Rape of
Lucretia" (cut, alas, just when the music goes into high gear), and he
had a part in the hilarious "Women, women, women" Septet from Lehar's
"Merry Widow."

This year's Merola Program included 24 singers and four apprentice
coaches.  The quality of performances was uniformly high, with few errors,
and some of the singers being too careful to bring true excitement to
the music.

The parent company of the concert-producing SF Opera Center should take
note of the efficiency and thrift of using a few chairs on the empty stage
to help set the scene. It worked just fine. Ian Robertson conducted the
Opera Orchestra, providing solid support for the young singers, excelling
especially in selections by Mozart and Puccini.

The selection of the Finale's finale was excellent: "Weekend in the
Country," from Sondheim's "A Little Night Music," but - perhaps frustrated
by the preceding staging minimalism - apprentice stage director Isabel
Milenski brought everybody on, and had the chorus face upstage, swinging
their backside to the reprise, the point being...?

And yet, that misjudgment was nothing compared with the foolish decision
to amplify the spoken parts of the Sondheim excerpt.  (The Opera professes
to amplify "only speech.") The problem is that there is virtually NO
spoken part in the excerpt (or, indeed, in the entire work, which is
rather grand-opera-ish, using a great deal of parlando in dialogues),
and yet a technician in the back of the orchestra was riding the controls
wildly, trying to catch individual "spoken words." Why is this necessary?
The young singers tonight did not need such "protection"; they know more
than enough about projection and voice presence.

Janos Gereben/SF
www.sfcv.org
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