MEROLA OPERA PROGRAM SUMMER FESTIVAL PRESENTS THE MEROLA GRAND FINALE

The Merola Opera Program’s Summer Festival concludes with the popular Merola Grand Finale at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, August 16, at the War Memorial Opera House. Conductor Ari Pelto will lead the orchestra and 2014 Merola Apprentice Stage Director Omer Ben-Seadia will stage this varied musical program featuring works by Boito, Donizetti, Handel, Leoncavallo, Mascagni, Mozart, Offenbach, Poulenc, Rossini, Strauss, Stravinsky and Verdi.

   

“It is an honor for me to be working with this year's extraordinary group of singers and pianists on the Merola Grand Finale. Together we'll be presenting a vital evening of opera and relishing in a tremendous program that features various styles and forms for us and the audience to enjoy.” said 2014 Merola Apprentice Stage Director Omer Ben-Seadia. “We can't wait to share with the audience the culmination of an extraordinary journey we have taken together this summer, refining our crafts and leading the path into thrilling new worlds.”

Conductor Ari Pelto is Artistic Advisor of Opera Colorado and Principal Guest Conductor of Opera Memphis. With performances that have been called poetic, earthy, vigorous and highly individual, he is in demand at elite opera houses, ballets, symphonies and conservatories throughout the United States. Recent highlights and upcoming opera house engagements include La bohème with the Opera Theatre of St. Louis and the St. Louis Symphony, The Cunning Little Vixen at Chautauqua, Rusalka and La bohème at Boston Lyric Opera, Romeo et Juliet at Minnesota Opera, and The Magic Flute, Figaro, and Hansel and Gretel at Portland Opera. He has also been a regular guest conductor of the Atlanta Ballet. Commenting on a performance of Prokofiev’s Cinderella, the Atlanta Journal Constitution wrote, “Under Ari Pelto’s baton, the orchestra has never sounded better, nor the chemistry between pit and stage been quite so palpable.” In 2012, he collaborated with Twyla Tharp on the premiere of her new ballet, The Princess and the Goblin.

Merola’s 2014 Apprentice Stage Director Omer Ben-Seadia most recently worked with the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music by directing Gaetano Donizetti’s Don Pasquale. Robin Guarino, the J. Ralph Corbett Distinguished Chair in Opera, referred to Omer as having “the maturity, the vision and the artistic craft to lead a main stage production.”

The first Merola Grand Finale was held in 1957 as both a concert and an audition for San Francisco Opera’s general director. In 1976 the concert was opened to the public as the Merola artists’ final performance of the summer. Showcasing the progress made by the Merola artists during the course of the program and highlighting their unique talents, this year’s Merola Grand Finale will feature all 23 Merola 2014 singers. The five 2014 Merola apprentice coaches, Edoardo Barsotti, Ronny Michael Greenberg, Kirill Kuzmin, Sahar Nouriand Blair Salter, are involved in musical preparations for the concert.