Wagner by the Bay Comes to Saratoga

Submitted by Sun, 2009/06/21 - 10:58

WAGNER BY THE BAY

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Music lovers and devotees of Richard Wagner’s operas particularly can look forward to three exceptional voices in a concert of Wagner’s music at Prince of Peace church, 12770 Saratoga Ave. in Saratoga, Saturday, August 15th at 2 p.m. Jessica Leash, dramatic soprano, Delmar McComb, Heldentenor, and bass Carlos Aguilar first united in a similar concert in Santa Cruz last March; the acclaim they received prompted this recital. They will be conducted by Michel Singher, who has vast international experience, and accompanied at the piano by Hadley McCarrol, a household name to Bay Area music lovers. Selections will include Lohengrin’s farewell address, Hagen’s monologue from Die Götterdämmerung, and the “Liebestod” from Tristan und Isolde, as well as the entire first act of Die Walküre. Supertitles will be projected to enable those less familiar with the works to experience fully their dramatic evolution.

Jessica Leash has been under the tutelage of Metropolitan Opera assistant conductor Gregory Buchalter; she recently guested with San José University Opera Theater as La Principessa. Delmar McComb has sung a range of roles from Rossini through Puccini with Bayshore Lyric Opera and West Bay Opera. 2008-2009 was the last of four seasons in which Carlos Aguilar was an Artist-in-Residence at Opera San José; his roles included, among others, Sarastro, Don Basilio, Raimondo, Sparafucile, and Frère Laurent. Michel Singher has conducted hundreds of performances of some sixty operas for companies in Europe, including the Hamburgische Staatsoper, and America; he has been cover conductor for two productions at San Francisco Opera. Currently, he is, in addition to guest appearances nationally, Music Director and Coordinator of Opera at San José State University. Hadley McCarroll is sought after as a chamber musician, but has also been a pianist/vocal coach for San Francisco Opera and San Francisco Opera Center, Opera San José, West Bay Opera, San Francisco Lyric Opera, Golden Gate Opera, Berkeley Opera, and North Bay Opera, as well as BASOTI (the Bay Area Summer Opera Theater Institute). In 2006 she assisted in a new production of Der Ring des Nibelungen for the Royal Danish Opera in Copenhagen.

Wagner by the Bay tickets can be purchased at the door.

$20 general admission
$12 student/senior

For more information about the concert please call Jessica Leash, (831) 724-7268.