SAN FRANCISCO, CA (November 17, 2022) — San Francisco Opera Center Artistic Director Carrie-Ann Matheson and General Manager Markus Beam announced today the 11 recipients of the 2023 San Francisco Opera Adler Fellowship. In January 2023, the cohort of talented young musicians begins an intensive residency at San Francisco Opera where they will receive individually tailored musical and performance training and a wide range of professional and personal development instruction. Since its inception in 1977, the prestigious Adler Fellowship has nurtured more than 180 young artists, launching the careers of many performers, conductors, vocal coaches, stage directors, arts professionals and educators throughout the industry.

The singers selected as 2023 Adler Fellows are sopranos Mikayla Sager (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada), Arianna Rodriguez (Fairfax, Virginia) and Olivia Smith (Penticton, British Columbia, Canada); mezzo-sopranos Gabrielle Beteag (Atlanta, Georgia) and Nikola Printz (Oakland, California); tenors Victor Cardamone (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), Edward Graves (Oxon Hill, Maryland) and Moisés Salazar (Santa Ana, California) and bass-baritone Jongwan Han (Seoul, South Korea). Jongwan Han, Nikola Printz, Arianna Rodriguez, Moisés Salazar and Olivia Smith, selected from the Merola Opera Program, are incoming first-year fellows. Gabrielle Beteag, Victor Cardamone, Edward Graves and Mikayla Sager continue in the program as second-year fellows.

The 2023 Adler Fellowship class includes two pianist/coaches, first-year fellow Yang Lin (Shanghai, China) and returning second-year fellow Marika Yasuda (Williamsburg, Virginia). The Adler Fellow pianist/coaches work closely with Opera Center Artistic Director Carrie-Ann Matheson and with San Francisco Opera Head of Music Staff John Churchwell in developing the wide range of skills required for a career in the opera house and on the recital stage.

Adler Fellows gain valuable professional experience through preparing and rehearsing roles of increasing importance in San Francisco Opera’s season at the War Memorial Opera House and in performance opportunities throughout the period of their fellowship. All of the 2023 Adler Fellows will be featured in the year-end concert accompanied by the San Francisco Opera Orchestra in December 2023.

The 2022 Adlers concluding their fellowships at the end of this year are sopranos Anne-Marie MacIntosh, Elisa Sunshine and Esther Tonea, baritone Timothy Murray, bass Stefan Egerstrom and pianist Andrew King. The 2022 Adler Fellows’ season culminates on Friday, December 2 at 7:30 pm at Herbst Theatre with the annual showcase concert, The Future Is Now. The program of arias and operatic scenes features the current Adler Fellows and the San Francisco Opera Orchestra under the baton of Caroline H. Hume Music Director Eun Sun Kim. For information and tickets, visit sfopera.com.

2023 ADLER FELLOW BIOGRAPHIES

FIRST-YEAR ADLER FELLOWS:

Jongwan Han
(Seoul, South Korea)

Bass-baritone Jongwon Han began the 2022–23 season with debuts at Dayton Opera in Handel’s Messiah and Palm Beach Opera as Bonze in Madame Butterfly. Han was an Apprentice Artist with Santa Fe Opera. His operatic credits include the title roles of Don Giovanni and Le Nozze di Figaro, Masetto in Don Giovanni, Schaunard in La Bohème, Baron Douphol in La Traviata and Dr. Miracle in Les Contes d’Hoffmann. Having a deep connection to sacred music, Han has been featured in Bach’s Cantata BWV 140, Mozart’s Sparrow Mass and Haydn’s Theresienmesse.

Han was a 3rd Prize winner of 2022 Operalia The World Opera Competition and Grand Finalist in the 2021 Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition, receiving the Pamela Craven Award. His recent accolades include 2022 Houston Grand Opera Eleanor McCollum Competition, 2022 Giulio Gari International Voice Competition, 2022 Loren L. Zachary Vocal Competition, 2021 Gerda Lissner Lieder Competition, 2022 Butler Opera International Competition and 2022 Vero Beach Opera Competition.

Han received his bachelor’s degree from Seoul National University and his master’s degree from Mannes School of Music and student at The Juilliard School’s Artistic Diploma Opera Studies program.

Yang Lin
(Shanghai, China)

Pianist/Coach Yang Lin was born into an operatic family in Shanghai, China. A frequent and passionate performer of Wagner, he worked closely with renowned dramatic soprano Jane Eaglen for recitals and dramatic voice workshops. He has been praised by Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for his “unfailing accuracy and attention to color and detail that went far to compensate for lack of an orchestra.”

In 2022, he worked with Lyric Opera of Kansas City in productions of Amahl and the Night Visitors, La Traviata, Carmen, Tosca and The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs. His other opera credits include Don Giovanni, Die Zauberflöte, The Bartered Bride, La Clemenza di Tito Dinner at Eight, Cendrillon, Hansel and Gretel, Gianni Schicchi, La Bohème, Otello, Lohengrin and Die Fledermaus. He has worked with Cincinnati Opera, Indianapolis Opera, Pittsburgh Festival Opera, Aspen Music Festival, Canadian Vocal Arts Institute, Beijing’s National Center for the Performing Arts and I Sing International You Artist Festival.

Lin received his training from Merola Opera Program (2020, 2022), University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, New England Conservatory and Shanghai Conservatory.

Nikola Printz
(Oakland, California)

Nikola Printz is an artist whose talents span multiple genres. Recent role debuts include Hannah After (As One) and the modern premiere of Vinci’s Astianatte. In their 2021–22 season they were seen in the titular roles of Carmen and Dido with Opera San José, for which they were praised by Opera News as having “big opulent tone and an easy reach to their high register.” Printz is also a two-time participant of the Merola Opera Program (2020, 2022). Their Schwabacher Recital in March received rave reviews from audiences and critics alike.

Recent digital appearances include the award-winning film Behind the Stage Door with Merola Opera Program and Three Romances by Erling Wold, which had its 2022 premiere in the Opera Philadelphia Film Festival. Other role debuts incldue Elle (La Voix Humaine), Orfeo (Orfeo ed Euridice, West Edge Opera), Rosina, Cherubino and Isabella (L’Italiana in Algeri), all with Opera Memphis during their tenure as a Resident Artist from 2016–2018.

Printz is an accomplished aerialist, training in static and dance trapeze. They have cultivated several aerial acts sung and performed live with both piano and orchestra, in grand concert halls and smokey cabaret clubs. 

Arianna Rodriguez
(Fairfax, Virginia)

Guyanese, Puerto Rican soprano Arianna Rodriguez has been described as “a delight” and a “brilliant soprano delivering her wit and love with flair” (The Eagle Times). She is a Florida District winner and Southeast Regional Finalist with the 2022 Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition and a Gerda Lissner Encouragement Award recipient.

A 2022 participant of the Merola Opera Program, Rodriguez performed the title role of Amadeo Vives’ Dona Francisquita in the Schwabacher Summer Concert. On the operatic stage, she has been featured as Musetta in La Bohème with Opera North, Lauretta in Gianni Schicchi and Krysia in Jake Heggie’s Out of Darkness Two Remain with Peabody Conservatory. As a concert performer, she has appeared in a staged production of Leonard Bernstein’s Mass and Laura Karpman’s Ask Your Mama.

Rodriguez earned a Bachelor of Music in Voice Performance from George Mason University and a Master of Music in Voice Perofrmance from Peabody Conservatory.

Moisés Salazar
(Santa Ana, California)

Moisés Salazar is a Mexican American tenor known for his rich romantic sound and broad range of vocal color. This season, he returned to Palm Beach Opera as Remendado in Carmen, as well as performing the 1st Armored Man in Die Zauberflöte with Merola Opera Program.

During the 2021–22 season, Salazar appeared as Tebaldo in I Capuleti e i Montecchi, both 1st Priest and 1st Armored Man in Die Zauberflöte with Palm Beach Opera.

Other operatic roles include Ferrando (Così fan tutte), Señor Alcalde (The Summer King), Lysander (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), Borsa (Rigoletto) and Camille (The Merry Widow).

Salazar began singing in his family’s mariachi band, Trio Los Salazar, and is presently creating a concert series dedicated to Mexican folk music.

Olivia Smith

(Penticton, British Columbia, Canada)

Canadian soprano Olivia Smith is completing her studies at the Curtis Institute of Music. Current engagements include Governess in Britten’s The Turn of the Screw with the Curtis Opera Theatre and Marguerite in excerpts from Gounod’s Faust with Curtis Symphony Orchestra.

Other roles in Smith’s repertoire include Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte, Berta in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Cathleen in Vaughan Williams’ Riders to the Sea, First Witch in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and Mrs. Gobineau in Menotti’s The Medium—all with the Curtis Opera Theatre.

Smith attended the Merola Opera Program in 2022 where she sang the role of Margarita Xirgu in scenes from Golijov’s Ainadamar. In summer of 2021 she attended Houston Grand Opera’s Young Artist Vocal Academy and in January 2022 participated in HGO’s Eleanor McCollum Competition where she received the Online Viewers Choice and the Ana María Martínez Encouragement Award. Smith won the first place Vanderlaan Prize in Grand Rapids, Michigan and in 2019 was awarded an encouragement grant from the George London Compeition.

About San Francisco Opera Center and Merola Opera Program

San Francisco Opera Center was created in 1982 by then General Director Terence A. McEwen to oversee the operation and administration of the education and training programs initiated by Kurt Herbert Adler in 1954. Providing a coordinated sequence of performance and study opportunities, San Francisco Opera Center, since 2020 under the guidance of San Francisco Opera Center Artistic Director Carrie-Ann Matheson and General Manager Markus Beam, fosters young artists of major operatic potential through intensive training and performance. The celebrated resident artist programs of the Opera Center, in partnership with San Francisco Opera, prepare the promising next generation of operatic artists from around the world to lead the art form into the future.

Initially founded as the San Francisco Opera/Affiliate Artists program in 1977, the Adler Fellowship Program is one of the nation’s most prestigious performance-oriented residencies for advanced young singers and pianists. Each year, Adler Fellows are sponsored by individual donors and institutional funders to help cover the cost of their fellowship, and sponsors affiliated with the Adler Program have the opportunity to attend private studio classes with the Fellows and develop nurturing relationships with them. Alumni from the Adler Fellowship Program include sopranos Jane Archibald, Heidi Melton, Patricia Racette, Nadine Sierra, Ruth Ann Swenson, Elza van den Heever and Deborah Voigt; mezzo-sopranos Zheng Cao, Daniela Mack and Dolora Zajick; countertenors Brian Asawa and Gerald Thompson; tenors Brian Jagde, Sean Panikkar and Alek Shrader; baritones Alfredo Daza, Mark Delavan, Lucas Meachem and James Westman; bass-baritones Joshua Bloom, John Relyea, Philip Skinner, Daniel Sumegi and Dale Travis; and basses John Ames and Kenneth Kellogg.

Widely regarded as the foremost opera training program for aspiring singers, coaches and stage directors, the Merola Opera Program, which celebrated its 60th Anniversary in 2017, has served as a proving ground for hundreds of artists. Many Merola alumni are now among the most recognized names in the opera world. Every summer the program offers 29 young artists the rare opportunity of studying, coaching and participating in master classes with established professionals for twelve weeks. Participants also perform in a complete opera production with orchestra, two summer concerts and the Merola Grand Finale: a gala concert on the stage of the War Memorial Opera House. Offered free of charge for all participants, the Merola Opera Program is unique in the industry in many ways. Merola is the only young artist program to provide financial support to developing artists for five years following participation. The Merola Opera Program is a financially independent organization with a separate 501(c)3 which operates in close collaboration with the San Francisco Opera Center and San Francisco Opera. In addition, all Merola graduates are considered for participation in the San Francisco Opera’s Adler Fellowship program.

For more information on the San Francisco Opera Center, Adler Fellowship and Merola Opera Program, visit sfopera.com and merola.org.