In the 2009-2010 season, soprano HEIDI MELTON returned to the San Francisco Opera for her final year in the company’s Adler Young Artists Program. She will also debut at the Metropolitan Opera as the 2nd Maid in Elektra, and sing Berg’s Seven Early Songs with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Donald Runnicles. In the spring, she will perform a variety of roles with the Deutsche Oper Berlin including First Lady in Die Zauberflöte, Marianne Leitmetzerin in Der Rosenkavalier, Helmwige in Die Walküre, and Third Norn in Götterdämmerung, among others.

Last season, Ms. Melton returned to L’Opera de Bordeaux to sing her role debut of Elisabeth in Tannhäuser to tremendous acclaim. She made her debut with that company in the spring of 2008 as Amelia in Un Ballo in Maschera. Other notable engagements that season include her debut with the Milwaukee Symphony in a New Year’s Eve Gala performance of Beethoven Symphony No. 9, and performances of Mahler Symphony No. 4 with California’s North State Symphony Orchestra. The season culminated in stepping in at a day's notice to the San francisco Opera's summer Verdi Requiem, her performance touted as  "big, gleaming and tonally resplendent".

As a member of the San Francisco Opera’s Adler Fellowship, Ms. Melton has performed a variety of roles including Mary Todd Lincoln in the world premier of Phillip Glass’ Appomattox, Marianne Leitmetzerin, and Dianne in Iphigenie en Tauride.

Other notable past engagements include Gertrude in Hansel and Gretel with Philadelphia Opera Company; she sang with the Berkeley Symphony in Golijov’s “Night of the Flying Horses” and Shostakovich’s “From Jewish Poetry”; with Napa Valley Symphony, she sang Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. She was also invited to sing two prestigious recitals: The Schwabacher Debut Recital through the San Francisco Opera, and a recital for the Jussi Bjorling Society in Voxna, Sweden.

As a 2006 participant in the Merola Opera Program, she performed Amelia in scenes from Simon Boccanegra at Yerba Buena Gardens. Additionally, she performed the roles of Miss Grose in Turn of the Screw, Ariadne in Ariadne auf Naxos, Alcina in Alcina, Lady Billows in Albert Herring, and Fiordiligi in Cosi fan tutte all with Curtis Opera Theater.

Additional concert performances include the Szymanowski Stabat Mater and Schubert Mass in A with the Eastman Philharmonic Orchestra, Beethoven Mass in C with Eastman Summer Sing, Bach Mass in F with Curtis Madrigal Singers and the Philadelphia premiere of Richard Danielpour’s cycle, Sweet Talk.

Ms. Melton is the 2009 winner of the George London/Kirsten Flagstad Memorial Award; she won second place in the José Iturbi Compeition; she won a Sarah Tucker Study Grant from the Richard Tucker Music Foundation; and she won third place in the 27th Annual Belevedere Competition. In 2006 she was a national semi-finalist at the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions as well as the winner of the Mario Lanza Competition.

 

A native of Piedras Negras, Mexico, tenor ELEAZAR RODRIGUEZ is a recipient of the Placido Domingo voice scholarship given by SIVAM (Sociedad Internacional de Valores de Arte Mexicano), Mexico’s most renowned young artist program and is a top prize winner in the Carlo Morelli National Competition in Mexico City.  He was chosen by the San Francisco Conservatory of Music to perform in June of 2009 at a Gala concert honoring Gordon Getty, where he will perform with Frederica Von Stade.  He joins the illustrious Merola Opera Program in 2009.     

In 2008 he appeared in recital at the Kennedy Center, as part of the Center’s conservatory project series and performed Count Almaviva in Il Barbiere di Siviglia with Fremont Opera, and Tamino in Die Zauberflöte with the IVAI in Tel Aviv, Israel.  He received the “Outstanding Achievement Award” in opera from the San Francisco Conservatory in 2007 and was chosen to perform a solo recital for conductor Donald Runnicles’ farewell concert from the San Francisco Opera Guild.  In the 2006-2007 seasons, he sang the leading role of Salvador Dali in David Conte’s opera, Famous, Lara in America Tropical, also by David Conte, and created the title role of Caesar in the San Francisco world premier of Young Caesar by Lou Harrison.  He has also been heard in concerts and recitals throughout Mexico, including the Teatro del Palacio de Bellas Artes.

 

His operatic repertoire includes the leading tenor roles in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Cosi Fan Tutte, Die Zauberflöte, L’Egisto, Die Entführung aus dem Serail and L’Elisir D’amore.  His concert repertoire includes the tenor solos for Coronation Mass and Requiem Mass by W.A. Mozart, Petite Messe Solennelle by G. Rossini and Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana.

 

Mr. Rodriguez earned a Music Diploma from the Escuela Superior de Musica de la Universidad Autonoma de Coahuila in 2003.  He has worked with such distinguished musical authorities as Joan Dornemann, Denise Massé, Sherril Milnes, Justino Diaz, Diana Soviero, Paul Nadler, David Rosenmeyer, David Sloss, Christopher Larkin and Tito Capobianco.  For the past seven years he has been under the tutelage of César Ulloa, and is presently a junior voice major at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music

 

    

 Pianist, JOHN PARR is San Francisco Opera’s Head of Music Staff. A native of Birmingham, UK, Parr studied piano at the Royal Northern College of Music with Sulamita Aronovsky and musicology at Manchester University. He worked for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden from 1985–88, touring with the company to Japan and Korea in 1986. He was engaged at Scottish Opera from 1988-90. In 1991 joined the Lower Saxony State Opera in Hannover, Germany, where he was Head of Music Staff and Musical Assistant to Music directors George Alexander Albrecht, Christof Perick and Andreas Delfs, specializing in the Wagner and Strauss operas. During this time he developed an extensive series of Lieder Recitals and Chamber Music Programs for the Opera, and also broadcast on SFB Radio Berlin and on NDR Television. With San Francisco Opera, Parr has developed and performed in numerous recital programs. Since 2002 he has worked as a coach at the Wagner Festival in Bayreuth in the summer, and has also given recitals in the Wagner Museum there.