07/23/2026
Leo sang for me. Just a few bars, standing right there, no stage and no orchestra, and it still stopped me cold.
I get to spend my summers photographing people like this. Artists at the very start of something big, doing the thing they were built to do. That never gets old.
The Manetti Shrem Opera Fellows are chosen by competitive audition every year, and Festival Napa Valley brings them here for a tuition-free summer conservatory, a fully staged opera, and the chance to work under conductors and faculty at the top of the field. That’s a real door opening for a young singer. Programs like this are why the next generation of opera gets to exist at all.
Thank you everyone at and so many others for letting me be in the room for it. And thank you for the impromptu concert.
