As a current Adler Fellow at San Francisco Opera, Puerto Rican baritone Gabriel Natal-B\u00e1ez is establishing himself as one of opera\u2019s most exciting emerging voices. He has been praised for his \u201cstrong, richly warm voice\u201d (Civic Center Blog) and \u201cloud and rich\u201d tone (The Opera Tattler), bringing authenticity, warmth, and emotional depth to performances across opera, concert, and recital stages.<\/p>\n
This season, Natal-B\u00e1ez performs Marcello in San Francisco Opera\u2019s touring production of Boh\u00e8me Out of the Box<\/em><\/strong> and Pietro in Simon Boccanegra<\/em><\/strong>. He also covers Count Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro<\/em><\/strong>, Lescaut in Manon<\/em><\/strong>, Paolo in Simon Boccanegra<\/em><\/strong>, and James in Mary Queen of Scots<\/em><\/strong>. On the concert stage, he joins the San Francisco Opera Orchestra, conducted by Sebastian Weigle, for The Future Is Now: Adlers in Concert<\/em><\/strong> at Herbst Theatre. He also returns to Puerto Rico for the traditional Christmas concert with the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Rosel\u00edn Pab\u00f3n, following his debut with the orchestra in 2025, and performs Orff\u2019s Carmina Burana<\/em><\/strong> with Sacramento Philharmonic and Opera.<\/p>\n Natal-B\u00e1ez joined San Francisco Opera as an Adler Fellow in 2026 after participating in the prestigious Merola Opera Program, where he worked with many of the industry\u2019s leading conductors, directors, coaches, and artists. During the program, he covered Raimbaud in Le Comte Ory<\/em><\/strong>, appeared in the Schwabacher Scenes Concert, and was selected with pianist Tzu Kuang Tan to present the Schwabacher Debut Recital, Paths of the Heart<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n His repertoire includes Beaumarchais in John Corigliano\u2019s The Ghosts of Versailles<\/em><\/strong>, Aeneas in Dido and Aeneas<\/em><\/strong>, Raimbaud in Le Comte Ory<\/em><\/strong>, Marullo in Rigoletto<\/em><\/strong>, Mr. Gobineau in Menotti\u2019s The Medium<\/em><\/strong>, Le Podestat in Bizet\u2019s Le Docteur Miracle<\/em><\/strong>, Tarquinius in The Rape of Lucretia<\/em><\/strong>, Tifon Petrovich in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin<\/em><\/strong>, and the Explorer in Theo Chandler\u2019s Breathe in Light<\/em><\/strong>. On the concert stage, he has performed Beethoven\u2019s Choral Fantasy<\/em><\/strong>, Schubert\u2019s Die sch\u00f6ne M\u00fcllerin<\/em><\/strong>, Ravel\u2019s Don Quichotte \u00e0 Dulcin\u00e9e<\/em><\/strong>, and Vaughan Williams\u2019s Songs of Travel<\/em><\/strong> and Five Mystical Songs<\/em><\/strong>. He has also performed in recital with soprano Ana Mar\u00eda Mart\u00ednez and appeared in zarzuelas with \u00d3pera de Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n In addition to winning the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition in 2026, Natal-B\u00e1ez has received numerous distinctions, including the CulturArte Prize and third place in the Gulf Coast Region of the Laffont Competition. He was also a semifinalist in Houston Grand Opera\u2019s Concert of Arias.<\/p>\n Natal-B\u00e1ez earned his Master of Music degree at Rice University\u2019s Shepherd School of Music, where he studied with internationally acclaimed soprano Ana Mar\u00eda Mart\u00ednez. Before pursuing opera professionally, he completed a bachelor\u2019s degree in Humanities with a concentration in Painting.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a9 CSAM, November 2026<\/p>\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As a current Adler Fellow at San Francisco Opera, Puerto Rican baritone Gabriel Natal-B\u00e1ez is establishing himself as one of opera\u2019s most exciting emerging voices. He has been praised for his \u201cstrong, richly warm voice\u201d (Civic Center Blog) and \u201cloud and rich\u201d tone (The Opera Tattler), bringing authenticity, warmth, and emotional depth to performances across opera, concert, and recital stages.<\/p>\n This season, Natal-B\u00e1ez performs Marcello in San Francisco Opera\u2019s touring production of Boh\u00e8me Out of the Box and Pietro in Simon Boccanegra. He also covers Count Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro, Lescaut in Manon, Paolo in Simon Boccanegra, and James in Mary Queen of Scots. On the concert stage, he joins the San Francisco Opera Orchestra, conducted by Sebastian Weigle, for The Future Is Now: Adlers in Concert at Herbst Theatre. He also returns to Puerto Rico for the traditional Christmas concert with the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Rosel\u00edn Pab\u00f3n, following his debut with the orchestra in 2025, and performs Orff\u2019s Carmina Burana with Sacramento Philharmonic and Opera.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":13270,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,94],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bariton","category-emerging-artist"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/centrestagemanagement.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/centrestagemanagement.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/centrestagemanagement.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centrestagemanagement.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centrestagemanagement.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13265"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/centrestagemanagement.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13265\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13281,"href":"https:\/\/centrestagemanagement.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13265\/revisions\/13281"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centrestagemanagement.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/centrestagemanagement.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centrestagemanagement.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centrestagemanagement.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}