All in the family for 3 opera singers
If you watch carefully during the opening scene of San Francisco Opera’s upcoming production of Verdi’s “Rigoletto,” you’ll see a happy family — worthy of memorializing on Instagram or Facebook — on the stage of the War Memorial Opera House.
The happiness will have nothing to do with the plot of the opera itself, which after all is a dark tale of political and sexual corruption, paid assassination and misdirected revenge (though shot through with a vein of filial devotion). No, the family members in question are the young singers the Opera has lined up to appear in this production.
At center stage will be Pene Pati, the brilliant tenor who is making his first starring appearance with the company, singing the licentious Duke of Mantua. Amid the swirl of the Duke’s party will be soprano Amina Edris, Pati’s wife of a year and a half, as the Countess Ceprano. And somewhere else in the scrum, Pati’s brother Amitai will be on hand as the courtier Borsa.
“It’s incredibly unique to have all three of us onstage at the same time,” says Edris, her enthusiasm practically boiling over. “How often do you see three family members together on the stage of an A-level opera house?”
Not often at all, is the answer. But this is the outcome when three gifted young New Zealanders all wind up in San Francisco at the same time, as Adler Fellows with the San Francisco Opera Center.
It was Pene Pati, now 29, who made his way to the Bay Area first. His 2013 stint in the Merola Opera Program offered observers a glimpse of a star in the making, and the expectation was that he would go on immediately to an Adler Fellowship, the next step in the company’s training regimen.
But there was a competing tug. The two brothers, along with their cousin, Moses Mackay, had formed a crossover vocal trio called Sole Mio (or Sol3 Mio, to use the fanciful spelling they use) — and its debut album, released in 2013, was topping the charts back home.
“It was a very hard decision to make,” Pati says. “The group had grown so big, but there was still that final nail to be tapped down. In the end I went with my gut, and decided that if we gave Sole Mio a little more, it could sustain itself after that.”
So Pati deferred the chance to be an Adler, although he had to reaudition to come back to the company last year. At that point, he had his fiancee with him, and his brother followed a year later.
To talk to the three of them at once is to feel the closeness of the family bonds. They share inside jokes, finish one another’s sentences, and compete to cast anecdotes in their preferred light.
Ask Pene Pati, for example, how he and Edris met, and his impish grin advertises a little of where the answer is headed. But he can barely get two words out before his wife cuts him off: “No, no — we’re not going to
do that version of the story.”
The story that emerges after a bit of negotiation involves a weeklong residency sponsored by the Dame Malvina Major Foundation, which helps promote the careers of New Zealand opera singers. Mackay was dating one of Edris’ close friends during the residency, and so the two roommates wound up getting thrown together.
“New Zealand is so tiny that most singers know one another,” says Edris. “I’d heard of him, but we’d never met. And for some strange reason, we always wound up sitting next to each other in master classes. It felt like we’d been friends for a very long time, even though we didn’t know each other at all. It was that kind of connection.”
“But also,” Pati interjects, “I sang ‘Che gelida
manina’ to you. You heard the singing and you said, ‘Ohm yes.’ ”
The Pati brothers — Amitai, also a tenor, is 27 — grew up in Auckland, the youngest members of a Samoan family. Neither of them had a particularly immediate connection to opera, although Pene took to singing at a young age. Amitai had planned to be a doctor or scientist, but took notice when he realized the power his brother’s gift had to command attention.
Edris, also 27, was born in Egypt, and moved with her family to Christchurch when she was 10. After a few years of giving vent to her musical interests as the somewhat unwilling trombonist in her high school orchestra, she enrolled in the local conservatory — behind the backs of her parents, who had hoped for a more conventional middleclass career path for her.
Today, the three artists form a small mutual protection association, watching one another’s backs in a foreign country — and in a business that has the potential to be cutthroat. Even though the two brothers sing the same repertoire, they deny any hint of sibling rivalry.
“It’s nice that we’ve followed the same route together,” says Pene Pati. “We saw the beginning of each other’s careers, and now we’re all in it together. So we pave the way for each other. If I get advice on how to sing a particular role, I pass it on to my brother.”
“This is a very competitive field,” says Edris. “Why would you want to be competitive with members of your own family?”
As their careers begin to blossom, all three artists are looking ahead to bigger and more prominent artistic challenges. The two newlyweds, for example, have plans to sing their first leading roles together next year (although the contracts have yet to be signed, so they won’t divulge the details).
And because all of them came to opera relatively late, much of the material will have the freshness of discovery. Amitai Pati, for example, will be singing a small role this summer in Verdi’s “La Traviata” — an opera he has still never heard in its entirety. The fall season opener, Puccini’s “Turandot,” will be a new experience for all of them.
Yet to experience the vivacity and charm of these young artists, either onstage or in person, is to feel confident that they can finesse any challenges that come their way.
For the Pati brothers, the legacy of their Samoan upbringing is an invaluable musical keepsake.
“In the Samoan community,” says Amitai, “people are constantly singing — in church, in school, on the street. Singing is basically embedded in our DNA. We were born to sing.”
Joshua Kosman is The San Francisco Chronicle’s music critic. Email: jkosman@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JoshuaKosman