Merola 2013 participant Zanda Švede is a magnificent mezzo from Latvia. She has a calm, self-assured, friendly, no-nonsense mien, maintained even when she says something surprising. What would sound grandiloquent from others, appears palpably sincere coming from her.
The surprise was her casual mention that she started professional singing only four years ago, at age 24. She had a good career in travel marketing and management, allowing her to tour Europe, and to have a well-paid, interesting livelihood. But she switched — to an uncertain, not always rewarding profession. Why?
"I just felt it's not all I can do in my life. I was not fulfilling being in this world."
Instead of continuing in her job, she went back to school, this time the Jazeps Vitols Latvian Academy of Music, the country's only conservatory. She received a scholarship, and embarked on a singing career that eventually led her to auditions and training programs, such as the Tyrolean Opera program last year.
There, she met bass-baritone Richard Block. They got married a few weeks ago, and while "still on our honeymoon," they headed to San Francisco, he to the Opera Academy of California (led by another Latvian, Yefim Maizel, who had attended the same conservatory as Švede ... at a different time), and she to the Merola Program.
There, her bio lists major roles she has already performed: María (María de Buenos Aires), Endimione (La Calisto), Charlotte (Werther), and Cléopâtre (title role of Massenet's opera). Her interests: traveling, knitting traditional Latvian mittens and socks, and needlepoint.
Beyond knitting, her plans are for the French repteroire. "As I am in this field only for four years, I have so much to discover what I can actually do. What I know now is that I love French opera, but also Baroque, I like to sing Handel, ornaments — it's close to my heart.
"For low voices, it takes more time. They say my real career will start at 40, when I sing Verdi and so on; I am looking forward to that."
Meanwhile, she is a triple-threat at the upcoming Schwabacher concerts, July 18 and 20 (the latter free at Yerba Buena), singing Isabella (L’italiana in Algeri); Beppe (L’amico Fritz); and Emilia (Otello). The concerts include the entire fourth act of Otello, with Issachah Savage in the title role, Aviva Fortunata as Desdemona, Alex DeSocio as Iago, and Matthew Newlin as Cassio.
In the Merola Program, she says, master classes by Warren Jones and Jane Eaglen especially were both enjoyable and important. "A lot of information, work with myself, opportunity to improve, and it's forming the personality. If you come as a student who is used to being taught, here you get so many opinions that you realize you have to figure out yourself who you are and who you want to be."
On the Schwabacher program, besides those mentioned above, there are exerpts from Mozart's Don Giovanni, with Fortunata, DeSocio, and Rhys Lloyd Talbot; Verdi's Don Carlo with DeSocio and Pene Pati; Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, with Pati, Talbot, Newlin, Savage, DeSocio, and Thomas Richards.