A second-year Adler Fellow with San Francisco Opera, bass-baritone Christian Pursell appeared in four San Francisco Opera productions last fall: as Walter Raleigh in Roberto Devereux, a Jailer in Tosca, Count Lamoral in Arabella, and an Angel First Class in Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer’s It’s a Wonderful Life. As a participant in the 2017 Merola Opera Program, he received critical acclaim for his performance as Dandini in La Cenerentola. His 2017 season saw debuts at both Houston Grand Opera (Tom in Laura Kaminsky’s Some Light Emerges) and the Vienna State Opera (Second Englishman in Prokofiev’s The Gambler), and he is featured on the 2017 world premiere recording of Greg Spears’ Fellow Travelers with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. An avid concert soloist, recent performances include Britten’s War Requiem, Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. Pursell’s upcoming engagements include Samuel in Handel’s Saul with Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra at Walt Disney Concert Hall and Handel’s Messiah with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.