From Santa Ana to the stage of NYC’s Metropolitan Opera

Columnist Teri Sforza writes: Local teachers, encouragement, helped Chapman grad Efrain Solis shine in the Big Apple.

Mac, as his middle school music teacher was affectionately known, would wrangle tickets to the opera, and the symphony, and the art museum, and the Broadway musical, for young Efrain Solis and his classmates.

“She was trying to expose us to everything, to get us to think beyond our small home town,” said Solis, who grew up in Santa Ana. “In many ways, she really awoke this curiosity in the arts in me, and in a lot of her students.”

Solis got free voice lessons from Mac — i.e., Jeanette McMahon — while at Saddleback High, working on art songs, breath control, and soon, arias. He bought a CD of Mozart’s “Marriage of Figaro” and was mocking the operatic vocals when Mac’s jaw fell open. Where did you learn that? she asked. Just doing what the singer’s doing, he said. You have a naturally operatic voice! she marveled. Cool, he responded.

Soon, Solis, the son of Mexican immigrants, was lying on the floor with a book on his stomach. “Focus on expanding your diaphragm!” Mac would say. Solis started winning vocal competitions. But when he might be content to bathe in victory’s glow, Mac pushed him. “Have you peaked?” she’d ask, wanting to know what was next. “Is that it?”

“She was always pushing me to never just settle. I learned so much from her example and leadership,” Solis said.

Soon Chapman University asked him to audition, and Juilliard-trained Peter Atherton became his mentor. Solis became the first in his family to attend college, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in music (and a minor in Spanish and Latin American literature). There followed a master’s degree from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, myriad competition wins, fellowships, roles all over the country, and now, this: His debut with New York City’s Metropolitan Opera as the surrealist Salvador Dali in the Met’s adaptation of Michael Chabon’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel, “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay,” which premiered on Sept. 21.

It’s the story of two Jewish cousins — a refugee from Nazi-occupied Prague and a closeted gay Brooklynite — who create a comic book superhero called the Escapist, who fights fascism and frees the oppressed. It reminds us that in even the darkest times, imagination can be a lifeline that challenges authority and changes the world, Met officials said.

“Efraín Solís debuted in the role of Salvador Dalí,” said Opera Wire’s review. “Yes, that sentence is correct. The baritone was sensational, drawing laugh after laugh as he danced about the stage as the eccentric genius, getting one of the most memorable lines of the entire show when he remarks on the difference between a mad man and himself, noting that while the mad man thinks he’s sane, he, Dalí, knows that neither is.”

Such praise is by no means rare. Solis’ baritone has been described as “honey-hewed,” his performances ‘incendiary,” his voice a thing of “muscular vividness.” “For theatrical charisma and musical bravado, it would be hard to top the performance of baritone Efraín Solís,” the San Francisco Chronicle has said, along with “baritone Efraín Solís created yet another in the series of impeccably etched performances that have marked his career in the Bay Area…. by turns cocky and remorseful, and conveyed throughout by singing of lustrous presence.”

It’s not just the voice; it’s the package. Solis can be zany, physical, funny and tender, as well as tragic. The singing seems effortless. He’s a presence — commanding your eyes on stage — and his mentors couldn’t be more proud.

“It’s astounding,” said Atherton, professor emeritus of music at Chapman, who’ll be in New York to see the show soon. “He has been on a tear, and he’s only in his early 30s. During the pandemic, he was one of the busiest professional singers I knew — so compelling as a stage personality that he did all these green screen recorded operas.

“One of my mentors at Juilliard had a phrase: ‘Be a solution.’ In this country, it’s very hard to work non-stop as a professional opera singer. If you get a contract at the Met, you can have work from September to May, but there are only so many singers who get hired to do that. If you have the personality of a diva, you will be replaced. So be a solution, and Efrain was always that: kind to his colleagues, helpful, well-prepared, all of the qualities you would hope for in a young artist. Really a stand-out. I’m very proud of his success. He deserves it.”

The Met production is particularly timely. Its message: “Immigrant voices matter,” Solis said “As we know, that’s the foundation of our country. I am a first generation Mexican American. I think of all the opportunities I’ve been given, and that was because of the choice that my parents made, that their parents made, to come here for a better life. That’s the story being told: You can come here and everyone has a shot at making it.”

Solis is committed to paying his good fortune forward. He is active with ArtSmart, a national nonprofit providing free music lessons and mentorship to kids in under-resourced communities.

“It’s my way of giving back to my community and making sure that students in middle and high school have access to free voice lessons, free music lessons,” he said. “I’m very passionate about it. I was getting free voice lessons from my choir teacher – without that, I probably wouldn’t have been able to study music. We wouldn’t have been able to afford it.”

Chapman’s music program features other students at the Met this season, including tenor Ben Bliss, who’ll sing Eric in Jeanine Tesori’s “Grounded” and Tamino in Mozart’s “Die Zauberflӧte;” and tenor Duke Kim, who’ll debut as Tamino in “Die Zauberflӧte.”

Solis has been performing all over the country, including with the Houston Grand Opera, New York City Opera, El Paso Opera, Opera Santa Barbara, Florida Grand Opera, Virginia Opera, Opera San José, Minnesota Opera, Austin Opera. Dallas Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Fort Worth Opera, Opera San Antonio and Staatsoper Hamburg. His roles have included Papageno in Die Zauberflöte, Dandini in La Cenerentola, Schaunard in La Bohème, Silvano in Un Ballo in Maschera, Sciarrone in Tosca and Prince Yamadori in Madama Butterfly.

He also loves rock climbing, a potentially dangerous endeavor that he likens to “aggressive” yoga. “It puts everything into perspective,” he said. “When you’re on the wall, you can’t let your mind wander because you’ll fall. You have to be present.”

Solis is constantly reaching for new heights — an apt metaphor for his career.