Snapshot, 2026, at West Edge Opera

Snapshot is West Edge Opera's presentation of excerpts from new operas  or operas under development. Here's the schedule for 2026; be there or be square!

The 2026 Snapshot program will be presented at the First Congregational Church in Berkeley on February 28, 2026,  in San Francisco  at the Taube Atrium Theater on March 1, 202 and will feature Cry, Wolf, Threshold of Brightness, The Joining, and Case Closed—four daring works by composers and librettists exploring extremism, memory, power, identity, and the consequences of truth and deception.

Cry, Wolf

Composer: JL Marlor
Librettist: Clare Fuyuko Bierman

 It's a gorgeous Friday night at UCLA but instead of going out, Austin and Zach are inside, online, comparing their jawlines to pictures of strangers and trying to become "wolves". Cry, Wolf explores the ways that young men use love, friendship, and genuine care for one another to push themselves down darker and deeper ideological rabbit holes.

Threshold of Brightness

Composer: Niloufar Nourbakhsh
Librettist: Lisa Flanagan

Iranian poet Forugh Farrokhzad defied convention to write about life, culture & sexuality as freely as a man would, becoming a pariah and cut-off from friends and family. On February 13, 1967, after a violent incident, she finds herself in her childhood home at the start of a Solstice feast.
 
The Joining

Composer: Isaac Io Schankler
Librettist: Aiden K. Feltkamp

In the world of The Joining, golems are commonplace artificial companions for the citizens of the Underground. When disaster strikes and traditions must break, can the Undergrounders rely on the prosperous Overland to use the golems for good? 
 

Case Closed

Composer: Martin Rokeach
Librettist: Steven Blum

Michelle Ahearn is a local TV news reporter who is about to be aged out of a job. In one horrible moment she causes an accident that kills local football legend Case Stahl and then flees the scene; a story that she’s assigned to cover making her a star while the lie she’s chosen to live causes her to lose everyone she loves.