Two artists — frequent San Francisco Opera director Jose Maria Condemi and conductor, pianist, and former Adler Fellow César Cañón — recently spoke with San Francisco Opera about how they see Latinx identity interacting with classical music. They shared their experiences and what they feel needs to change in order to foster greater acceptance.

It has been five years. Some of my memories from my first San Francisco Opera production of Georges Bizet’s Carmen are long gone, but most I still hold onto dearly. My clearest memory is of one special performance that was broadcast live at the San Francisco Giants’ ballpark. It involved one lost shoe and one missed cue.

As he rehearsed the opera Cruzar la Cara de la Luna, baritone Efraín Solís practiced the lines of a son grappling with the agony of his father’s slow decline. But off stage, Solís was grieving as well. It was 2018. He was nearing anniversary of his grandfather’s death, and the opera had stirred up a flood of memories.