They’re some of the most dazzling young opera performers of their generation—and they’re based right here in San Francisco.

Every year, artists from around the world travel to California to take part in the Adler Fellowship Program, a prestigious opera residency designed to showcase top emerging talent. But this year’s cohort of singers, pianists and vocal coaches face a performing-arts industry reeling from pandemic-related closures.

Because Richard Wagner meticulously documented most every incident in his life, we know that he began writing the music for the Ring cycle in La Spezia on the Italian Riviera in the summer of 1853. After a rough night at sea, he landed in the port of La Spezia near where fishermen brought their daily catch, and was transported to a locanda on Via del Prione 45. With his lingering seasickness and the noisy animation of the busy town, Wagner fell into a deep sleep, and he tells us, “I thought I was falling down in a whirlpool—this abyss into which I was falling—and I awakened having heard the opening chords of Das Rheingold.”

Cox didn’t grow up going to the opera or the symphony. Instead, he spent his childhood in Macon, Georgia, assembling his action figures into imaginary gospel choirs or hanging out in the band room after school.