Michael Sumuel

Michael Sumuel is a bass-baritone scheduled to sing with the San Francisco Symphony in Haydn's oratorio "The Creation." The appearance data shows him performing one of the work's bass-baritone solo roles across two performances in April 2027.

Haydn's "The Creation" gives the bass-baritone soloist some of the oratorio's most vivid moments, including passages describing the emergence of animals and the physical world, set to music that mimics roaring lions, leaping tigers, and lowing cattle through quick, illustrative orchestral figures. The bass-baritone typically shares narration duties with a soprano and tenor, alternating recitative, where the text is delivered in a speech-like flow, with more melodic arias. Listeners can expect a voice capable of both weighty, resonant lower notes for depicting the newly formed earth and agility for the work's more playful, descriptive passages. The piece rewards clear diction, since much of its charm lies in how the vocal line paints the meaning of the words in real time.