Story updated Wednesday, Apr. 20: Please scroll to end for update.
Japanese-American opera singer Brian Asawa died Monday at Holy Cross Hospital in Mission Hills, CA after battling a long illness. He was 49.
Asawa, a graduate of San Francisco Opera’s Merola and Adler training programs who was well known to Bay Area audiences for his roles in productions of Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Igor Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress among others, possessed an unusual voice: he was a countertenor — a singer who performs very high in the male vocal range.
Brian Asawa joined the Merola program in 1991 and continued on with the company the following year as an Adler Fellow. Both of these opportunities came at a time when few countertenors gained entry into high-profile training programs. (The more usual male voices are tenors, baritones and basses.)
In 1992, Asawa gained critical attention for his role with the San Francisco Opera as Oberon, King of the Fairies in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He went on to perform various roles at opera houses around the world, including the Metropolitan Opera, the Paris Opera and Covent Garden. “Asawa was an electric performer, his fearless performing style supported by a voice of arresting beauty and expressivity,” were words the classical music magazine Opera News once used to describe the singer in his prime. Asawa’s final performance on the War Memorial Opera House stage was in the 2000-01 season in Handel’s Semele.