West Edge Opera has announced the four new operas selected for the 2026 edition of Snapshot.

The program will be presented at First Congregational Church in Berkeley on Feb. 28, 2026, and at the Taube Atrium Theater in San Francisco on March 1, 2026.

This year’s Snapshot features “Cry, Wolf,” “Threshold of Brightness,” “The Joining,” and “Case Closed.”

Composer JL Marlor and librettist Clare Fuyuko Bierman’s “Cry, Wolf” centers on two college students, Austin and Zach, who spend their Friday nights online, comparing themselves to others and seeking belonging through an online subculture eventually leading them into increasingly dark ideological spaces.

“Threshold of Brightness,” by composer Niloufar Nourbakhsh and librettist Lisa Flanagan, draws inspiration from the life of Iranian poet Forugh Farrokhzad, and is set on Feb. 13, 1967, as Farrokhzad returns to her childhood home on the night of a Solstice feast to confront the isolation and defiance that shaped her life and legacy.

In “The Joining,” composed by Isaac Io Schankler with a libretto by Aiden K. Feltkamp, golems serve as artificial companions in a subterranean society known as the Underground that is forced  to seek help when catastrophe forces.

“Case Closed,” composed by Martin Rokeach with a libretto by Steven Blum, centers on Michelle Ahearn, a local television news reporter whose career is threatened by age and shifting industry priorities.

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