Praised by the San Francisco Chronicle for her “burnished amber tone and dynamic command” and her “silvery tone and faultless diction,” this season she Ms. Berentsen creates the role of Lee Krasner in Brian Petuch’s new opera Portrait and a Dream, commissioned and premiered by New York based new music ensemble Contemporaneous. She recently returned to San Francisco Opera’s prestigious Merola Opera Program singing Leïla in Les Pêcheurs de Perles in the Schwabacher Summer Concert under the baton of Kathleen Kelly, covering Anne Trulove in The Rake’s Progress, and singing Massenet’s Thaïs in the Merola Grand Finale under the baton of Dean Williamson. Additionally, the Shoshana Foundation awarded Ms. Berentsen the prestigious Richard F. Gold Career Grant for Merola in 2018. At Merola in 2017, she was featured in The Schwabacher Summer Concert as Baby Doe in Ballad of Baby Doe under the baton of Anne Manson and covered Serpina in La Serva Padrona. She also sang Marie in La Fille du Regiment for the Merola Grand Finale under the baton of Anthony Walker at the War Memorial Opera House.