Features

Festivals, unlike single concerts, are full-immersion events with lots of possibilities to explore all at once. In an effort to bring the festival experience closer to our readers, SFCV sent two writers to “blog” for a full day (last Saturday) at the Berkeley Festival. One master class, two concerts, and one exhibition later, enervated by the day’s oppressive heat, they filed this report.

It was an event like no other. Answering San Francisco Opera’s clarion call, on June 13, seven human contestants — two linked by blood — and one irresistible canine of similar Amesian pedigree straggled into the courtyard north of the War Memorial Opera House starting at 11 a.m. or so for SFO’s Wagner Ring Cycle Costume Contest.

Frederica von Stade, the beloved mezzo-soprano, is saying good-bye to her fans. She is in the middle of a series of farewell appearances, winding down a 40-year, Cinderella-like career in opera that began in 1970, when she unexpectedly won the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and received a contract from Metropolitan Opera General Manager Rudolf Bing.

As she approaches an as-yet-unannounced date in late 2011 when San Francisco Opera will cosponsor her final official concert, von Stade will begin a new chapter in her life.

As the Summer music festival season approaches, a roundup of recommendations and a few meaningful reflections.

Kurt Rohde, winner of the prestigious Rome Prize, and also the violist/founder of the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, will soon have the world premiere of his Concertino in the Bay Area. And two other San Francisco musicians have been benefitting from artistic residence in Rome. While Rohde's Rome Prize stay recently concluded, San Francisco–raised composer Lisa Bielawa, is a current Rome Prize winner; and ODC Dance Company founder/artistic director/choreographer Brenda Way was a Resident in the Arts, and served as a senior advisor to the Rome Prize winners, including Rohde.

Sign of the times: The Berkeley Festival and Exhibition is going mostly local this year. That’s in response to the depressed funding cycle that coincided with the serious recession of the past two years. Questions linger about the festival’s stability and long-term organization, but fortunately they stop at the concert hall doors.