In the beginning was Berkeley Opera and it was good, even when it was squeezed into tiny, uncomfortable, homey, and affordable Julia Morgan Theatre, located — yes — in Berkeley.
But lo! Three years ago the theater management cut back drastically on the time available to the company, so Berkeley Opera moved, and became West Edge Opera.
Fortuitously for all, the company landed in spanking new high school auditorium, named the El Cerrito Performing Arts Theater. But as of now, following a steep increase in the rental fee, West Edge is out of El Cerrito, and while the search is on for a new home, the former Berkeley Opera is heading to Berkeley Repertory Theatre as a temporary measure.
And so, West Edge's next offering — a concert production of Barber's Vanessa — will be in the Rep's thrust stage, Sept. 21-22, with Marie Plette in the title role, Jonathan Boyd as Anatol, and Philip Skinner as the Old Doctor. Jonathan Khuner will conduct.
A couple of comments: Will the school district, insisting on a higher rent, benefit from getting nothing? And how many more small companies will follow San Francisco Lyric Opera into oblivion when squeezed out of venues by nonprofits' rental demands that cannot be met by fellow nonprofits? (In the case of the Lyric, it was the city-owned Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco that made use of the Florence Gould Theater unaffordable.)