Arts & Events
Arts: ‘Fresh Voices’ Series Aims to Make Opera Accessible
“Our definition of opera is that it has music more interesting and complex than musical theater,” said Harriet March Page, artistic director of Goat Hall Productions, which will be staging Fresh Voices VI with 10 short operas—as well as bookending their NOW Festival of new compositions and a program of art songs—Thursday through Sunday for the next two weeks at Thick House on Potrero Hill in San Francisco. -more-
Bananas in Berkeley? Yes, We Have Some
Lemons aren’t the only fruit trees growing in Berkeley’s streetside strips. Yes, we have some bananas. -more-
Arts: Bay Area’s American Bach Soloists Bring ‘The St. Matthew Passion’ to Berkeley
When the American Bach Soloists take on the grandeur (and three-hour-plus extent) of The St. Matthew Passion at Saturday at the First Congregational Church, it will be with a somewhat different, more unified sense of that great work’s contemporary significance. -more-
Arts: Moving Pictures: Art and Artifice in ‘Lost City,’ ‘Art School Confidential’
Actor, director, composer Andy Garcia’s The Lost City is billed as a love song to Garcia’s native Cuba, to the island as it existed before Fidel Castro’s revolution. The movie attempts to evoke a paradise lost, a land of music and dance and family destroyed by corruption and violence. -more-
Planning a Point Richmond Getaway
Ever get that midweek feeling of wanting to escape up the coast? Spend some time near the water in a picturesque town? Walk past quaint cottages and historic buildings? Roam the landscape allowing your eyes and mind to expand across open space? Discover a café, deli or fine restaurant and treat your taste buds to new flavors? Even without the time needed to reach Mendocino, a solution for the midweek blues is close at hand. -more-
About the House: Finding the Right Way to Repair an Old Floor
Dear Matt, -more-
Garden Variety: Fun With the California Rare Fruit Growers
It’s been way too long since I’ve gone to a meeting of California Rare Fruit Growers. There’s one such meeting tomorrow (Saturday May 13) in Walnut Creek that is weirdly tempting because it will feature Dr. Robert Raabe, whose approach to plant diseases is of the gleeful sort, which can be fun but rarely works well as a bedside manner for humans. -more-