Arts & Events

AROUND AND ABOUT OPERA: Three Bargain Opportunities This Weekend: Happy End, Lucia di Lammermoor, Summer Eve

By Planet and Ken Bullock
Friday June 22, 2012 - 02:31:00 PM

This weekend opera lovers have three great chances to experience opera live and up close. 

Goat Hall productions is presenting Happy End, by Kurt Weill & Bertolt Brecht, at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley, on Friday, June 22 and Saturday, June 23 at 8:00. Tickets are priced from $15 to $25. Details at goathall.org. 

On Sunday at 2, you can see the only remaining Berkeley performance of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, staged by Verismo Opera, with Eliza O'Malley in the title role, at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar Street in Berkeley. Tickets are $16-$120. 

And for a free performance in Walnut Creek, try "Opera on a Summer Eve--Out of the opera house ... and into the fresh air." Festival Opera artists will perform at the Community Fair at walnut Creek Civic Park, Civic Drive at Broadway, this Sunday at 5 (the Fair starts at 4), with soprano Kristin Clayton (alumna of both Merola and Adler Fellows programs of SF Opera--& Teatro ZinZanni's Prima Donna), baritone Zachary Gordin, conductor Bryan Nies and the festival Opera Chorus. Glorious arias--and it's free! (Ken Bullock).