Arts & Events

At the Alameda Elks Club, Island City Opera presents two one-act operas by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov – Mozart and Salieri, set to a play by Alexander Pushkin, and Kashchey, the Immortal, based on a Russian fairy tale. This double-bill opened on January 19 and concludes with performances on January 26 & 28. I caught the Sunday matinee on January 21.

Let me say straightaway that I consider myself lucky to have attended the January 21 performance, for that was the only date when the role of Kashcheyevna, the wizard’s daughter in Kashchey, the Immortal, was sung by German mezzo-soprano Katja Heuzeroth. I have always appreciated Silvie Jensen, who sings all the other performances of this role, whenever I’ve heard her. However, Katja Heuzeroth was absolutely sensational. Her voice was sumptuous, sensuous, and rapturous. According to the program notes, she made her professional debut at Bayreuth in Wagnerian roles, which I’m sure she sang beautifully. The big question is where can we in the Bay Area hear Katja Heuzeroth in any role she wishes to sing? I’d go anywhere to hear her; and I hope to have many opportunities to do so if, as the program notes seem to indicate, she now is locally based. -more-

The coming week January 21 – January 28 is packed with City meetings. The week starts with the affordable housing update Sunday. Monday is Zero Waste Commission, Commission Chair Alfred Twu is running against Council member Lori Droste for District 8. City Council is Tuesday with Porta Potties, Surveillance and Significant Community Benefits on the Agenda. Wednesday the Disaster and Fire Safety Commission will be making a recommendation on Urban Shield. The same evening the Police Review Commission meets. The week finishes Thursday when ZAB will be reviewing the Final Environmental Impact Report for 2190 Shattuck Ave, the building that will block the view of the Golden Gate Bridge from Campanile Way. -more-

In Betty Reid Soskin’s 96 years of living, she has been a witness to a grand sweep of American history. When she was born in 1921, the lynching of African Americans was a national epidemic, blackface minstrel shows that both mocked and denigrated black music were the most popular American form of entertainment, white women had only just won the right to vote in American elections through the 19th Amendment passed the year before, and most African Americans in the Deep South could not vote at all. From her great-grandmother, who had been enslaved until she was in her mid-20s, Betty heard stories of slavery and the times of terror and deep difficulties for Black Folk that followed. In her lifetime, Betty watched the nation begin to confront its race and gender biases when forced to come together over the Fascist and Nazi world threat of the World War II era, saw those differences nearly break apart at the seams again in the upheavals of the civil rights and Black Power eras, saw the defeat of the Southern-led white segregationists following the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts and, finally, lived long enough to witness both the election of an African American president and the re-emergence of a militant, racist far right that rose up out of the ashes of the old segregationists. -more-