San Francisco Opera announced they will return to the beautiful outdoor setting of Sigmund Stern Grove on Sunday, July 4 at 2 p.m. for “A Celebration of American Music” at Stern Grove Festival, located at 19th Avenue and Sloat Boulevard in San Francisco. This annual admission-free concert is one of San Francisco Opera’s most popular community engagements, attracting thousands of Bay Area opera lovers.
Soprano Patricia Racette and bass-baritone John Relyea, both of whom are currently starring in the Company’s production of Gounod’s Faust, will join the San Francisco Opera Orchestra and Chorus in a concert of American favorites by George Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, Jerome Kern and Carlisle Floyd, among others. Both former members of the San Francisco Opera Center Adler Fellowship Program, Relyea and Racette will be joined by current Adler Fellows Susannah Biller, Leah Crocetto, Sara Gartland, Brian Jagde and Austin Kness.
San Francisco Opera Chorus Director Ian Robertson leads the San Francisco Opera Orchestra and Chorus in a program that includes orchestral and choral selections from Jerome Kern’s Show Boat and Aaron Copland’s The Tender Land as well as Copland’s Variations on a Shaker Melody, and a fanciful arrangement of familiar songs by George M. Cohan entitled “Patriotic Fantasy.” Highlights include Patricia Racette singing “Ain’t It A Pretty Night?” from Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah; John Relyea singing “Ol’ Man River” from Show Boat; “Bess, You Is My Woman Now” from George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess with Leah Crocetto and John Relyea; and “Glitter and be Gay” from Leonard Bernstein’s Candide sung by Susannah Biller. A pre-concert lecture will take place at 12 p.m. in Stern Grove’s Trocadero Clubhouse.
San Francisco Opera’s performance at Stern Grove Fetival is sponsored by the Patricia Yakutis Endowment Fund and the Hendrickson Family in memory of J. Scott Hendrickson, Supernumerary.
