All Photography by Vita Hewitt.
San Francisco's patrons of the arts gathered in City Hall last night to dine, dance, and support our city's Opera.
The Annual Opera Ball was a bit late this year; it had to be postponed when the Opera's orchestra went on strike in September to demand a living wage. So the Opera put the caviar on ice, and cooked up a tentative deal with the Musicians Union Local 6. A deal that provides a fair contract and stability for their musicians through 2030.
Photography by Vita Hewitt.
The Opera's largest benefactors, Jensen and Lori Huang (Nvidia) did not attend; they must have had something else on their plates that evening to deal with...
On our plates were short ribs, lobster bisque, and an open bar. We journalists, stood in the corner, dressed in black, munching our canapés like a group of raccoons while storied stalwarts like Nancy Pelosi and Willie Brown sat under the gorgeous rotunda, in the halls of power, part of an audience worth billions.
Near the end of dinner, Opera General Director Matthew Shilvock gave a nice speech, and the Opera's Chorus sang an angelic and soothing rendition of Randall Thompson’s “Alleluia”, which I'm sure some of the patrons in the audience assumed was directed at them.
Then there was music to dance to, ball gowns to fawn over, and a crowd of old-school, old-moneyed San Franciscans mixed with an international crowd of art lovers and artists.
Over the course of the evening, I heard Ukrainian, French, Russian, and Korean being spoken, and was delighted to see some patrons wearing opera costumes from the Opera's costume sale in October. The opera truly is an international and historic asset our city should cherish; we are very lucky to have and afford a world-class opera company here.
There are only a couple of short weeks left of Opera performances this year; the last performance of Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro, which I hear is divine, is November 29th,
at SF Opera.
