Scroll down to see recent reports and schedules:

 

 

March 2026

Just in… the Contra Costa Chamber Orchestra, a 55-member local group, is presenting a spring concert of compositions by Faure and Bizet at two venues: Sunday, April 26, at the California Theater in Pittsburg, and on Sunday, May 3 at 4:00pm at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Orinda.  Tickets available online on their website: Seniors a bargain at $20.

We will have no Met opera in April, but early May brings us the only opera by Tchaikovsky that is frequently performed, Eugene Onegin.  It is a fine opera in the Russian style, emphasizing heartfelt melodies, based on a story by the Russian author Alexander Pushkin.  It opens in New York on April 20, after which we will have some newspaper reviews, and arrives here on May 2.  Fortunately, St. Paul’s church has come to our rescue with the Primavera Trio, featuring a pianist, a flutist, and a pianist.  That concert will be at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church on Trinity, near downtown Walnut Creek, on Saturday, April 18, at 7:00pm.  The St. Paul’s concert series is a new addition to the Local Classical Music Activity at Branch 8.  You can access the concert schedule for the rest of 2026 at this link: https://stpaulswc.org/concert-series-upcoming/

February 2026

On March 21 Richard Wagner comes to our local Century theaters with the Met’s new production of Tristan and Isolde.  As you can see in their description below, they are quite proud of it.  I thought it badly needed updating from the last time the Met performed the opera.  Local show time for the live matinee is 9:00am, an hour earlier than usual because it is a five-hour opera and they need to get ready for a different opera that night.  Encore showings on Wednesday March 25 will be at 12:00pm and 6:30pm.  You will be able to find reviews online after opening night, March 9.

 

“After years of anticipation, a truly unmissable event arrives in cinemas worldwide on March 21 as the electrifying Lise Davidsen tackles one of the ultimate roles for dramatic soprano: the Irish princess Isolde in Wagner’s transcendent meditation on love and death. Heroic tenor Michael Spyres stars opposite Davidsen as the love-drunk Tristan. The momentous occasion also marks the advent of a new, Met-debut staging by Yuval Sharon—hailed by The New York Times as “the most visionary opera director of his generation” and the first American to direct an opera at the famed Wagner festival in Bayreuth—as well as Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s first time leading Tristan und Isolde at the Met. Mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Gubanova reprises her signature portrayal of Brangäne, alongside bass-baritone Tomasz Konieczny, who sings Kurwenal after celebrated Met appearances in Wagner’s Der Fliegende Holländer and Ring cycle. Bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green makes an important role debut as King Marke. This live cinema transmission is part of the Met’s award-winning Live in HD series, bringing opera to movie theaters across the globe.”

 

January 2026

On Saturday, February 14, we can see the live matinee of Massenet’s opera Cinderella in our local Century theaters.  The Century website indicates a starting time of 1:00pm, which is the normal curtain time in New York: this might be an error, so check before you go.  Encore performances will be the following Wednesday at 1:00pm and 6:30pm.  Cinderella is a short opera at 1 hour 49 minutes running time.

The opera hasn’t opened yet at the Met, but here is a general review of other performances: “Reviews for Massenet’s Cendrillon (Cinderella) generally praise its enchanting, silvery score and delightful fairy-tale charm, often highlighting its sophisticated take on the classic story with witty humor and emotional depth, though some productions draw mixed reactions for overly campy or overly conceptual staging, with standout performances often praised for vocal beauty and characterization, especially from mezzo-sopranos as Cinderella and the Prince (a trouser role).”

December 2025

January brings two Met operas in HD: First, on January 10 at 10:00am, we get the live matinee of Bellini’s I Puritani.  Taped encores follow on Wednesday, January 14.  On January 24 at 1:00pm they are sending us a taped copy of the new opera from earlier in the season, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. It doesn’t look like it will be repeated

November 2025

On Saturday, January 10, we get in our local Century theaters a live HD transmission from New York of the matinee of I Puritani, one of Bellini’s really great operas.  We have already seen La Sonambula this fall, an excellent example of Bellini’s bel canto compositions.  “Encore” taped performances will be on the following Wednesday, January 14.

October 2025

On Saturday, November 8, at 10:00am we can watch the live Saturday matinee of La Boheme in our local Century theaters, with the “encore” copies on Wednesday, November 12, at 1:00pm and 6:30pm.  With its enchanting setting and spellbinding score, the world’s most popular opera is as timeless as it is heartbreaking. Franco Zeffirelli’s picture-perfect production brings 19th-century Paris to the Met stage as Puccini’s young friends and lovers navigate the joy and struggle of bohemian life.   The New York Metropolitan Opera at its best.

September 2025

We start the opera season on Saturday, October 18, with Vincenzo Bellini’s La Sonnambula (Sleeping Beauty).  The live matinee performance is shown in local Century theaters at 10:00am local time with “encore” recordings the following Wednesday at 1:00pm and 6:30pm.  The opera opens in New York on October 6, after which you will be able to find reviews online.  It will be a brand new production of this old favorite.  If you would like to be on the activity email list, contact me as activity chairman at dbushn@swbell.net

August 2025

The HD transmissions for the Metropolitan Opera’s 2025-2026 season start on October 18 with the matinee of a new production of Vincenzo Donizetti’s Sonambula (Sleeping Beauty).  Nothing in September this year.

July 2025

Fathom Events is bringing four favorite operas from previous year’s Saturday matinees to our local Century theaters, but only on successive Wednesdays at 1:00 and 6:30.  Here they are: Verdi’s La Traviata on July 23; Gounod’s Romeo and Juliette on July 30; Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor on August 6, and Verdi’s Rigoletto on August 13.  All good operas, and they are summer bargains at $15 dollars admission!

May 2025

Our last Opera in HD will be Rossini’s comic opera The Barber of Seville.  The opera is great fun and one not to miss.  The live Saturday matinee arrives in our theaters on May 31 at 10:00am, with the “encore” repeats the following Wednesday, June 4, at 1:00pm and 6:30pm.  Both Century theaters in downtown Walnut Creek and Pleasant Hill carry the series.

April 2025

On May 17, 10:00am,  we get to see a live transmission of the Saturday matinee of Strauss’s opera Salome.  This is a new production, with an updating of the Biblical story – but only to Victorian times.  As usual, the recorded follow-up performances will be the following Wednesday at 1:00pm and 6:30pm, all at our Walnut Creek and Pleasant Hill Century theaters.  No reviews available yet, but the Met’s summary is below.

Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts his first Met performances of Strauss’s white-hot one-act tragedy, which receives its first new production at the company in 20 years. Claus Guth, one of Europe’s leading opera directors, gives the biblical story—already filtered through the beautiful and strange imagination of Oscar Wilde’s play—a psychologically perceptive, Victorian-era setting rich in symbolism and subtle shades of darkness and light. Headlining the new staging is soprano Elza van den Heever as the abused and unhinged heroine, who demands the head of Jochanaan, sung by celebrated baritone Peter Mattei. Tenor Gerhard Siegel is Salome’s lecherous stepfather, King Herod, with mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung as his wife, Herodias, and tenor Piotr Buszewski as Narraboth.

David Bushnell, Chairman  (Position of assistant chairman is still open, but it doesn’t pay well.)

 

 

last updated on 03/18/2026 by MLF