The best part of San Francisco summer—free concerts at Stern Grove—closed this Sunday with “Leonard Bernstein: The Master and His Muses,” performed by the amazing SF Opera soloists and orchestra, conducted by John DeMain. The concert, featuring a wonderful soprano Sylvia McNair, included excerpts from West Side Story, Wonderful Town, Candide, and On The Town, and the music of “the muses”—Gershwin, Blitzstein, Rogers, and Kern. Karen Slack, a former Adler Fellow and Merola Opera Program alumna was purely divine in arias from Porgy and Bess. Maestro DeMain and Ms. McNair shared bits and pieces of their personal encounters with the great Leonard Bernstein, and looking at a picnicking crowd, fidgeting children, and dragonflies that darted across the meadow among the eucalyptus trees, one could only marvel at the spirit of this truly American composer, comfortably in place at the Grove, brought to the people of San Francisco by the three generations of Stern women. Three concerts of the summer festival were dedicated to their memory, and the closing SF Opera concert was one of them, dedicated to Elise Stern Haas. To learn more, visit www.sterngrove.org.
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