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Were there the shadow of a doubt of the continuing and historic power of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde to capture and move its audiences, this summer’s Seattle Opera production dispelled it, two major shortcomings notwithstanding. The leading strength in Thursday’s fourth of seven performances was appropriately the orchestra.

Composer and SFCV contributor Matthew Cmiel and director/ choreographer Wolfgang Thompson have put together an evening of music and words that sounds exciting in its mix of different approaches with works ranging from a choreographic work that uses Anne Sexton’s poems as a score, and a staging of a work by Elliott Carter.

It was that familiar feeling — the warm, almost small-town atmosphere in the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium, the jokey introductions, the openness of the audience to the new sounds on hand. This could only be the Cabrillo Festival, where Music Director Marin Alsop once again led her players through unfamiliar and often exciting music during the festival’s opening weekend.

Sure, the Cabrillo Festival showcased a trio of distinctive, lauded — and breathing — composers on its opening night program. And yes, Music Director Marin Alsop and her band played their hearts out, as they usually do. But perhaps more impressive was the most neglected portion of the classical music communication channel: the audience.

Acclaimed cellist Zuill Bailey talks with SFCV about his love-at-first crush with the cello, doing what he loves for a living in El Paso and Alaska, his passion for musical outreach programs, and working on the television series Oz.

Music@Menlo opened a broad umbrella for “La Ville Lumiere: Paris, 1920–28,” with composers as various as Milhaud, Prokofiev, Fauré, Copland, Antheil, Ravel, and Gershwin all gathered underneath. Variety, in both style and delivery, proved to be the prevailing spirit of Saturday’s musically sprawling program.

Soprano Sondra Radvanovsky’s first solo recital helps clarify her position in the pantheon of great Verdi sopranos. In this recording by Delos in a Moscow studio, backed by San Francisco–born Constantine Orbelian and his Philharmonia of Russia, Radvanovsky holds forth in 10 drama-filled arias that showcase her innately dramatic voice that seems tailor-made for Verdi.

Want to know what can makes a bel canto opera performance great and what can neutralize it? Head to Cowell Theater, where select participants in this summer’s installment of San Francisco Opera’s famed Merola Opera Program hold forth in Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore.

What distinguishes an Open Opera performance is both its professional pedigree and the relaxed viewing environment — audience members are invited to move around. The Bay Area nonprofit organization that performs opera, free, for the public and makes use of the region’s great local talent, students and professionals alike will mount four fully-staged performances of Mozart’s Don Giovanni starting this weekend.