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Festival Napa Valley marked its 20th anniversary with a record-breaking Arts for All Gala on July 12, raising $6.5 million to support its year-round education, scholarship and community initiatives. Held at Nickel & Nickel in Oakville, part of Far Niente Wine Estates, the gala brought together philanthropists, artists, vintners and civic leaders. 

Festival Napa Valley seemed a little closer to Kansas when Charles Krug Winery in St. Helena hosted an outdoor screening of The Wizard of Oz with live accompaniment by Festival Orchestra Napa on July 16. A sold-out audience of 1,100 gathered to watch the beloved Technicolor tale of Dorothy and friends with a full orchestral score conducted by Ming Luke

The 20th century is littered with the corpses of high-minded comic operas. Satire is what closes on Saturday night, said George S. Kaufman, whose witticism has passed into theater folklore. Fearlessly, composer Jake Heggie and his long-time librettist Gene Scheer took up the challenge with The Judgment of Paris — it was the exclamation point of Festival Napa Valley’s 20th anniversary season.

Festival Napa Valley (FNV), a music-centric charity organization that funds arts initiatives in the valley, marked its 20th anniversary this year, capping off over two weeks of performances with $6.5 million raised at its capstone event, the Arts for All Gala.

If Festival Napa Valley’s Symphonic Finale was a poker hand, it would have been a royal flush. Presented Sunday, July 19, at the FNV Stage at Charles Krug in St. Helena, the late evening program featured the works of a quintet of American compositional royalty performed by Festival Orchestra Napa under the guidance of conductor JoAnn Falletta.

Festival Napa Valley celebrated its 20th year with the world premiere of Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer’s “Judgment of Paris” opera at Charles Krug winery in St. Helena, CA on July 18, 2026. Most operas are written to be repertory items, performed in one theater this year and somewhere else the next. But “The Judgment of Paris,” the ebullient and delightful new comic one-act by San Francisco composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer, is so resolutely site-specific that its world premiere on Saturday, July 18, at the Charles Krug Winery in St. Helena practically counts as an art installation. 

On July 10, under the setting sun at Charles Krug Winery, guests were treated to an inspired program led by conductor Stephanie Childress, from Beethoven to a thrilling symphonic celebration of American classics by Bob Dylan and Billy Joel. The Young People’s Chorus of New York City also performed composer Gordon Getty’s Young America, with artistic direction by Francisco J. Nuñez, and the audience was enraptured by the world premiere of Michael Thurber’s concerto As I Breathe performed by Time for Three.

Festival Napa Valley marked its 20th anniversary with a record-breaking Arts for All Gala on Sunday, July 12, raising an unprecedented $6.5 million to support its year-round education, scholarship, and community initiatives. Held at Nickel & Nickel, part of Far Niente Wine Estates, the Gala brought together philanthropists, artists, vintners, and civic leaders in a joyful celebration of music, generosity, and shared purpose.

The Judgment of Paris, the subject of librettist Gene Scheer and composer Jake Heggie’s latest opera, is not the mythological contest that led to the Trojan War. It’s the informal name of the 1976 blind tasting when judges rated Napa wines higher than French ones for the first time.  It’s a perfect story for Festival Napa Valley, so the pair readily agreed when Festival Vice President and Director of Artistic Planning Charles Letourneau asked them to write the opera.