News

The festival’s annual Dance Gala, A Night at the Ballet, brought an exhilarating production to Napa courtesy of co-producers Melanie Hamrick, Joanna DeFelice and Christine Shevchenko. 

Renée Fleming returned to Festival Napa Valley on July 11 with an inspired performance of Voice of Nature: The Anthropocene at Charles Krug Winery in St. Helena. The immersive multimedia concert, inspired by her 2023 Grammy Award-winning album of the same name, was conducted by Alexander Shelley.

Festival Napa Valley presented the world premiere of The Judgment of Paris at Charles Krug Winery in St. Helena, a one-act opera by composer local star Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer, which was commissioned for the festival’s 20th Anniversary Season. Blending myth with modern history, the work brings Bacchus and Venus down from Olympus to 1970s Paris and Napa Valley, where they encounter the vintners who dared to defy tradition.

The festival launched its 20th Anniversary Season on July 10 with the Uytengsu Family Opening Night at Charles Krug Winery in St. Helena, led by conductor Stephanie Childress. The program opened with Beethoven and closed with a symphonic reimagining of songs by Bob Dylan, Billy Joel and other American songwriters—an exhilarating finale that set the tone for a landmark anniversary year.

There may have been no better place to premiere an opera about the 1976 Judgment of Paris — the blind wine tasting that first put California wines on the map — than the valley whose reputation it transformed.

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.