In this week’s Field Notes: A 4-year-old meets 1,000 dogs, kids get a free tree book, and Sutro Baths summons ghosts. There's opera for Dolores Huerta, Deaf-led dance, an inclusive art fair, rooftop skating, coastal wineries with views, and a Novato Eames museum in the works.

A boy, a teacher, and 1,000 dogs

At Santa Cruz’s Pleasure Point, 4-year-old Quinn Drake is on a mission to meet 1,000 dogs before kindergarten — with help from his devoted day care teacher.

Armed with treats and a notebook, the pair spend weekends logging canine names and spreading joy. — NBC Bay Area

Free tree guide helps kids explore Bay Area forests

The Peninsula Open Space Trust has released a free Tree Explorer’s Handbook to help kids connect with nature. Designed for print or mobile, it includes bark rubbings, tree ID tips, and notes on the wildlife trees support.

POST’s Zionne Fox calls trees an accessible entry point for fostering curiosity. — KGO

Rituals, raves & ghost stories at sutro baths

The crumbling tunnel near San Francisco’s Sutro Baths has inspired ghost stories and satanic panic since the '80s. Once a quarry access route, it’s now a canvas for graffiti, a backdrop for punk shows and raves, and a magnet for occult rumors — none verified, but the energy still lingers.

Hikers still stumble upon candle stubs and burned-out circles of salt. Whether it’s urban myth or a low-profile ritual site, the place practically dares you to look over your shoulder. — SFGate

Literary rebels and psych rock with Pat Thomas

Historian and longtime Bay Area music producer Pat Thomas brings his dual passions home next week. He'll be launching his new anthology Evergreen Review: Dispatches from the Literary Underground (1957–1973) at Clio’s in Oakland on August 4, then performing with his 1990s-era improv psych band Mushroom at the Make Out Room on August 5.

The book highlights the influence of Grove Press’s countercultural literary magazine and its boundary-pushing contributors, including William Burroughs and Amiri Baraka. — Mission Local

Dolores Huerta gets her own opera, and she’s attending Saturday night

West Edge Opera in Berkeley kicks off its season with Dolores, a world premiere inspired by labor icon Dolores Huerta and the 1965 Delano Grape Strike.

The new work — by composer Nicolas Lell Benavides and librettist Marella Martin Koch — spotlights Huerta’s early organizing years and her partnership with figures like Cesar Chavez and Larry Itliong. Huerta herself is expected to attend tonight’s opening night, August 2, at Oakland’s Scottish Rite Center. Runs through August 16. — Oaklandside

Bay Area’s Deaf Dance Festival brings bold new work and global talent

Now in its 13th year, the Bay Area International Deaf Dance Festival brings together Deaf and Hard of Hearing artists from around the world — Botswana to Bogota, Jamaica to the Bay. Led by Oakland-based dancer and choreographer Antoine Hunter (Purple Fire Crow), the festival runs August 6–10 with performances and workshops in SF and Berkeley.

It’s a rare space where Deaf artists can fully express themselves, both onstage and behind the scenes, supported by Deaf-led production and layered accessibility — from sign language in multiple languages to audio descriptions and vibrating seats. — 48 Hills

New art fair to spotlight neurodivergent artists

Creativity Explored is launching a new national art fair in downtown SF next January. Funded by a $100K grant from the Svane Family Foundation, the Creativity Explored x Open Invitational will bring together neurodivergent artists from across the country during San Francisco Art Week 2026.

Admission will be free, and booth fees waived. The project expands the cultural conversation around who gets exhibited and collected, and strengthens SF’s role as a leader in inclusive art. — SF Chronicle

Mid-century Novato landmark to become Eames Design Museum

A quirky 1960s-era building once home to publisher McGraw Hill — and later Birkenstock — is being transformed into a new art and design museum by the Eames Institute of Infinite Curiosity. The 88-acre Novato property will celebrate Charles and Ray Eames, the mid-century design legends behind the iconic molded chair and more.

With architecture from the firm behind SF’s de Young Museum, plans include showcasing emerging artists as well. The current Eames space in Richmond has a 1,000-person waitlist — and the Institute hopes this new site will become a world-class destination. There’s no timeline yet, but the purchase price was $36 million. — SFist

Rooftop roller rink brings summer skating to Market Street

Skate under the stars at SVN West’s rooftop rink, open Thursdays–Sundays through mid-September. With views of the San Francisco skyline, themed 21+ nights (like disco, hip-hop, and Bay Area beats), and kid-friendly events (like Character Day), there's something for everyone.

Tickets include skate rentals, and season passes offer unlimited access and food discounts. — Bucketlisters

Wine with a view

If you’ve ever wanted to sip pinot while watching waves crash below you, this roundup delivers. From redwood-flanked patios in Jenner (Fort Ross Vineyard) to Highway 1 breezes in San Simeon (Hearst Ranch Winery), these five California wineries pair coastal views with chardonnay, rosé, and even pinotage.

You can just drop in — or, if you’re the plan-ahead type, book food pairings or guided hikes between sips. — 7x7

Top Image via West Edge Opera House

Previously: Field Notes: Possums, Pixies, Plays, and Power Tools

The San Francisco Opera has just co-commissioned an opera (that's already been written) about the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. Along with the Seattle Opera, "The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs" will premiere this July at the Sante Fe Opera's open-air summer stage in the foothills of New Mexico's Sangre de Cristo Mountains. The opera was composed by composer and electronica DJ (!) Mason Bates and written by librettist Mark Campbell.

By underwriting the opera, San Francisco and Seattle have both locked down a guarantee to produce the show here and in Washington State. The Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University is also a producer of "The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs."

"This is not an opera about technology, although it will be the highest technology production that we've ever done," said Charles MacKay, general director of the Santa Fe Opera. "It is an opera about relationships, and it is an opera about human frailties. He could be a very difficult man."

The production, directed by Kevin Newbury and designed by scenic artist Victoria "Vita" Tzykun, is expected to be included in the San Francisco Opera's 2019 - 2020 season.

It remains unclear if audience members will be asked to turn their phones off during performances of "The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs."

Related: 10 Years Ago Today Apple Showed Us The First iPhone, And Steve Jobs's Hastiness Could Have Actually Been A Disaster

My esteemed colleague Cedric recently suggested that SF Opera's recent staging of a production detailing "the evil scheming of a morally corrupt upper class against the noble instincts and the steady moral compass of the simple peasants" was intended to tell their well-heeled audience "Oh, you want some Verdi? Here's what Verdi thought of you." If he's right, then the choice of Stephen Sondheim’s 1979 grand guignol musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street seemed a continuation of that comment, a warning of what San Francisco seems just steps from becoming.

There's no need to fear the likes of her, she's only a half-crazed beggar woman...London's full of them. -- "No Place Like London"

I don't know why I never saw this in Sondheim's work before — I haven't seen Todd performed since 2007, when director John Doyle’s spare production of Todd hit ACT. San Francisco was different then. Maybe I was, too?

Director Lee Blakeley’s production, which closed at the SF Opera last night (sadly, press ticket availability prevented our attendance before then) premiered at the Théâtre du Châtelet in 2011 and was staged at Houston Grand Opera last spring. It's a far more traditional telling of the penny dreadful tale of Sweeney Todd, a falsely-imprisoned barber (an appropriately-dark Brian Mulligan) who fights his way back to his family in Victorian-era London, only to find his wife (he believes) dead, and his daughter raised by the judge who sent him away.

Punctuated by the familiar-to-any-San-Franciscan cries of a homeless woman begging for "alms," (Elizabeth Futral, who seemed to struggle with the ragged vocal demands of the role) a manically despondent Todd seeks vengeance against those who stole his life — and, seemingly, against everyone else in London who crosses his path. But how to dump the bodies?

The history of the world, my love...Is those below serving those up above. -- "A Little Priest"

His landlady Mrs. Lovett (an absolutely fantastic Stephanie Blythe) has an industry-disrupting idea: Her meat pie business has been struggling, so why not feed London on its own? And thus, The Best Pies in London are born! Todd slices the throats of his customers, then drops them through the musical's trademark trap door into Lovett's bakehouse, where they're sent through the grinder three times, then fed to patrons waiting in endless, hungry lines.

There are two kinds of men and only two. There's the one staying put in his proper place, and the one with his foot in the other one's face. -- "Epiphany"

I'll chalk up some of the thin spots in last night's performance to it being the end of the current production's seven-performance run. But other issues, like the blaring of the SF Opera Orchestra over some of the vocals Sondheim intended to be most spare (example: Act One's punch-in-the-gut "Epiphany"), are less forgivable. The audience needs to hear these words as they pour out of Todd's black heart, but even Mulligan's best efforts couldn't compete with a squaking brass section. It appears the amplification of the vocals was a persistent issue for this production, and that's really too bad, as many of the lighter lyrics that should have counterbalanced the show's bitterest moments got lost in the scrum.

But even with these bobbles, we were still presented with a passionate, galvanizing, and ultimately gleeful (as strange as it seems to describe a show laden with rape, mass murder, and near-incest like that) staging of the show, one that hit all the right beats without seeming slavishly beholden to Sondheim's original 1979 production. In fact (sorry, Angela Lansbury and Patti LuPone!), Blythe might be my new favorite Mrs. Lovett, and Matthew Grills ate the Toby that Neil Patrick Harris brought to the SF Symphony in 2001 for lunch. I am hopeful that both of them tackle those roles again, because I feel like they'd just gotten started.

Those crunching noises pervading the air...It's man devouring man, my dear. And then who are we to deny it in here? -- "A Little Priest"

And then there's the story, that glorious, horrible story that I could not help but look at through San Francisco's current struggles with homelessness, income disparity, and "disruptive" class that doesn't give a good goddamn about what happens to anyone else as long as they get theirs. How the hairs on my arms raised as the ostensible male romantic lead Anthony asked a street vendor why the nightingales he sells "batter his wings so wildly against the bars," only to STILL BUY ONE even after he was told "we blind 'em sir and, not knowing night from day, they sing and sing without stopping, pretty creatures." How I mentally scrolled through post after post on every food blog ever as I watched the ensemble cry "God, That's Good" as they fetishized Lovett's pies. And how I was reminded that there are no new problems under the sun as I watched even the kindest, sweetest character become corrupted by the heartlessness of the city in which he lives.

Are the horrors of the world as played out so graphically in Todd restricted to San Francisco? No, of course not. But looking around those seated "up above" with me (tickets in the area in which I sat ran at over $200), then stepping past "half-crazed beggar woman" after "half-crazed beggar woman" on my two-block walk to my car, I felt that SF Opera had just baked us all a most subversive pie to delight our eyes...if we haven't already been blinded without even knowing it.

Feminism viewed through the prism of Victorian literature seems so quaint today. Composer Allan Shearer and librettist Claudia Stevens picked up one of the story lines from George Eliot's 1872 classic Middlemarch, appended "In Spring" to the title, and built a two hour chamber opera which premiered last week at Z Space, presented by Composer Inc.. They focused on Dorothea, who marries the older Mr. Casaubon, thinking he'll involve her in his intellectual pursuits. Help me help you she merely begs, far from demanding front row on the seating chart. Casaubon spurns her requests, but has the good taste of passing away, offering Dorothea a mulligan. However, it has a poison pill and per a codicil to his will, she'll lose Casaubon's money if she re-marries with young Ladislaw. She tries first to help the poor with her heritage, then realizes it's too complicated to be an independent woman who accomplishes, you know, stuff. She chooses love over money and follows Ladislaw, where she does not have to be too practical. Middlemarch (the opera) does not advance a radical agenda, but rather revels in looking back at Dorothea's struggle with a gentle, humourous and slightly paternalistic outlook.

This is conveyed through the sets, which present vividly, with relatively few elements, a Victorian interior or a town hall meeting, under a glass-less green house metallic structure. No ceiling to break there, it's actually supposed to visualize how plant-like the life of Dorothea is supposed to be: be pretty and make no noise. Projections by Jeremy Knight on the back wall add depth and a rich background to the decors, by Matthew Antaky. The costumes were kickstarted, and they look the period. Thanks to crowdfunding for helping bring this to the stage.

The music also conveys a sense of restraint, partly owing to the small scale of the chamber orchestra. Shearer can write a compelling accompaniment to a vocal line with only bass and percussion. While this prevents huge orchestral storms, it makes for an intimate setting, and the modern score, atonal and with gnarly chromaticisms, succeeds most in the scenes where Dorothea and her sister Celia share a jewel box's content. Mostly, the vocal lines declaim in an evenly paced sprechstimme, alternating between singers as if it was spoken dialogue. When it shifts into the rare lyrical duet (as in the first encounter of Ladislaw and Dorothea upon their return in England from Rome), it is delightful.

Even when dealing with its most revolutionary events (say, social unrest of the working class), the take is more humorous. It is the orchestra who embody the rioting crowd, and heckle the politician at the podium from the on-stage pit. While it is masterly written, the back and forth between the singer and stage and the musicians' interjection effortlessly natural, there is no hint of darkness, it is more fun than ominous. Maybe George Eliot is more optimistic than Dickens. We would have liked lower lows and higher highs, or even a bit more variety in the pacing. All musicians (conducted by Jonathan Khuner) were excellent, and short of naming all eleven of them, we'll mention Tod Brody's lyricism on the flute, Mckenzie Camp's decisive interventions on percussion and as a villager, Karen Rosenak's exactness on piano and Jon Keigwin's steadiness on bass.

The cast is first rate: as Dorothea, SFCM graduate Sara Duchovnay carries the opera on her shoulders. She's off stage for only a few scenes, and is the center of attention most of the time, with the most dramatic arias. Philip Skinner has sung with the SF Opera since 1985 and he perfectly captured the vanity of Casaubon. Eugene Brancoveanu has been on the big stages as well, and you could tell by the deep heft of his voice. He relishes opportunities to perform locally in off-beat roles for new music and smaller ensembles though, and we wished his part had been more meaty. Michael Mendelsohn provided well timed comic relief with dog poop jokes and burping drunkedness, and Tonia D'Amelio was a breath of fresh air as a brainless Celia (who still gets the final word). And Daniel Curran brought a youthful energy and a lot of enthusiasm to the part of Will.

Adapting a classic, using a small cast and orchestra, with a pleasant-yet-modern score and staying at a safe distance from controversial subjects, it is a piece that could be staged again in conservatories and universities and on smaller scene, and we wish it a similar trajectories as Mark Adamo's Little Women.

On July 5, head to AT&T Park for a free simulcast of the SF Opera's production of Verdi's La Traviata. We're no baseball analytics money ball experts, but signing up for free tickets seems the most efficient way to run the bases at the ballpark. The SF Opera Summer Season deserves a jumbo review with Showboat having its last performance on June 28, La Traviata welcoming a new cast for its last shows, and multi-talented Patricia Racette reprising the role of Madama Butterfly.

Showboat: SF Opera general director David Gockley feels the need to justify presenting Showboat on the War Memorial Opera House stage: "Because Broadway can no longer present these works on the scale their creators had in mind." On the back of our mind: How much longer can the opera present them at this scale? Witness the Met's employees contract negotiations right now, and Gockley's own worried words about the sustainability of the art form. Especially after watching a show of such dimensions—there are multiple choruses, two different dance groups, rich and impressive sets, splendid costumes for a gazillion people on stage—no expense was spared and you're in awe most of the evening.

To discuss "The Classical Style," the witty, charming, exhilarating new opera by Steven Stucky for the music and Jeremy Denk for the libretto, based upon the eponymous 1971 musicology treatise by Charles Rosen (eulogized here by Jeremy Denk in 2012), presented in the Ojai North Festival by Cal Performances, let's take a detour through the musical piece it most resembles: Frank Sinatra's "One Note Samba." O'l Blue Eyes croons "this is a little samba built upon a single note, other notes are bound to follow but the root is still that note" while at the same time singing exactly one note, an F. He switches then to another repeated note, B flat: "Now this new note is the consequence of the one we've just been through," returns to F for "as I'm bound to be the unavoidable consequence of…" and back to B flat for "you!"

This is a self-referential tune which explains to you in the lyrics what's going on in the musical line. F is the root, the tonic, and establishes a tonality. Bb comes in, as the "consequence" of F. In musical terms, Bb is the subdominant of F, a tonality which attracts F, where F wants to resolve. Bb therefore creates an ambiguity: "oh, but I thought I was stable in F, and now F is drawn to Bb." It uproots F, demotes F from being the key center to hanging up there, waiting to fall in the arms of Bb, which it does on the final "you." The musical gestures mimics falling in love.

Arrigo Boito's opera Mefistofele is an odd duck to open the season. It clocks at three and a half hours (thus an eternity before getting to the post-performance opening-night parties). It's not a beloved war horse. It's a weird blend of the German and Italian musical styles of the late 19th century. Its non-linear plot takes meditative turns and makes sense only if you have read an annotated synopsis or better, the two volumes of Goethe's Faust. Opening night calls for an opera speedy and light to celebrate the new season. Mefistofele is anything but.

And yet the Opera's gamble paid off, thanks to an inspired staging full of invention by Robert Carsen (from 1989, revived this time by Laurie Feldman), a set design (by Michael Levine) richer than a flourless chocolate cake, a phenomenal performance by bass Ildar Abdrazakov, and a clearly joyous opera chorus.

During Friday's SF Opera gala, hordes fancy-smelling types sporting their finest threads showed up at City Hall to kick off the opera company's newest season. Jennifer Siebel Newsom, documentary filmmaker/wife of Lieutenant Governor of California Gavin Newsom, however, took time to pose in front of a gaggle of gays protesting the treatment of the LGBT community in Russian.

Of the men protesting here include local activist Michael Petrelis (at right, to the left of Siebel Newsom). Never thought we'd live to see the day when Petrelis appeared in a Drew Altizer photo, but there you have it. Delightful.

Also of note that night? Deepa Pakianathan and her headgear. Behold:

Previously: Photo: Sir Ian McKellen In Solidarity With Russian Gays