Festival Opera returns with love, lust, laughs

Festival Opera returns from its hiatus this weekend with a concert marking the Walnut Creek-based company’s 27th anniversary.

On the program are three acts from three popular operas. “Love, Lust and Laughter: An Opera Experience” draws its first act with the lovestruck protagonists Mimi and Rodolfo from Act 1 of Puccini’s “La Bohème” and its second from the turbulent Act 2 of the composer’s “Tosca,” when the lascivious and evil Scarpia presses himself upon the title heroine.

Laughter arrives in the third section, a performance of Act 3 of “Die Fledermaus” by Johann Strauss II.

Conducted by Alan Anibal, with stage direction by Mark Foehringer, the program features artists wellknown to Bay Area audiences, including soprano Carrie Hennessey, mezzo-soprano Betany Coffland, tenor Alex Boyer, baritone Eugene Brancoveanu and bass Philip Skinner.

Details: 2 p.m. Sunday; Lesher Center for the Arts, Walnut Creek; $20-$90; 925-943-7469, www.festivalopera.org.

SIMON DUNNE — JULIA ADAM DANCE Members of Julia Adam Dance perform “Solis” in West Marin in 2017. Adam’s annual dinner and dance extravaganza returns this weekend at Big Mesa Farmstead in Bolinas.