Michael Zwiebach

The Merola Opera Program steps out with Rossini's oft-played masterpiece The Barber of Seville, an easy recommendation, and an all-star cast: The Merolini are singers you will soon be seeing in major opera houses around the globe.

Here's a summer concert that's easy and cheap: for just $15 you can get in to the Piedmont Piano Company to hear excellent pianist Eliane Lust play Joplin, Gershwin, and a variety of tangos.

Music in the Vineyards' first weekend brings a delightful trio of twilight concerts, one at Robert Mondavi the other at Regusci Winery and one at Rubicon Estate.

From the 1690s all the way to the 2000s, composers have mined Shakespeare for operatic gold. Here's a list of 10 of the best operas based on Shakespeare, so far.

Emmanuel Chabrier’s L’etoile, his first opera, was written for Jacques Offenbach’s Bouffes Parisiennes and premiered there in late 1877. If you’ve never seen or heard the piece, it’s worth the trouble to seek it out.

Although not everybody is happy to acknowledge it, John Williams is likely the most popular American composer of classical music alive today. The San Francisco Symphony winds up its Summer and the Symphony series with a jaunt through the Williams canon, with a few nods to his compatriots in what is some of the most sophisticated and brilliantly orchestrated movie music ever.

Pamela Z’s — whose Room Series continues this weekend with “Poetry and Motion” at the Royce Galler — is apparently an inexhaustible fount of great ideas, bringing together three musicians and three dancers in the Japanese Butoh tradition.

Casablanca may be the most popular movie ever made in old Hollywood. It has everything — a great story, stars, script — and one of the most memorable scores of the period. This Friday, the S.F. Symphony performs the magical score synched to the film itself.

The Bay Area has always been the home of musicians who are comfortable in more than one musical tradition. At Seventh Avenue Performances this weekend, you can find Escalay (Water Wheel), a group that combines classical Arabic repertoire with fusion jazz.

Lamplighters Musical Theatre has taken steps to connecting with larger audiences. The company has booked the revival of the delightful 2007 production of H.M.S. Pinafore, the natural choice to introduce audiences to the “canon.”