Stern Grove. I have lived in the Bay Area for most of the last 17 years and until this weekend I had never heard of Stern Grove. Either I'm completely oblivious and I have no idea what's going on around me or there's so much going it's hard to keep track of everything.

The odd thing is I had driven by the grove dozens of times over the years. It's a stand of tall eucalyptus trees in the southwestern corner of San Francisco right off 19th Avenue, the main thoroughfare into the city from the south, one that I used to take whenever I drove up to town from Santa Cruz and Burlingame. I can remember seeing banners hanging there in the trees promoting some event or another, but I never paid much attention, probably because I was too anxious or excited to get to the city to pay attention to what the trees were saying.

On Sunday Jennifer and I went to see some opera music at Stern Grove featuring mezzo-sopranoDenyce Graves who was a last minute replacement for Carol Vaness. But, damn, she was impressive.

The concert started around 2pm, but we arrived at noon to get a decent spot to sit, eat lunch and watch the music. Even two hours before the concert, the place was packed. All the tables and chairs were spoken for. People laid out blankets all across the terraced grass and the granite steps. We had to climb up the hill above most of the spectators to find a seat just beyond last stone wall. We threw down some blankets and settled in, enjoying a leisurely picnic while we waited for the program to start.

I was responsible for all the food and drink. Here's what we had:

lunch
proscuitto and brie sandwiches on french bread
fresh mozzarella with sun dried tomatoes and basil
blue corn tortilla chips with southwestern salsa

dessert
ritter sport chocolate with hazelnuts
trader joe's peanut butter chocolate chip cookies

drink
spanish tempranillo garnacha
organic limeade

I drank most of the wine. By the time the show started, I was feeling pretty damn good laying back on our blankets on a perfect little incline. It was a typical overcast, foggy SF day. The sun was trying to break through the thick marine layer, but without much success. A nice breeze was blowing across from the Pacific through the grove, moving in and out of the massive eucalyptus trees that surrounded the stage and the audience.

A series of people came to the mic to make one announcement or another and then the emcee introduced Denyce Graves who came sweeping onto to the stage in this elaborate red dress fluttering in the wind. As soon as she started belting out arias from Carmen, I knew this was going to be a great performance.

For about two hours we just soaked up the music from an impressive program of opera and musical classics alternately between Graves, baritone Rod Gilrey, who was surprisingly good, and a few other random opera performers. It's really hard to imagine a more blissful way to spend an afternoon than to be serenaded by a world renowned opera performer backed by the San Francisco Opera orchestra in the middle of a gently swaying eucalyptus grove.