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A new opera app is in the works, and tech-savvy board members have been recruited by the San Francisco Opera. There is a push on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to attract single-ticket buyers, as the old-guard subscriber base is waning. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

It's been 20 years, and Michael Tilson Thomas is still coming up with new ways to enliven the old tradition of the San Francisco Symphony Opening Gala. On Wednesday night in Davies Symphony Hall, he did it with a canny mix of guest artists and some familiar repertoire delivered in not-quite-familiar ways. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This year's San Francisco Symphony season Opening Gala was a two-fer: Not only was it a chance to usher in the 103rd season of San Francisco's 15-time Grammy Award-winning 0rchestra, it was also a celebration of the 20-year leadership of musical director Michael Tilson Thomas, whose ingenuity has resulted in 12 of those Grammys. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Symphony's concert is just the start at colorful and lively Opening Gala [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Splendor at S.F. Symphony gala [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Masonic, formerly known as Masonic Auditorium, will reopen in September as a full-fledged entertainment venue after extensive renovations - and even more extensive negotiations with neighborhood groups. The announcement was made by concert promoter Live Nation on Monday. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Masonic, formerly known as Masonic Auditorium, will reopen in September as a full-fledged entertainment venue after extensive renovations - and even more extensive negotiations with neighborhood groups. The announcement was made by concert promoter Live Nation on Monday. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Mourad Lahlou's downtown San Francisco restaurant has taken longer than expected to move forward - but things are finally progressing. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Gala attendees - both men and women - embellished their formalwear this year with sparkling beads, prints and unusual color choices. While some women borrowed gems from one of the evening's sponsors, Bulgari, others wore their own rubies, diamonds and other stones. Younger attendees opted for whimsy, with short dresses and bows in their hair. One noticeable trend was colored loafers for men. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Going into the San Francisco Ballet's 81st season opening gala, the big question was whether the company and the event would live up to the one-word theme chosen by gala chair Tanya Powell: "phenomenal." [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The world premiere of "Looking" at the Castro Theatre on Tuesday night felt less like a Hollywood event exported to the Bay Area and more like a homecoming. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Douglas Keane's resume has no shortage of accolades, with a celebrated cooking career that has drawn local and national awards aplenty. Today, he adds yet another: Top Chef Master. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The red carpet, sadly, was just a carpet. No river of blood, video projection of squirming maggots or flame spurts bursting through the ground. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A gala night is always filled with drama, but the San Francisco Opera's 91st season opening night proved to be an epic of sorts - in energy, elan and maybe even endurance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas probably didn't intend for his introduction to "A Jazz Symphony," a radical piece when written by George Antheil in 1925, to serve as a metaphor for the San Francisco Symphony's 102nd season-opening gala. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

If you're going to get the San Francisco Symphony's season off to a festive start, why not program an evening of music suitable for a party? And while you're at it, why not invite the great Audra McDonald to take center stage and delight the gala audience with her patented combination of vocal majesty and irresistible personal charm? [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

When chefs and restaurateurs seek out potential locations, there's a certain amount of Goldilocks-like decision-making involved. One space might be too expensive, another too isolated. One might be too big, another too small. It's all about getting it just right. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Aub Zam Zam. Mr. Bing's. Riptide. Comstock Saloon. Philosopher's Club. Smuggler's Cove. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

It's not often that you see San Franciscans in tiaras, unless you're at a party with drag queens. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Monday's grand opening of Feinstein's at the Nikko brought a bit of New York and Hollywood to San Francisco, prompting one partygoer to quip that the whole shebang was like something the town used to see back in the headier days of the early '90s. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The first time Dennis Bartels visited the Exploratorium was in 1989 during an outing to San Francisco with his fiancee. They were going to spend an hour. Instead they stayed all day. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Opening Day was its usual ritual celebration of optimism, especially because the Giants won. We found ourselves lucky enough to share a box with some former players. We'd met Gaylord Perry and Orlando Cepeda during playoffs in years past. Cepeda pointed out Juan Marichal, who was sharing the box too. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Usually when restaurants revamp and change concepts, the writing is already on the wall: empty tables, lonely bartenders and dwindling reservations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

If awards were given to party themes, the San Francisco Ballet's 80th season-opening gala might be deemed most cerebral. Last year's "Bella Notte" easily played off the "Romeo and Juliet" ballet performed during the season. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Wearing loose khakis and an oversize black hoodie, Bill Cosby meandered onto the stage at the new SFJazz Center on Wednesday. It was an ironically casual entrance for the master of ceremonies of the inaugural event, given the last-minute frenzy to get the $64 million building at Fell and Franklin streets in shape for the big opening-night gala. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Before the public could test the acoustics inside the country's first stand-alone jazz concert hall, it got to test the acoustics out on Fell Street, where a raucous New Orleans-style street parade was held to puff up the opening of the SFJazz Center on Monday. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

There's no way you're getting into the new SFJazz Center's opening-night gala, which boasts Bill Cosby as an emcee and features a jaw-dropping list of musical guests, including McCoy Tyner, Bobby Hutcherson, Mary Stallings, Joshua Redman and Esperanza Spalding. That thing sold out weeks ago. But there will be plenty of other opportunities to catch a great show at the new, $65 million venue located at Fell and Franklin streets - the nation's only stand-alone jazz center. Here are some can't-miss concerts from the Miner Auditorium Season 1 calendar with tickets still available. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The year 2012 was very robust in terms of Bay Area restaurant openings, but 2013 looks to be even busier. Here are 21 places to look forward to this year: [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Just as Willie Wonka kept his famed chocolate factory behind locked doors, so has Tony Gemignani - a culinary mad scientist in his own right - kept any details about Capo's, his upcoming restaurant, top secret. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Take it from the top, 100 bottles of Champagne on the wall, and here's to the 101st season of the San Francisco Symphony. Colleague Carolyne Zinko has already reported on the ritual gala, but I've got a few mental snapshots to paste into the album: [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A gala opening night, with gents in tuxedos and women in sequined gowns sipping bubbly in the late afternoon sunshine, doesn't seem the sort of spot to stand and wax philosophic about the diversification of an arts group's audience base. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As dusk fell in Manhattan on Tuesday, the Hearst Corp. threw a party at its glimmering tower to show "Citizen Hearst," Leslie Iwerks' new documentary about the 125-year-long history of the media giant. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The more things change, the more they stay the same, relatively speaking. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

What would a Chez Panisse bowl of ramen look like? [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

When I was growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, the fall movie season was the cinematic equivalent of my Halloween candy bag, two weeks after the holiday. A few stray unwrapped hard candies here. Some weird orange and black taffy there. Maybe if I'm lucky a half-crushed fun-size Snickers is buried in the detritus. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

With a few exceptions, the Bay Area has traditionally been a rough market for outsiders, as the big names usually try to replicate their success in places like Las Vegas, New York and abroad. That might be changing. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The institution long known as Judah L. Magnes Museum - custodian of pre-eminent collections representing the cultural history of Jews in the West - reopened Sunday as the Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life at UC Berkeley's Bancroft Library. The name change tells the story in shorthand. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Like Michael Jordan after his baseball stint or Elvis Presley following his Army sabbatical, Gavin Newsom is getting back in the game. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Maybe it was the stellar crop of restaurant openings last year, or maybe it's simply the inevitable cycle of things, but there has been a lot of upheaval on the San Francisco hotel restaurant circuit. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Most chefs are hardwired to care about the Michelin Guide, so the local restaurant industry paid attention to Tuesday's release of the 2012 Bay Area Michelin Guide. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The new International Art Museum of America, a strangely eclectic space on the gritty stretch of San Francisco's Market Street between Sixth and Seventh streets, offers a lofty mission statement. It aims "to display the most beautiful and precious art from all over the world to promote moral progress, spiritual health and cultural and artistic development of humanity around the globe." [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Former Lower Haight jewel box RNM (598 Haight St.) closed suddenly last year, but in November a pair of fine dining vets will resurrect it as a new bar named Maven. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Positioned just 24 hours prior to the world premiere of "Heart of a Soldier" and 48 hours after the San Francisco Symphony's Centennial celebration, the San Francisco Opera's 89th opening-night gala Friday was no mere placeholder on the city's inaugural fall arts and social season calendar. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In keeping with the setting of Puccini's "Turandot," An Evening in the Forbidden City was the theme of Friday night's San Francisco Opera season opener, but in several ways, that was inexact. "Evening" at these swell events starts in late afternoon (Champagne flowing by 5 p.m.) and goes on until early morning (dancing to Bill Hopkins Rock'n Orchestra). And actually, despite the sleekly sexed-up and Spanxed wasp waists, tucked-in torsos and billowing bosoms, the Forbidden felt wholesome, a family gathering of clan members who'd attended for generations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Amid 86-degree late summer weather and a legion of lyrical notes played onstage at Davies Hall, the San Francisco Symphony celebrated its "Fanfare for a New Century," the orchestra's one-for-the-record-books 100th opening-night gala. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The dog days of summer are upon us, and there's no better way to get your mind off the Giants' injury woes and the BART protests than daydreams of the essential summer food: barbecue. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Perched high on a hill, it's easy to forget the onetime glory days of Charles Nob Hill. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Spring has sprung, baseball has returned, and high-profile restaurants are opening after a winter lull. And as always, chefs are on the move. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Cascading trains of tulle, towering topiaries and flouncy feathers rippling aloft an unseasonably balmy breeze at City Hall Wednesday perfectly captured "La Belle Époque" at the San Francisco Ballet's 78th opening-night gala. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

"Billy Elliot the Musical" will dance into San Francisco's Orpheum Theatre in June, a few months earlier than its previously announced September dates, the SHN Best of Broadway series is expected to announce today. Due to changes in its touring schedule, the national company of the smash Broadway hit will preview June 27 and open June 28 for a limited 12-week engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]