Overture Workshops are very informative, and I’m not just speaking as a frequent SFO supernumerary and opera lover. I attended the Overture: Opera Workshops for Adults four-session series in fall 2011. These workshops offer a lot of information in a very short time, including some worthwhile participation.

As we prepare for the opening of Nixon in China on June 8, we started thinking about the year the opera takes place: 1972. It was a year of many firsts for women, a lot of violence in Northern Ireland, the birth of the video game, the Watergate scandal and when President Nixon visited China. Read on for a timeline of fun facts to impress your friends with from that fateful year.

The bus stop. It's a place I often find myself spending time as an Adler Fellow. I currently live in the Inner Richmond area, which is a good forty minutes from the opera house, but you can't beat the rent or the myriad of multicultural cuisine just steps from your door. Every morning, I wait for the 38 bus with my fellow passengers in silence, and it never ceases to shock me when someone speaks to me. "How strange!" I think to myself, and wonder what it is about me or my demeanor that invites conversation. What gives people the courage to strike up a chat? Such is the subject matter of LOVE/HATE, a modern love story about two people who meet at...you guessed it...the bus stop. And just as life imitates art, art often imitates life.