We are very excited to have been written up in the Mercury News by Sal Pizarro.

You can find the original article here.

Here's the article copied below for your convenience.

"San Jose's hard-rockin' RockBar Theater might seem like a strange place to hear opera, but the First Street Opera singers -- who will perform there Sunday night -- are used to swimming against the mainstream troupe.

The collaboration of independent singers from around the Bay Area -- the group is run jointly by Amy Mendon and Melissa Mallory -- sings every month at Caffe Frascati in downtown San Jose during the South First Fridays art crawl. The joint was packed during the SubZERO Festival last weekend, as it is most months for the show, and fans know to arrive early if they want a seat. Mendon told me she's very excited about the first big gig for the 5-year-old group. And the less-traditional setting of RockBar Theater -- the former Garden City Casino on Saratoga Avenue, which has been renovated with a stage and a high-end vodka bar -- will give the singers plenty of license to put an eclectic twist on the opera genre. What's that mean? At a party at San Jose's Vyne Bistro a couple weeks ago, Mendon launched into an operatic rendition of "Do You Know the Way to San Jose" that brought the house down. Tickets for the 7 p.m. show are $10 and can be purchased in advance at www.rockbartheater.com. For more information on the First Street Opera, you can go to their website, www.firststreetopera.com."

First Street Opera was invited to sing with the Balanced Breakfast Showcase at Rockbar Theater and the show was reviewed in Santa Clara Weekly. The following excerpt is from the review by Melissa McKenzie, which can be found at this link.

"In an stroke of genius, Nemesis Media, Inc. and Barb Rocks combined their booking powers to bring eight bands to the RockBar Theater – located just outside of Santa Clara, off Saratoga Avenue and Stevens Creek Boulevard – for a showcase of musical talent last Friday night.

The April 10 show, which featured bands that participate in Balanced Breakfast – a networking group for musicians, writers, promoters and artistic types on Saturday mornings – brought together an eclectic mix of music consisting of everything from beautiful operatic arias to mosh pit–fueled Viking metal, and that was just the start of what would become an epic six–hour, free event.

Opening with First Street Opera, who started the show with a rendition of “O Mio Babbino Caro” (“Oh My Beloved Father”), best known from the opera “Gianni Schicchi,” and – for the non–opera–loving generation – the video game Grand Theft Auto 3. Although the stunning arias were short–lived (a 30–minute set), the crazy kids at Nemesis and Barb Rocks backed it up with Viking metal from Valensorow. Yes, Viking metal. The thrashing and crashing had long–haired metalheads whipping their locks forward and backward while a mosh pit broke out in the middle of the dance floor – a far cry from the subdued, calming effect of First Street Opera’s performance. "