Livermore Valley Opera's outdoor summer finale at Garré Vineyard & Winery — 5 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 16, $80, picnic-friendly — has become a memorial for the company's late artistic director. Here's what to know before you drive out.

Livermore Valley Opera's Opera in the Vineyard returns for its summer finale at 5 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 16, at Garré Vineyard & Winery, 7986 Tesla Road in Livermore. Gates open at 4 p.m.; tickets are $80 through livermorevalleyopera.com. It's a bring-your-own-picnic affair — pack the food and the non-alcoholic drinks — and Garré's wines are for sale on the grounds, so buy the pours there. There's a raffle and silent auction, too. (Date, time, price and format per SFGATE/Bay City News and the Pleasanton Weekly and Danville San Ramon previews.)

What makes this one different from the June installment: the afternoon has become a memorial. The program is dedicated to Erie Mills, the company's artistic director, who died June 23 at 73. Mills was a coloratura soprano whose career of more than 25 years reached the Metropolitan Opera, La Scala, and the Vienna State Opera before she settled into shaping this small Livermore company — leading its artistic vision since 2016 and championing it since 2009. LVO has since named her Artistic Director Laureate. According to the company, Sunday's repertoire was chosen with her in mind: expect "Granada," "Meadowlark" from The Baker's Wife, and songs by Cole Porter and from The Sound of Music, alongside the operatic arias and Broadway standards the event is built on.

The singers are LVO regulars you may recognize from the mainstage: mezzo-soprano Courtney Miller, the Despina from the company's Così fan tutte; tenor William Gorton, who's turned up in more than two dozen LVO productions; baritone Luis Alejandro Orozco, who has sung at the Met and the Opéra de Lyon and directs the opera theater program at San José State; and soprano Avery Boettcher. There's piano accompaniment; no orchestra.

The practical stuff. Garré sits on Tesla Road on the far east side of Livermore, in the middle of wine country — there is no BART or transit that gets you close, so plan to drive. The nearest BART is Dublin/Pleasanton, and it's a haul from there with no easy last-mile connection. Go early: the gates open a full hour before the music, and the point of arriving at 4 is to stake out a spot on the lawn, spread the picnic, and get a glass of wine in hand before the first note. A low-back lawn chair or a blanket both work; bring a hat, because a 5 p.m. Livermore summer sun is no joke until it drops behind the hills.

If you only do one thing: get there when the gates open at 4, set up the picnic while the light's still high and gold over the vines, and settle in. On an afternoon built to remember the woman who made this company what it is, an unhurried arrival is the whole point.

Sources: Livermore Valley Opera; SFGATE/Bay City News; Pleasanton Weekly; Danville San Ramon Express; San Francisco Classical Voice; Local News Matters.