Buoyed by the artistic success and widespread interest in the inaugural event, producers of the international Festival del Sole have revealed plans and attractions for a second music gala in wine country this summer.

Incorporating a staged opera for the the first time, the  Festival del Sole will bring to wine country world-class vocalists, instrumentalists and conductors along with the Bay Area’s Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, the University of Texas at Austin Wind Band and the return engagement of the Russian National Orchestra.

Venues for the 10-day festival include Lincoln Theater, Napa Valley Opera House and a stunning new Calistoga venue owned by vintner Daryl Sattui, Castello di Amoroso. Festival del Sole is patterned after a sister festival in Cortona, Italy, held during August every year.

Scheduled for July 13-22, the 10-day lifestyle festival, presented by the Del Sole Foundation for the Arts and Humanities, features daily concerts, to be followed by meals prepared by celebrity chefs and enhanced by the region’s finest wines.

The gala opening night event, on July 13, will star mezzo-soprano Frederica Von Stade and flutists Sir James Galway and his wife, Jeanne, as well as the resident Russian National Orchestra under the baton of young French conducting sensation Stéphane Denève.

Festival Del Sole’s dazzling roster of guest artists for this July’s performances also includes violinists Joshua Bell, Nikolaj Znaider and Dmitry Sitkovetsky; countertenor David Daniels; sopranos Danielle De Niese and Lisa Delan; cellist Nina Kotova; pianists Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Piotr Anderszewski and Christopher Taylor; conductors Antonio Pappano, Nicola Luisotti and Nicholas McGegan; and composer-in-residence John Corigliano.

Among the artists who will travel to the Napa Valley for this year’s Festival del Sole are some who do not make frequent appearances in this country. Among them are conductors Antonio Pappano, music director of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and Nicola Luisotti, recently named San Francisco Opera’s next music director.

Luisotti will lead a grand-scale concert by the Russian National Orchestra on July 18, featuring soloists Joshua Bell and Nina Kotova — each to play a solo concerto with the orchestra.  Maestro Pappano will lead the final Festival concert on July 22. It features two exciting young soloists who first appeared at the inaugural festival last July — violinist Nikolaj Znaider and pianist Piotr Anderszewski, each playing a concerto with the Russian National Orchestra.

Concerts this year are scheduled in venues ranging from the charming intimacy of the turn-of-the-century Napa Valley Opera House to the medieval atmosphere of Castello di Amorosa — a reproduction castle as imposing and persuasive as any in Europe. And the concert repertoire ranges from Handel’s baroque to the freshest compositions by John Corigliano. The first Castello concert is appropriately dedicated to Julius Caesar in the form of excerpts from Handel’s opera of the same name — to be performed in its debut festival concert by the San Francisco-based Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra under its artistic director, Nicholas McGegan, with superstar countertenor David Daniels and soprano Danielle De Niese as Caesar and Cleopatra (July 14). At the modern end of the scale, the crack University of Texas at Austin Wind Band, under Jerry F. Junkin, will perform John Corigliano’s challenging and entertaining “Circus Maximus” (July 15).

Corigliano’s artistry will be showcased once again on July 17 at the Castello di Amorosa, where the Galways will be joined for a chamber music concert by cellist Nina Kotova and violinist Dmitry Sitkovetsky.

There will be only two solo recitals this year, both in the Napa Valley Opera House: on July 19, pianist Christopher Taylor — who triumphed at last year’s festival with a two-hour Messiaen tour-de-force — will play Liszt’s daunting “Transcendental Etudes” and Beethoven’s final piano sonata, and on, July 21, soprano Lisa Delan will give a matinee performance.

Two full-scale orchestral extravaganzas complete the schedule, both with the Russian National Orchestra. On July 16, Carlo Ponti Jr. takes the podium for Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” and the Prokofiev “Piano Concerto No. 3,” with Italian virtuoso Fabio Bidini; and on July 20, Stéphane Denève will conduct again, with soloists Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Dmitry Sitkovetsky, each featured in an instrumental concerto. Thibaudet will play Saint-Saens “Piano Concerto No. 5 (Egyptian)” and Sitkovetsky’s concerto will be announced at a later date.

The Del Sole Foundation for the Arts and Humanities will reveal further details of programs and participants as they develop — with separate announcements of other aspects of the festival from cooking and wine-tasting to art exhibitions and readings.

Barrett Wissman and Richard Walker are festival founders and directors, with Nina Kotova serving as artistic director.  Additional information is available from the festival Web site, www.festivaldelsole.com/napa valley.

For tickets to all Festival del Sole events, contact the Lincoln Theater Box Office at 944-1300 or www.lincolntheater.org.