Long Beach Opera

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Long Beach Opera is a Southern California opera company serving the greater Los Angeles and Orange County metroplex. Founded in 1979, it is the oldest continually running opera company in the L.A. area. In June 2019 LBO presented the world premiere of The Central Park Five, an opera by Anthony Davis with libretto by Richard Wesley, about the Central Park jogger case. The opera won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in May 2020.[1][2]

History

The company, originally known as Long Beach Grand Opera, was a venture sponsored by the Long Beach Symphony Association to mark the inaugural season of the city’s

Long Beach Symphony with Milenski
as its executive director.

Following a period of early growth marked by the presentation of repertory staples, Long Beach Opera took a radical departure from the operatic mainstream. Under Milenski’s guidance, the company developed an alternative vision for opera – to present striking visual drama that would speak directly to contemporary audiences while maintaining the highest musical standard. That new era was launched by two important productions in 1983-84: Britten's Death in Venice and Monteverdi's The Coronation of Poppea starring Catherine Malfitano, a production the Los Angeles Times' chief music and dance critic Martin Bernheimer called LBO's "wild, wonderful Poppea." Both operas were staged by the maverick director Christopher Alden, whose career was given major impetus by his partnership with LBO.

Celebrated singers who were engaged by LBO during Milenski's tenure included

James Morris and Jerry Hadley
, but the company has a longstanding tradition of tapping talented singers on their way up.

In 2004,

. He also established a regular stable of company singers who were cast in successive productions throughout his time as artistic director.

Mitisek left the company in 2020. Yuval Sharon became the company's interim artistic advisor for the 2020-2021 season, which was cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown. Early in 2021, Los Angeles-based stage and film director James Darrah was named LBO's third artistic director and chief creative officer. His inaugural production later that spring was a mix of LBO tradition (a Philip Glass opera, Les Enfants terribles, staged in a parking garage) and the new (projected video imagery of the staged action as shot in real time, a Darrah signature).

Productions

Important LBO productions of Milenski's tenure included Powder Her Face by Thomas Adès, Richard StraussElektra (which was televised in Germany), Leoš Janáček's From the House of the Dead, The Beaumarchais Trilogy (The Barber of Seville by Giovanni Paisiello, The Marriage of Figaro by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and The Guilty Mother by Mark McGurty) and the complete operas of Claudio Monteverdi. LBO's 1997 world premiere production of Hopper's Wife, an opera by Stewart Wallace and Michael Korie, was praised by the Los Angeles Times for offering "a notion of one possible direction for American opera into the next millennium."[3] Several American premieres were presented on Milenski's watch, including King Roger by Karol Szymanowski, Schoenberg’s Die Jakobsleiter, Bernd Alois Zimmermann's Turning, I Saw Great Injustice and John Cage’s Europeras 3&4 (issued in a commercial recording).

Under Mitisek, LBO's significant works included two different productions of

Piazzolla's tango opera María de Buenos Aires in 2004 and 2012, daylong performances of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen in the abridged version by Jonathan Dove, the west coast premiere of Osvaldo Golijov's Ainadamar and the American premiere of Vivaldi's long-lost opera Motezuma.[4] In 2014, it mounted the first local performance of John Adams’ controversial The Death of Klinghoffer, a work that Los Angeles Opera co-commissioned in 1991 but flinched from staging.[5]

As a director, Mitisek was known for bringing creative theatrical concepts to the stage. He conceived the literary/operatic pairing of

The Emperor of Atlantis inside the hull the retired ocean liner Queen Mary.[9]

Mitisek produced the world premiere of Anthony Davis’ The Central Park Five, an opera that won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2020.[10]

During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic LBO turned to virtual programming, including a series of Community Conversations and a seminar on music history and social justice activism through the arts. In November 2020, LBO held The 2020 Songbook, a virtual fundraiser event that featured 20 world premiere pieces from emerging composers. The pieces were centered thematically around the year 2020 and incorporated a variety of styles.[11]

External links

References

  1. ^ The Central Park Five, by Anthony Davis - The Pulitzer Prizes
  2. ^ 'Central Park Five' composer Anthony Davis wins the Pulitzer Prize for Music - Yahoo News
  3. ^ "'Hopper's Wife': Not for the Faint of Art". Los Angeles Times. 16 June 1997.
  4. ^ "Culture Monster". Long Beach Opera Gives American Premiere to Vivaldi's Motezuma. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 19 August 2011.
  5. Broadway World
    . 19 February 2014.
  6. ^ "Classical Music Listings for Nov. 11-17". The New York Times. 10 November 2016. Retrieved 8 November 2018.
  7. ^ "Repertoire & Gallery - Long Beach Opera".
  8. ^ "Repertoire & Gallery - Long Beach Opera".
  9. ^ "Review: Long Beach Opera in the hull of the Queen Mary". Los Angeles Times. 10 May 2009.
  10. ^ "The Pulitzer Prizes".
  11. ^ "Long Beach Opera Presents 20 Premieres in "Songbook"".