Long Beach Opera Reveals 2026 - 2027 Season
Season opens with three theatrical works by Georges Aperghis, followed by productions featuring soprano Amanda Forsythe and a workshop of a new opera at UCLA.
Long Beach Opera's (LBO) 2026-27 season performance series aboard The Queen Mary will kick off with a presentation of three works by genre-defying composer Georges Aperghis this September. Featuring spectacular vocal performances from coloratura soprano Habin Kim and the opera debut of synth-pop performance artist Geneva Jacuzzi, LBO Artistic Director James Darrah Black and Music Director Christopher Rountree explore the work of Georges Aperghis through a trio of theatrical compositions: Le corps à corps, Les Sept Crimes de l'amour, and Récitations.
The season continues with a presentation of soprano Amanda Forsythe and Opera Prima performing Tormento Seicento in January, along with four other productions on the historic ship, an Anna Schubert recital, Peter Brook's Impressions of Pelleas, Handel's Tolomeo, and Ana Sokolović's Svadba (Wedding) next year. A workshop of Shelley Washington and Lisa Teasley's The Passion of Nell provides a first look at the much-anticipated work at UCLA in the spring.
Long Beach Opera's 2026–27 programming is built on the idea that opera is most alive when it meets audiences where they are: in their community, on historic ships, inside the rehearsal room itself. Each work dissolves the boundary between art and audience, embracing opera as a living, breathing process – bold, accessible, and stubbornly present.
“This season examines the human voice in a moment in which its power is more important than ever in the face of accelerating technology, the noise of the news, and all the things that are going on in the world. The human voice is this mythic, ancient thing,” Chief Creative Officer and Artistic Director James Darrah Black stated. “When I hear a singer completely, fully power their voice over an orchestra, I'm always shocked by what the human voice can do unamplified. It's this astounding instrument that we all possess, yet each is unique.”
“Our 2026-27 season is about expanding where and how audiences can experience opera,” said Michelle Magaldi, Long Beach Opera's CEO. “We're bringing distinctive artists and adventurous works to the Queen Mary, presenting an intimate reimagining of Pelléas et Mélisande, creating a unique production of Svadba and opening the development of a new opera to the public. Together, these projects reflect our commitment to making opera more immediate, adventurous and accessible — without sacrificing artistic ambition.”
Georges Aperghis: Le corps à corps, Les Sept Crimes de l'amour, Récitations
The Queen Mary, 1126 Queen's Way, Long Beach
September 26, 2026, 7:30 pm
Directed by James Darrah Black
Conducted by Christopher Rountree
Habin Kim, soprano
Geneva Jacuzzi, performance artist, electronic musician
Brian Cannady, percussion
M.A. Tiesenga, soprano saxophone
Written contemporaneously to LBO's founding, the three compositions by Georges Aperghis echo the innovative and inventive spirit that defines Long Beach Opera. In the simplest terms, Aperghis' Le corps à corps (1978) can be described as a schizophrenic melodrama in which the percussionist recounts through vocalizations the events of an intense race, including details about the participants' wounds, heroic leaps, clouds of dust flying and spectators erupting in cheer.
Les Sept crimes de l'amour (1979) is a theatrical chamber music piece composed for a soprano, a clarinetist, and a percussionist. The instrumental theatre work merges music, physical movement, and staging into a unified performance. The score specifies exact physical positions and movements for the three performers across seven distinct movements. Performers utilize props like an apple and unconventional instrument techniques, such as using a clarinet body without a mouthpiece or a zarb as a megaphone, to create unconventional sounds.
Récitations for solo voice (1977-78) highlights the vocalist's precise approach to the notations in the score. These works, written in 1977-78, stretch the voice into fertile extended technique territory, mixing sensuality with virtuosity in ways that had a profound impact on the solo vocal repertoire overall at that time. Coloratura soprano Habin Kim and synth-pop performance artist Geneva Jacuzzi partner to explore the broad spectrum of the human voice in LBO's unique performance.
LBO presents Amanda Forsythe and Opera Prima: Tormento Seicento
Works by Claudio Monteverdi, Luigi Rossi, Tarquinio Merula, Barbara Strozzi
First Congregational Church of Long Beach, 241 Cedar Ave
January 26, 2027, at 7:30 pm
LBO presents soprano Amanda Forsythe, with viola da gamba virtuoso Cristiano Contadin and his renowned ensemble Opera Prima, in a program of music exploring the Galant style that was in vogue during the middle of the 18th century. The complexity and formal structure of the Baroque gives way to a charismatic beauty and captivating elegance that was still grounded by a virtuosic basso continuo.
Opera Prima, a newly established ensemble directed by Cristiano Contadin, was created to bring historically informed concerts and recordings of the Renaissance and Baroque period to life. The heart of the project lies in exploring the repertoire of the viola da gamba in its various styles, and approaching all music with pleasure and enthusiasm, as if each work for this instrument was newly-composed. If, through passionate communication, we can touch the hearts of the public, then the language of early music will be easy to understand.
Anna Schubert: Untitled (recital)
The Queen Mary, 1126 Queen's Way, Long Beach
January 30, 2027, 7:30 pm
Created by Anna Schubert and James Darrah Black
Directed by James Darrah Black
Program to be announced
Peter Brook: Impressions of Pelleas
The Queen Mary, 1126 Queen's Way, Long Beach
April 3, 2027 at 7:30 pm
Adapted by composer Marius Constant and director Peter Brook
Directed by James Darrah Black
Experience the haunting beauty of Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande in this intimate, abridged version sung in French. Adapted by composer Marius Constant and director Peter Brook, Impressions de Pelléas distills the essence of Debussy's only opera into a luminous, dreamlike journey through secrecy, longing, and fate. Based on Maurice Maeterlinck's symbolist play, the opera follows the tangled love and jealousy between Prince Golaud, his mysterious wife Mélisande, and his half-brother Pelléas. With its evocative harmonies and atmospheric power, this adaptation offers a fresh and deeply affecting way to encounter one of French opera's greatest masterpieces.
George Frideric Handel: Tolomeo
The Queen Mary, 1126 Queen's Way, Long Beach
May 1, 2027 at 4:00 pm
Co-production with Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra
Conducted by Christopher Rountree
Directed by James Darrah Black
Set designed by Prairie T. Trivuth
In a production directed by James Darrah Black, the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra performed this “Surprisingly funny” (New York Times) far-fetched, semi-staged opera seria three times this year in the Bay Area and then once in New York State. And the critics raved. Now LBO presents Tolomeo in May 2027, with Roundtree conducting, and Darrah Black once again directing.
San Francisco Chronicle stated, 'Can a smaller Bay Area orchestra outshine SF Opera? This Tolomeo said yes…With a dream cast, the orchestra and singers performed brilliantly, allowing the intricate score to speak directly to a modern audience.' The New York Times called it, “a little treasure of an opera, with sensational arias and… emotionally expansive duets.” These first performances won SF Classical Voice's Audience Choice Awards for both Favorite Opera Performance and Baroque/Early Music Performance.
LBO, Wild Up & Opera UCLA present LBO Studio Artist Shelley Washington: The Passion of Nell
FREE Workshop
UCLA, Little Theater
May 16, 2027, 2:00 pm
Shelley Washington, composer
Lisa Teasley, Libretto
Wild Up, Ensemble
LBO, Wild Up & Opera UCLA present a free workshop of The Passion of Nell – an original opera composed by LBO Studio Artist Shelley Washington with libretto by Lisa Teasley.
The work tells the true story of Nell Theobald, a model whose obsession with soprano Birgit Nilsson ended in tragedy. Performed by Wild Up and featuring professional and student singers, this FREE workshop invites audiences into the making of a new work, before its world premiere, which will be announced in 2027. LBO is committed to showing audiences the process behind our work. The Passion of Nell workshop opens our process to the public.
Ana Sokolović: Svadba (Wedding)
The Queen Mary, 1126 Queen's Way, Long Beach
June 5, 2027 at 7:30 pm
Conducted by Christopher Rountree
Directed by Sara E. Widzer
The text comes from original Serbian poetry: given a new context for our contemporary culture. The music is derived from traditional folklore, informed by everyday images and objects such as hair, cups, and water. The scenes unfold, not in a linear narrative, but in a playful interconnection animated through drama; distilling magic and fantasy from ordinary moments.
Svadba tells the story of a bride-to-be on the eve of her wedding as four of her closest friends and an elderly family member gather to help her prepare for the big event. This chamber opera dramatizes the ritual of preparing for marriage, the importance of preserving tradition, and the true power of friendship and community. Sung completely a cappella, Svadba's mesmerizing music is by Serbian composer Ana Sokolović.
“A wedding is an important turning point in every woman's life, usually steeped in tradition and always signifying change and juncture. Milica's rite of passage is universal, an archetype of human experience. Svadba offers a chance to delve deep into the quality and richness of a short but decisive moment in time.” - Ana Sokolović
