Pacific Opera Project to Present HANSEL AND GRETEL, THE BARBER OF SEVILLE, and More in 2023-2024 Season

Pacific Opera Project (POP) has announced its 2023-2024 season of performances, marking a season of growth and expansion with pop-up performances and events around Los Angeles as well as in POP's new headquarters, POP HQ AKA "The POPera Shop" in Highland Park. POP's season features an hour-long version of their 2021 hit production of Hansel and Gretel (August 4 - 6, 2023); a return to The Ford Amphitheatre with a modern-day, accessible spin on Rossini's beloved comedic classic The Barber of Seville (August 25, 2023); the Los Angeles premiere of Scalia/Ginsburg with a new adaptation of Trial by Jury (November 17 - 26, 2023); a new libretto of Die Fledermaus (February 17 & 18, 2024); and the return of POP's true-to-story bilingual production of Madama Butterfly 蝶々夫人 (June 1 - 9, 2024).

The 2023-2024 season opens with an hour-long version of POP's hit 2021 production Hansel and Gretel by Engelbert Humperdinck taking place on August 4, 2023 at 5:30 p.m.; August 5, 2023 at 5:30 p.m.; and August 6, 2023 at 3:00 and 5:30 p.m. at Descanso Gardens. Sung in English this operatic take on The Brothers Grimm tale is ideal for audiences of all ages and is free with admission to the Gardens. POP's production of Hansel and Gretel has been praised by Opera News as "fresh, imaginative, witty, and imbued with a keen sense of both rhyme and rhythm."

POP returns to The Ford Amphitheatre for a one-night-only performance of The Barber of Seville on August 25, 2023 at 8:00 p.m. In a modern-day, accessible spin on Rossini's beloved comedic classic, the production is set in Hollywood where pop princess Rosina (mezzo-soprano Meagan Martin) is fresh out of rehab after a messy breakup and public meltdown. Baritone Jonathan McCullough makes his POP debut as Figaro, a stylist to the stars. Additional cast members include bass Andrew Potter as Don Basilio, an aging rock legend, turned celebrity voice coach; tenor Sergio Gonzalez as Hollywood heartthrob Count Almaviva, and bass-baritone E. Scott Levin as Rosina's overbearing producer and manager, Dr. Bartolo. Kyle Naig conducts this production, which is sung in Italian with English supertitles.

In November POP gives the LA premiere performance of Scalia/Ginsburg in a double bill with Gilbert & Sullivan's Trial by Jury. Hailed as "a dream come true" (Ruth Bader Ginsburg), a "perfect...jewel" (Opera Today), and "the kind of opera that should be everywhere" (OperaWire), Scalia/Ginsburg is a one-act operatic comedy by composer-librettist Derrick Wang about the unlikely friendship between U.S. Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia - and the pivotal moment that would change the Supreme Court for years to come. Artistic Director Josh Shaw's new libretto for Trial by Jury moves the setting from England to a 1980s divorce court. Performances take place on November 17, 2023 at 7:00 p.m.; November 18, 2023 at 7:00 p.m.; November 19, 2023 at 3:00 p.m.; November 24, 2023 at 7:00 p.m.; November 25, 2023 at 7:00 p.m.; and November 26, 2023 at 3:00 p.m. at The Highland Park Ebell Club with food and wine at table seating.

In its fourth collaboration with the Occidental College Glee Club, POP presents Die Fledermaus on February 17, 2024 at 7:00 p.m. and February 18, 2024 at 3:00 p.m. at Thorne Hall at Occidental College. A Hungarian countess, a Russian prince, a magically attractive watch, and a bat costume make for a strange recipe of plot in any country or time period modern audiences can relate to, except perhaps the time and place where anything was possible not that long ago...the Golden Age of Hollywood. An time when it's not so hard to believe that an actress would have access to her Hungarian Princess costume from a recent picture, that a maid is an aspiring chorus girl, that a mysterious Russian playboy has come to town to throw around some money, or that a matinee idol has a panache for the ladies and is in a little hot water with the local police.

Co-librettist Eiki Isomura returns to conduct POP's acclaimed production of Madama Butterfly 蝶々夫人 on June 1, 2024 at 7:00 p.m.; June 2, 2024 at 3:00 p.m.; June 7, 2024 at 8:00 p.m.; and June 9, 2024 at 3:00 p.m. at the Aratani Theater at the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center. Kimono designer Sueko Oshimoto of SK Kimono, and the South Bay Singers led by Naoko Suga also return for this production, which was first premiered in 2019 in LA's Little Tokyo and was described as "on a visual scale beyond anything it has taken on before - a sumptuously costumed, fully staged, bilingual co-production" by San Francisco Classical Voice.

Settling into the new POP HQ AKA "The POPera House," POP launches PARS - POP Artists Recital Series this fall at its new Highland Park headquarters, featuring intimate performances by POP singers and instrumentalists. This follows the new POPeretta summer camp, in addition to POPs wide range of digital and in-school educational programming including My First Opera for kids in grades K-12, and Opera Explorers for kids in grades K-5.

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Performance Information

Hansel and Gretel
Descanso Gardens | 1418 Descanso Dr | La Cañada Flintridge, CA 91011
August 4, 2023 at 5:30 p.m.|
August 5, 2023 at 5:30 p.m.
August 6, 2023 at 3:00 and 5:30 p.m.
Tickets: Included with admission to the Gardens
Link: https://www.descansogardens.org/

The Barber of Seville
The Ford Amphitheatre | 2580 Cahuenga Blvd E | Los Angeles, CA 90068
August 25, 2023 at 8:00 p.m.
Tickets: On sale May 9
Link: https://www.theford.com/events/performances/2560/2023-08-25/the-barber-of-seville

Scalia/Ginsburg (LA Premiere) & Trial by Jury
The Highland Park Ebell Club | 131 S. Avenue 57 | Los Angeles, CA 90042
November 17, 2023 at 7:00 p.m.
November 18, 2023 at 7:00 p.m.
November 19, 2023 at 3:00 p.m.
November 24, 2023 at 7:00 p.m.
November 25, 2023 at 7:00 p.m.
November 26, 2023 at 3:00 p.m.

Die Fledermaus
Thorne Hall at Occidental College | Thorne Rd | Los Angeles, CA 90041
February 17, 2024 at 7:00 p.m.
February 18, 2024 at 3:00 p.m.

Madama Butterfly 蝶々夫人
Aratani Theater at the JACCC | 244 San Pedro St | Los Angeles, CA 90012
June 1, 2024 at 7:00 p.m.
June 2, 2024 at 3:00 p.m.
June 7, 2024 at 8:00 p.m.
June 9, 2024 at 3:00 p.m.

Season Tickets:

Season ticket packages will go on sale July 1, 2023.

About Pacific Opera Project

Founded in 2011, Los Angeles's Pacific Opera Project (POP) is dedicated to providing quality opera that is accessible, affordable, and entertaining in order to build a broader audience for the art form. LA Magazine writes "If you think you hate opera, you've probably never seen a Pacific Opera Project show." POP's regularly sold out performances take place in a wide variety of venues, from outdoors, to small clubs, big amphitheaters, and warehouses. LA Weekly named POP the "Best Opera Company in Los Angeles" in 2018, writing "making opera cool, affordable, accessible and enticing to young audiences is easier said than done. It's also something every opera company in the country is trying desperately to do... [Pacific Opera Project] is not trying desperately to be hip. It just is." In 2020, POP was awarded The American Prize in Opera Performance.

POP has presented more than 40 innovative new productions to date, including revolutionary drive-in productions of COVID fan tutte and the US staged premieres of two Gluck operas in November 2020, about which Opera Magazine wrote "Despite this plague year of postponements, POP has refused to bow to the pandemic or its restrictions...There is surely no opera company in this Covid-ravaged country with a better average for 2020." Other critically acclaimed productions include Mozart's Abduction from the Seraglio set as an episode of Star Trek; a "fan-tastic" (LA Daily News) Harajuku-themed Mikado; a Dick Tracy Don Giovanni; a Magic Flute inspired by 1990s video games, called "one of the freshest takes on Mozart's 1791 classic I have come across" (Operawire); and many more. POP's signature take on Puccini's La bohème, "AKA The Hipsters," set in modern day Los Angeles, has become a holiday tradition, returning year after year to sold-out audiences and called "riotous" (LA Weekly) and "an undeniably fun night at the theater that should not be missed" (Stage Raw). POP gave the world premiere of Brooke deRosa's The Monkey's Paw in 2017.

POP has been dedicated to reaching young audiences with performance and education since its inception, regularly performing for school-aged groups in family-friendly productions, including having a presence in 15 Title 1 schools. POP also partners with Bob Baker Marionette Theater, local YMCAs, and the Burbank Boys and Girls Club. During the COVID-19 pandemic, POP created interactive Education Packs appropriate for kindergarten to eighth grade students to accompany videos of POP's productions of The Magic Flute and Madama Butterfly.

In 2019, POP presented its most ambitious project to date: the first ever true-to-story bilingual Madama Butterfly performed in LA's Little Tokyo. A co-production with Houston's Opera in the Heights, the production featured a new libretto written by POP's Founding Artistic Director Josh Shaw and Opera in the Heights Artistic Director Eiki Isomura, presenting Puccini's story as if it actually happened and attempting to answer the question: "How would Butterfly and Pinkerton communicate?" All Japanese roles were sung in Japanese by Japanese-American artists and all American roles were sung in English. San Francisco Classical Voice described the production as "on a visual scale beyond anything it has taken on before - a sumptuously costumed, fully staged, bilingual co-production... Pacific Opera Project deserves a great deal of credit for making this concept into a reality... innovative, creative, and immensely successful."

POP presented the 2018 West Coast premiere of Giacomo Rossini's rarely performed 1816 opera, La gazzetta "The Newspaper." The first performances in the US were given in Boston at the New England Conservatory in 2013, and POP's production was only the second in North America. Opera Today raved about the premiere, writing "Director Josh Shaw has invested the proceedings with enough good comic ideas for at least three productions. Shaw has set the show in 1960's Paris, with eye-popping set elements and brilliant uses of color which add to the manic feel... Mr. Shaw has fashioned a take-no-prisoners approach to the staging, which was rife with clever touches... Pacific Opera Project has evidently hit on a winning formula for a night out, serving up food, drink and an operatic discovery in equal measure."

Learn more at www.pacificoperaproject.com.

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