Long Beach Opera Presents THE LIGHTHOUSE At The Aquarium Of The Pacific

Long Beach Opera tackles Peter Maxwell Davies' modern sea-based thriller in the environs of the new Honda Pacific Visions Theater at the Aquarium of the Pacific.

The interactive theater space boasts cutting-edge, high-definition technology with a breathtaking 32-foot-tall 180-degree arc wrap-around projection wall and effects.

Based on a true story, This haunting opera is an atmospheric combination of detective mystery and ghost story, mixing courtroom testimony with fantastical flashbacks.

In the prologue, three officers from a lighthouse-vessel report to a Court of Enquiry how they arrived to relieve three lighthouse keepers and find the place deserted. The main act flashes back to the keepers (working the lighthouse far longer than usual), nervously passing the time by singing songs. But out of the fog, their past emerges to taunt them.

Background
The original inspiration of this work came from reading Craig Mair's book on the Stevenson family of Edinburgh. This family, apart from producing the famous author Robert Louis, produced several generations of lighthouse and harbor engineers.

In December 1900, the lighthouse and harbor supply ship Hesperus based in Stromness, Orkney, went on its routine tour of duty to the Flannan Isles light in the Outer Hebrides.

The lighthouse was empty - all three beds and the table looked as if they had been left in a hurry and the lamp, though extinguished, was in perfect working order, the men had disappeared into thin air.

There have been many speculations as to how and why the three keepers disappeared. This opera does not offer a solution to the mystery but indicates what might be possible under the tense circumstances of three men being marooned in a storm-bound lighthouse long after the time they expected to be relieved.

For more information, please visit aquariumofpacific.org or call (562) 590-3100.

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