Long Beach Opera Stages Henry Purcell's THE FAIRY QUEEN

Long Beach Opera (LBO) opens its 2017 season on January 22 and 28, 2017 with Henry Purcell's 1692 The Fairy Queen, a re-telling of A Midsummer Night's Dream. The California-based performance troupe Culture Clash and LBO's Artistic and General Director Andreas Mitisek put their spin on this immortal tale. The Fairy Queen will be performed at the Beverly O'Neill Theater, 300 E. Ocean Boulevard, Long Beach CA. 90802.

In this new version by Culture Clash and Mitisek, Ron and Tanya (formerly Oberon and Titania) prepare to throw a party at 'Club Puck' in sultry Las Vegas. Their plans come to a halt when Ron flirts with one of the club's dancers. Puck, the club's owner, offers Ron a mysterious drink to renew Tanya's love. The concoction does as promised, but Cupid's arrow has missed its mark. The magic potion finds its way into several unwitting hands causing lovers' eyes to wander, lines of sexual orientation to blur, and chaos to ensue. Shakes, a drunken poet, stands readily by to trade his sonnets for drinks and give his unsolicited advice.

The Fairy Queen will be sung in English and conducted by Martin Haselböck, music director of Musica Angelica. The opera will be directed and designed by Mitisek.

The Chicago Tribune called this co-production with Chicago Opera Theater "an edgy contemporary cross between A Midsummer Night's Dream and Cabaret...laughs and elegant baroque tunes in abundance."

Collaborating with Mitisek on the contemporary adaptation of The Fairy Queen is the California-based performance troupe Culture Clash, founded by Richard Montoya, Ric Salinas and Herbert Siguenza. They have been writing and performing together for over 30 years. This award-winning group's work ranges from comedic sketches to screenplays to full-length plays, all of which involve political and social satire.

Culture Clash commented, "What a mad opera concoction to mix Henry Purcell, Shakespeare, Culture Clash, and Long Beach Opera with the daring alchemist director Andreas Mitisek. Together it makes for a potent mix of classical, historical, hysterical and unpredictable storytelling. We are so grateful for LBO trusting us with this dynamite, adapting, remixing and refreshing The Fairy Queen. We dug deep into our arsenal of death-defying rogue theater and loved every minute of it, as we undertook the task and the challenge to write an original (alongside Andreas). A night at the opera with Culture Clash already sounds like a classic."

"This adaptation of Purcell's opera puts a contemporary spin on an old story," said Mitisek. "The opera's multicultural cast and Musica Angelica's period instrumentation will create a sparkling performance."

CAST: Kim Jones in the role of Tanya/Fairy Queen, Marc Molomot as the club owner Puck, Cedric Berry as Ron, Roberto Gomez as Shakes the Poet, Ryan Belongie as Lysander, Scott Brunscheen as Demetrius, AlexandrA Martinez as Helena and Darryl Taylor as Herman.

PERFORMANCES: Sunday afternoon, January 22, 2017, at 2:30 PM Saturday afternoon, January 28, 2017, at 2:30 PM Saturday evening, January 28, 2017, at 8:00 PM. Two hours and 25 minutes with one 15 minute intermission. Sung in English.

TICKETS: Single tickets for The Fairy Queen range from $49 to $150 and can be purchased by calling the LBO Box Office at 562.470.SING (7464) x101 or by going online at www.longbeachopera.org. Subscriptions offering ticket discounts are still available online or by phone.

SEASON: LBO continues its 2017 season on March 12 and 18, 2017 with the U.S. premiere of Philip Glass' The Perfect American, a fictionalized biography of Walt Disney's life melding delusions of the American Dream, immortality, and empire. On May 13, 20 and 21, LBO will present composer Laura Kaminsky's As One, the compelling story of a transgender youth. Concluding the season in June will be five performances of Roberto Xavier Rodríguez' Frida, a searing bio drama depicting the pain and passion of famed Mexican artist Frida Kahlo.

CREATIVE TEAM:

Stage Director and Production Design: Andreas Mitisek Adaptation: Culture Clash and Andreas Mitisek Conductor: Martin Haselböck Orchestra: Musica Angelica

Since 2003, Mitisek has been LBO's artistic & general director. His recent LBO directing credits include Fallujah, The Difficulty of Crossing a Field, King Gesar, Macbeth, Nixon in China, Tell-Tale Heart, Van Gogh, The Paper Nautilus, Ainadamar and Maria de Buenos Aires. Recent conducting credits include Thérèse Raquin, I was Looking at the Ceiling and then I Saw the Sky, The Death of Klinghoffer, Camelia la Tejana and The Fall of the House of Usher (co-production with COT). Other conducting credits include: Joruri in Tokyo, Don Giovanni (Seattle Opera), Madama Butterfly (Orlando Opera), Jane Eyre (Opera Theatre of Saint Louis) and Eugene Onegin (Teatro Municipal in Santiago de Chile). Mitisek also conducted the Austrian and Italian premieres of Nixon in China. In 2012, Andreas joined Chicago Opera Theater (COT) as general director. Mitisek is on the board of directors for OPERA AMERICA, the national service organization for U.S. opera companies.

Culture Clash is a performance troupe founded by Richard Montoya, Ric Salinas and Herbert Siguenza. Their works range from comedic sketches to full-length plays and screenplays, all of which feature political satire and social satire. The troupe's members have appeared separately and together in several films and received numerous awards, commissions and grants. In 1993 they filmed 30 episodes of a sketch comedy television series, also called Culture Clash, which aired on Fox affiliates. In 2006 they premiered two new full-length plays, the comedy Zorro in Hell and SF:The Mexican Bus Mission Tour with CC!. Their works have been collected in two volumes, Culture Clash: Life, Death and Revolutionary Comedy and Culture Clash in AmeriCCa: Four Plays. Their papers are housed at the California State University, Northridge (CSUN) Oviatt Library.

Martin Haselböck is an Austrian conductor and organist. He's the Founder and Music Director of Orchester Wiener Akademie, Vienna, Music Director of Musica Angelica, Los Angeles, and Conductor in Residence of the Liszt Festival Raiding, Austria. He has received numerous honors and awards as conductor and organist, including the Deutscher Schallplattenpreis, the Diapason d'Or and the Hungarian Liszt Prize.

Haselböck has conducted leading orchestras throughout the world. In North America, his conducting credits include the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Pittsburgh, Washington, San Francisco, Detroit and Toronto Symphony Orchestras, and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra.

Musica Angelica is regarded as Southern California's premier Baroque ensemble. Since 1993, the orchestra has produced an annual subscription season of orchestral and chamber concerts in venues throughout Los Angeles County. In March 2007 Musica Angelica toured Bach's St. Matthew Passion in Los Angeles, New York, Savannah (Savannah Music Festival), Mexico, Hungary, Austria, Spain, Italy and Germany. In 1998, Musica Angelica recorded Vivaldi Concertos for Lute, Oboe, Violin and Strings and in 2007, Handel's Acis and Galatea.

Musica Angelica collaborates with leading area performing arts organizations, including the Los Angeles Opera, Long Beach Opera, the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Norton Simon Museum and the Los Angeles Master Chorale.

The Los Angeles Times wrote, "Musica Angelica soars in a Baroque gem...a triumph...Haselböck's leadership was nuanced and inspiring." KUSC FM Classical Music Radio has called Musica Angelica, "a world class Baroque orchestra."

For additional information, visit www.longbeachopera.org

Long Beach Opera (LBO) is internationally known for its cutting-edge interpretations of unconventional repertoire. LBO creates immediate, inventive, and often boldly avant-garde productions for an adventurous audience and stands apart from most opera companies in the number of world, American, and West Coast premieres the company has staged. Founded in 1979, it is the oldest professional opera company in the Los Angeles/Orange County region with a performance history of more than 110 operas, ranging from the earliest works of the 17th century to operas of the 21st. LBO's ever?growing repertoire has provided stimulus for the subsequent founding of other local opera companies, catapulting Southern California into the spotlight as a major opera epicenter. LBO is a recognized and respected member of the U. S. cultural community, receiving funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, California Arts Council, the County of Los Angeles, and the City of Long Beach, along with generous individual donors, local businesses, public corporations, and private foundations.

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