SONDHEIM SHOWS OPEN AND CLOSE NEW L.A. OPERA SEASON

Today the LA Opera Company announced their 2004/2005 Season, and opening the season in a special Summer 2004 event is Stephen Sondheim's farcical romp, "A Little Night Music." Starring film star Jeremy Irons (Dangerous Liaisons, Lolita), this production, from the celebrated Scott Ellis staging at New York City Opera, will premiere on Wednesday July 7^th, 2004 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, in the Music Center downtown.

In this "jumble of mismatched lovers," a weekend in the Swedish countryside becomes a farce, as Desiree, a famous actress, tries to rekindle an affair with her former love, who is now married to a less than bright women half his age. This show, in which all the songs are set to waltz time, features the classic, "Send in the Clowns." You can catch this modern classic for 23 performances.

And what could be better than one Sondheim show at the LA Opera? How about two!

That's right, the season will come to a crescendo under the steam pipes of turn of the century England and the incomparable vocal pipes of renowned opera star, Bryn Terfel (making his LA Opera debut), in Sondheim's masterpiece "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street."

This macabre operatic musical, tinged with a bit of humor, tells the tall of Sweeney Todd, a barber who was unjustly exiled to a penal colony, yet now returns to Victorian London to seek revenge on the corrupt officials who sent him away and, in the process, destroyed his family. Add in a lovely, yet desperate baker woman who teams up with our Demon barber to dispense of his victims into the "best pies in London," and you have one hell of a show. Premiering on Saturday, May 28^th, 2005 @ 2pm, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, this show runs for only seven performances.

For more information, and on how to order tickets, visit http://www.losangelesopera.com/home/index.asp.