James Darrah News

Santa Fe Opera and PBS have joined forces to present the Lord of the Cries series, running July 17 - August 17, 2021.

Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra's lauded digital CLOSE QUARTERS series continues with a musically and visually rich take on Stravinsky's L'Histoire du soldat (“The Soldier's Tale”), interpreted by the musicians of LACO for 2021 and conducted by Music Director Jaime Martín.

Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, led by Music Director Jaime Martín, announces the second half of its highly successful all-digital 2020-21 Season, CLOSE QUARTERS, an interdisciplinary series that melds musical and visual arts in “digitally native” programs created specifically for streaming that have garnered nearly 1 million streaming views since the series debuted last fall.

LA Opera will co-present an online stream of Breaking the Waves, an opera by composer Missy Mazzoli and librettist Royce Vavrek that was previously scheduled to open on the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion stage this month. The opera will begin streaming on March 12, 2021, in collaboration with Opera Philadelphia.

An exciting new era beckons for LA’s oldest opera company. Long Beach Opera announces the appointment of James Darrah as its new Artistic Director and Chief Creative Officer. His tenure will begin immediately, and he will remain with the company until at least 2024.

Before the shutdown, the final piece I reviewed for Broadway World was Boston Ballet’s rEVOLUTION which included Glass Pieces, a hypnotic embrace of the geometrics of a theatre space by Phillip Glass and Jerome Robbins.

Ellen Reid and Roxie Perkins’ Lumee’s Dream, is the expansion of Lumee’s Act II short monologue sung while smoking outside a nightclub in p r i s m. She says she “hurls herself out the window” into the blue from which she eventually returns tired and wet. In the Dream, Lumee speaks of her favorite dream, her imagined reality.

The unforgettable world of Ellen Reid’s      p  r  i  s  m returns to LA Opera for two weeks. This time, the Pulitzer Prize-winning piece is streaming on your home screen.  Composer Reid and librettist Roxie Perkins' sobering story follows a mother and daughter as they explore the trauma of sexual abuse and the elasticity of memory that follows.

This month, LA Opera presents the premieres of new Digital Shorts from two of today's most prominent female composers, Missy Mazzoli and Ellen Reid. Part of the company's On Now platform of online programming, offered free of charge to viewers, Digital Shorts are new commissions which pair gifted composers and visual artists.

On January 28, 2021, Los Angeles Opera streamed a newly filmed version of Roxie Perkins and Ellen Reid’s Pulitzer Prize-winning opera  p r i s m. An operatic tapestry, p r i s m tells of the psychological dreams, desires and struggles of Bibi, a sexual assault survivor.

Today (January 26) in live streaming: Disney legends stop by Stars in the House, Bobby Cannavale and Marisa Tomei star in Three Hotels, and more!

When I interviewed David T. Little several years ago, he told me he told me that he “didn't even realize [SOLDIER SONGS] was an opera until [opera entrepreneur] Beth Morrison clued him in.” He probably didn’t realize it was a film either, until Singer-Director Johnathan McCullough brought him the idea--and Opera Philadelphia raised the funds to make it over for its new opera channel. The results are painfully spectacular.

Los Angeles Opera was the first to launch original programming in response to COVID-19 stay-at-home orders. Because of the success of its online  programming, LAO decided to make that feature a permanent part of its offering and to give it a name that reflects fresh and innovative interpretations of the art form. Welcome to LA Opera On Now.

A new Digital Short from composer Missy Mazzoli has premiered online today (Friday, January 15). Presented free of charge, The West is a Land of Infinite Beginnings will stream through January 29.

The West is a Land of Infinite Beginnings will stream for free Jan. 15-29. The promise of the American dream runs up against hard realities and uncontrollable forces in this new digital short from Missy Mazzoli, composer of Song from the Uproar and Breaking the Waves. James Darrah directs this video that tells of a ghostly sodbuster.

David T. Little’s Soldier Songs has been hailed for its powerful exploration of the perceptions versus the realities of war. Based on interviews with veterans of five wars, the acclaimed opera premieres as a film on Friday, January 22, 2021 on the Opera Philadelphia Channel. 

This month, LA Opera presents the premieres of new Digital Shorts from two of today's most prominent female composers, Missy Mazzoli and Ellen Reid. Part of the company's On Now platform of online programming, offered free of charge to viewers, Digital Shorts are new commissions which pair gifted composers and visual artists.

Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra continues its all-digital 2020-21 Season, CLOSE QUARTERS, with an entire episode spotlighting the exceptional artistry of LACO Artistic Advisor Derrick Spiva Jr., a composer and musician whose music, infused with cross cultural elements, is “something to savor” and “enormous fun to listen to” (Los Angeles Times).

David T. Little’s Soldier Songs has been hailed for its powerful exploration of the perceptions versus the realities of war. Based on interviews with veterans of five wars, the piece combining elements of theater, opera, and rock-infused concert music has received several imaginative stage productions.

Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra will continue its all-digital 2020-21 Season, CLOSE QUARTERS, with two varied  visual episodes curated musically by Latin GRAMMY®-nominated composer Juan Pablo Contreras, premiering Fridays, January 1 and January 15, 2021, 6:30 pm (PT).