Robin Buck News

Long Beach Opera honors the man named by Opera News as "one of the 25 people that will be a major force in the field of opera in the coming decade" with The Best of 20, a celebration of Artistic and General Director Andreas Mitisek's 20 years with Long Beach Opera. 

Long Beach Opera honors the man named by Opera News as "one of the 25 people that will be a major force in the field of opera in the coming decade" with The Best of 20, a celebration of Artistic and General Director Andreas Mitisek's 20 years with Long Beach Opera. 

Long Beach Opera celebrates two milestones in the 2018-2019 season - its fortieth anniversary and the 20th anniversary of Andreas Mitisek leading the company as artistic director. 

UC Irvine's Claire Trevor School of the Arts Department of Drama opens its 2017 18 season with a concert staging of the musical Chess, a complex exploration of strategy and love set at the intersection of US Russia political relations. With music by ABBA's Benny Andersson and Bj rn Ulvaeus and lyrics by Tim Rice, Chess premiered in 1986 telling the story of a match between an American Grandmaster (loosely based on the life of Bobby Fischer) and his Soviet rival, and was generally seen as a metaphor for the Cold War politics of the day. This is the first show in a season themed The Business of Politics/The Politics of Business, which takes a look at the shady underbelly of capitalism.

Fugitive Kind Theater is the presenting company, which for eleven years has engaged in creating boundary-breaking shows. This production takes the group to new heights, setting the story in what appears to be a fantasy circus world on the island of Illyria where anything goes and people are allowed to be whoever and whatever they want to be. It's a small society, but one most of us could certainly enjoy living in given the lack of stress and having any real work to do. But of course, such an idyllic world cannot last, and it is the dark side of Illyria we visit in SHINE DARKLY, ILLYRIA.

Surpassing its fundraising goal, Long Beach Opera's 37th Annual Gala raised over $210,000 to support its 2016 opera season and Youth Initiative Programs. Honorary Co-Chairs Barbara Bixby Blackwell and Jean Bixby Smith, along with LBO's Board of Directors, presented the fundraiser, 'Glittering Glamorous Giving,' on Saturday November 7, 2015 in the Lagunita Pavilion at the Hotel Maya, Long Beach.

The Department of Drama, Claire Trevor School of the Arts (CTSA) at the University of California, Irvine will mount Tennessee Williams' classic, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, opening tonight, December 6 and running through December 14.

?The Department of Drama, Claire Trevor School of the Arts (CTSA) at the University of California, Irvine will mount Tennessee Williams' classic, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, opening December 6 and running through December 14. The play, which was the winner of the 1955 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, explores the complex family relationships of the wealthy cotton tycoon family of Big Daddy Pollitt. Several recurring motifs such as social mores, greed, superficiality, decay, sexual desire, repression and death are explored.

Perhaps the most controversial opera of the 20th century makes its Southern California debut when Long Beach Opera (LBO) stages John Adams' The Death of Klinghoffer on March 16 and March 22 at the Terrace Theater in downtown Long Beach. This powerful and unsettling work chronicles the 1985 hijacking of the Mediterranean cruise ship Achille Lauro by Palestinian terrorists and the murder of disabled Jewish-American passenger, Leon Klinghoffer. LBO's production is a partner presentation of the Los Angeles Philharmonic's 'Minimalist Jukebox' Festival.

An overwhelming lust for power, a manipulative wife, and witches' prophecies spur a Scottish general onto a tragic path of betrayal, murder and madness. Long Beach Opera (LBO) closes its 2013 season with Macbeth, Swiss-American composer Ernest Bloch's re-discovered powerhouse, sung in English. Performances at the World Cruise Center in San Pedro, CA. began on June 15, 2013 and continue on June 22 and 23. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast in action below!

An overwhelming lust for power, a manipulative wife, and witches' prophecies spur a Scottish general onto a tragic path of betrayal, murder and madness. Long Beach Opera (LBO) closes its 2013 season with Macbeth, Swiss-American composer Ernest Bloch's re-discovered powerhouse, sung in English. Performances at the World Cruise Center in San Pedro, CA. begin tonight, June 15, 2013 and continue on June 22 and 23.

An overwhelming lust for power, a manipulative wife, and witches' prophecies spur a Scottish general onto a tragic path of betrayal, murder and madness. Long Beach Opera (LBO) closes its 2013 season with Macbeth, Swiss-American composer Ernest Bloch's re-discovered powerhouse, sung in English. Performances at the World Cruise Center in San Pedro, CA. begin on June 15, 2013 and continue on June 22 and 23.

Long Beach Opera's new double bill explores creative minds on the border between genius and madness. Former rocker Stewart Copeland delves into the twisted psyche of Edgar Allan Poe's manic murderer in the US premiere of Tell-Tale Heart and Bang on a Can composer, Michael Gordon, observes the anguished spirit of a brilliant artist in the West Coast stage premiere of Van Gogh. Featuring music at the edge of rock, jazz and classical modernism, this double bill of delusion and illusion, paranoia and inspiration begins tonight, May 11 and continues on May 18 and 19, 2013 at theEXPO Art Center, 4321 Atlantic Avenue, Long Beach, CA.

Long Beach Opera's new double bill explores creative minds on the border between genius and madness. Former rocker Stewart Copeland delves into the twisted psyche of Edgar Allan Poe's manic murderer in the US premiere of Tell-Tale Heart and Bang on a Can composer, Michael Gordon, observes the anguished spirit of a brilliant artist in the West Coast stage premiere of Van Gogh. Featuring music at the edge of rock, jazz and classical modernism, this double bill of delusion and illusion, paranoia and inspiration begins May 11 and continues on May 18 and 19, 2013 at theEXPO Art Center, 4321 Atlantic Avenue, Long Beach, CA.

Professional singer and music professor Dr. P tries to shake hands with a parking meter and describes a rose as'a convoluted red form with a linear green attachment.' A man who sees, but does not see, Dr. P suffers from visual agnosia. Unable to recognize objects and faces (including his wife's), he finds a way to make sense of his world through music. LBO goes site-specific again with four performances of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat between today, June 16 and June 24, 2012 at the EXPO Warehouse in Long Beach, CA.

Professional singer and music professor Dr. P tries to shake hands with a parking meter and describes a rose as'a convoluted red form with a linear green attachment.' A man who sees, but does not see, Dr. P suffers from visual agnosia. Unable to recognize objects and faces (including his wife's), he finds a way to make sense of his world through music. LBO goes site-specific again with four performances of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat between June 16 and June 24, 2012 at the EXPO Warehouse in Long Beach, CA.

On March 11 and March 17, 2012, Long Beach Opera (LBO) will perform two comic examples of opera at its most absurd, Francis Poulenc's The Breasts of Tiresias and Bohuslav Martinu's Tears of a Knife. Sung in English with English supertitles and staged at the intimate Center Theater in Long Beach, the operas are sure to confound, enchant, and amuse. Ken Roht (The Good Soldier Schweik) returns to LBO to direct these surreal works along with Ani Maldjian, Robin Buck and Suzan Hanson in starring roles. A highlight of the production will be sculptures and masks designed by artist Wen Wen Hsu.