Long Beach Opera
Encyclopedia
Long Beach Opera is a Southern California opera
company serving the greater Los Angeles
and Orange County
metroplex. Founded in 1979, it is the oldest established professional opera company in the L.A. area. Though small in size, the company has surveyed a stunning breadth of repertoire in 28 seasons -- from its adventurous exploration of lesser known works to its daring interpretations of established operas – offering an alternative vision of opera even before L.A. had its own operatic mainstream.
. Michael Milenski
, formerly of the San Francisco Opera
and San Jose Opera, was tapped to mount the first production in March, 1979, Verdi’s
La Traviata
starring Metropolitan Opera
stars Benita Valente
and Louis Quilico
. The success of that production led to the company’s formal incorporation independent of the Long Beach Symphony with Milenski
as its executive director.
Following a period of early growth marked by the presentation of repertory staples, Long Beach Opera took a radical departure from the operatic mainstream. Under Milenski’s
guidance, the company developed an alternative vision for opera – to present striking visual drama that would speak directly to contemporary audiences while maintaining the highest musical standard. That new era was launched by two important productions in 1983-84: Britten's
Death in Venice
and Monteverdi's
The Coronation of Poppea
starring Catherine Malfitano
, a production the Los Angeles Times'
chief music and dance critic Martin Bernheimer
called LBO's "wild, wonderful Poppea." Both operas were staged by the maverick director Christopher Alden
, whose career was given major impetus by his partnership with LBO.
Significant LBO productions during Milenski's tenure included Powder Her Face
by Thomas Adès
, Richard Strauss’
Elektra
(which was televised in Germany), Janáček's
From the House of the Dead
, The Beaumarchais
Trilogy and the complete operas of Claudio Monteverdi
. Several American premieres have been presented on the LBO stage, including King Roger
by Karol Szymanowski
, Mozart’s
Lucio Silla
, Schoenberg’s
Die Jakobsleiter, Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s
Turning, I Saw Great Injustice and John Cage’s
Europeras 3&4 (issued in a commercial recording).
Celebrated singers who have sung with LBO include Jerome Hines
, Cesare Siepi
, Ruth Ann Swenson
, James Morris
and Jerry Hadley
, but the company has a longstanding tradition of tapping talented singers on their way up (including some of the above named).
In the 2004, Michael Milenski
retired after 25 seasons at the helm of LBO and was succeeded by Austrian conductor Andreas Mitisek, who has continued LBO’s longstanding artistic philosophy of presenting an expanded vision of opera. His programming has emphasized contemporary opera composers (Philip Glass
, Ástor Piazzolla
, Michael Nyman
, Arvo Pärt
, Grigory Frid
) as well as placed a strong Austro-German imprint on the company repertoire with such works as Richard Strauss'
The Silent Woman
, his own stage concept combining Goethe's
The Sorrows of Young Werther
with Schubert's
Winterreise
and Wagner’s
Der Ring des Nibelungen
in the abridged version by Jonathan Dove
. In March 2009, Mitesek staged a highly original production and American premiere of Vivaldi's long-lost opera Motezuma.
Orchestra Manager since 1990: John Van Houten
.
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
company serving the greater Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
and Orange County
Orange County, California
Orange County is a county in the U.S. state of California. Its county seat is Santa Ana. As of the 2010 census, its population was 3,010,232, up from 2,846,293 at the 2000 census, making it the third most populous county in California, behind Los Angeles County and San Diego County...
metroplex. Founded in 1979, it is the oldest established professional opera company in the L.A. area. Though small in size, the company has surveyed a stunning breadth of repertoire in 28 seasons -- from its adventurous exploration of lesser known works to its daring interpretations of established operas – offering an alternative vision of opera even before L.A. had its own operatic mainstream.
History
The company, originally known as Long Beach Grand Opera, was a venture sponsored by the Long Beach Symphony Association to mark the inaugural season of the city’s Terrace TheaterTerrace Theater
The Terrace Theater is a full theatrical and performance venue located in Long Beach, California. The theater seats 3,051 patrons at its maximum configuration in Orchestra, Loge, and Balcony sections. The Orchestra seating section is arranged in the Continental seating style with no center aisle...
. Michael Milenski
Michael Milenski
Victor Michael Milenski founded the Long Beach Opera in 1979, and was its general director for 25 seasons, retiring in 2004...
, formerly of the San Francisco Opera
San Francisco Opera
San Francisco Opera is an American opera company, based in San Francisco, California.It was founded in 1923 by Gaetano Merola and is the second largest opera company in North America...
and San Jose Opera, was tapped to mount the first production in March, 1979, Verdi’s
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...
La Traviata
La traviata
La traviata is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on La dame aux Camélias , a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The title La traviata means literally The Fallen Woman, or perhaps more figuratively, The Woman...
starring Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
stars Benita Valente
Benita Valente
Benita Valente , is a distinguished American soprano whose long career has encompassed the operatic stage as well as performance of lieder, chamber music and oratorio. She is especially lauded for her interpretations of Mozart and Handel, but she also excelled in certain Verdi roles...
and Louis Quilico
Louis Quilico
Louis Quilico, CC was a Canadian opera singer. One of the leading dramatic baritones of his day, he was an ideal interpreter of the great Italian and French composers, especially Giuseppe Verdi. He was often referred to as "Mr Rigoletto" in reference to the Verdi opera...
. The success of that production led to the company’s formal incorporation independent of the Long Beach Symphony with Milenski
Michael Milenski
Victor Michael Milenski founded the Long Beach Opera in 1979, and was its general director for 25 seasons, retiring in 2004...
as its executive director.
Following a period of early growth marked by the presentation of repertory staples, Long Beach Opera took a radical departure from the operatic mainstream. Under Milenski’s
Michael Milenski
Victor Michael Milenski founded the Long Beach Opera in 1979, and was its general director for 25 seasons, retiring in 2004...
guidance, the company developed an alternative vision for opera – to present striking visual drama that would speak directly to contemporary audiences while maintaining the highest musical standard. That new era was launched by two important productions in 1983-84: Britten's
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...
Death in Venice
Death in Venice (opera)
Death in Venice is an opera in two acts by Benjamin Britten, his last. The opera is based on the novella Death in Venice by Thomas Mann. Myfanwy Piper wrote the English libretto. It was first performed at Snape Maltings near Aldeburgh, England on 16 June 1973.The astringent score is marked by some...
and Monteverdi's
Claudio Monteverdi
Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi – 29 November 1643) was an Italian composer, gambist, and singer.Monteverdi's work, often regarded as revolutionary, marked the transition from the Renaissance style of music to that of the Baroque period. He developed two individual styles of composition – the...
The Coronation of Poppea
L'incoronazione di Poppea
L'incoronazione di Poppea is an Italian baroque opera comprising a prologue and three acts, first performed in Venice during the 1642–43 carnival season. The music, attributed to Claudio Monteverdi, is a setting of a libretto by Giovanni Francesco Busenello...
starring Catherine Malfitano
Catherine Malfitano
Catherine Malfitano is an American operatic soprano. She is generally considered to be one of America's leading operatic sopranos...
, a production the Los Angeles Times'
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
chief music and dance critic Martin Bernheimer
Martin Bernheimer
Martin Bernheimer is an American music critic. He studied at Brown University and the Hochschule für Musik in Munich, along with the famous musicologist Gustave Reese at New York University....
called LBO's "wild, wonderful Poppea." Both operas were staged by the maverick director Christopher Alden
Christopher Alden (director)
Christopher Alden is a radical theater director known for staging revisionist productions of opera. He is the twin brother of David Alden, also an opera director, and belongs to a generation of modernist directors that includes Robert Wilson and Peter Sellars, though Alden retains his own personal...
, whose career was given major impetus by his partnership with LBO.
Significant LBO productions during Milenski's tenure included Powder Her Face
Powder Her Face
Powder Her Face is a chamber opera in two acts, Op. 14 by the British composer Thomas Adès , with an English libretto by Philip Hensher. The opera is 2 hours 20 minutes long...
by Thomas Adès
Thomas Adès
Thomas Adès is a British composer, pianist and conductor.-Biography:Adès studied piano with Paul Berkowitz and later composition with Robert Saxton at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London...
, Richard Strauss’
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
Elektra
Elektra (opera)
Elektra is a one-act opera by Richard Strauss, to a German-language libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, which he adapted from his 1903 drama Elektra. The opera was the first of many collaborations between Strauss and Hofmannsthal...
(which was televised in Germany), Janáček's
Leoš Janácek
Leoš Janáček was a Czech composer, musical theorist, folklorist, publicist and teacher. He was inspired by Moravian and all Slavic folk music to create an original, modern musical style. Until 1895 he devoted himself mainly to folkloristic research and his early musical output was influenced by...
From the House of the Dead
From the House of the Dead
From the House of the Dead is an opera by Leoš Janáček, in three acts. The libretto was translated and adapted by the composer from the novel by Dostoyevsky...
, The Beaumarchais
Pierre Beaumarchais
Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais was a French playwright, watchmaker, inventor, musician, diplomat, fugitive, spy, publisher, arms dealer, satirist, financier, and revolutionary ....
Trilogy and the complete operas of Claudio Monteverdi
Claudio Monteverdi
Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi – 29 November 1643) was an Italian composer, gambist, and singer.Monteverdi's work, often regarded as revolutionary, marked the transition from the Renaissance style of music to that of the Baroque period. He developed two individual styles of composition – the...
. Several American premieres have been presented on the LBO stage, including King Roger
King Roger
King Roger is an opera by the Polish composer Karol Szymanowski set to a libretto by Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz. It was first performed on 19 June 1926 in Warsaw, Poland...
by Karol Szymanowski
Karol Szymanowski
Karol Maciej Szymanowski was a Polish composer and pianist.-Life:Szymanowski was born into a wealthy land-owning Polish gentry family in Tymoszówka, then in the Russian Empire, now in Cherkasy Oblast, Ukraine. He studied music privately with his father before going to Gustav Neuhaus'...
, Mozart’s
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
Lucio Silla
Lucio Silla
Lucio Silla, K. 135, is an Italian opera in three acts composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The libretto was written by Giovanni de Gamerra.It was first performed on 26 December 1772 at the Regio Ducal Teatro in Milan....
, Schoenberg’s
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
Die Jakobsleiter, Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s
Bernd Alois Zimmermann
Bernd Alois Zimmermann was a post-WWII West German composer. He is perhaps best known for his opera Die Soldaten which is regarded as one of the most important operas of the 20th century...
Turning, I Saw Great Injustice and John Cage’s
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...
Europeras 3&4 (issued in a commercial recording).
Celebrated singers who have sung with LBO include Jerome Hines
Jerome Hines
The American Jerome A. Hines was a basso opera singer who performed at the Metropolitan Opera from 1946 to 1987...
, Cesare Siepi
Cesare Siepi
Cesare Siepi was an Italian opera singer, generally considered to have been one of the finest basses of the post-war period. His voice was characterised by a deep, warm timbre, and a ringing, vibrant upper register. On stage, his tall, striking presence and elegance of phrasing made him a natural...
, Ruth Ann Swenson
Ruth Ann Swenson
Ruth Ann Swenson is an American soprano who is renowned for her brilliance in coloratura roles.Born in Bronxville, New York and raised in Commack, New York on Long Island, Swenson studied at the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia and briefly at Hartt College of Music in West Hartford, Connecticut...
, James Morris
James Morris (opera singer)
James Morris is a leading American opera singer with a bass-baritone voice. He is best known for his interpretation of the taxing role of Wotan in Richard Wagner's operatic cycle, Der Ring des Nibelungen...
and Jerry Hadley
Jerry Hadley
Jerry Hadley was an American operatic tenor. He received three Grammy awards for his vocal performances in the recordings of Jenůfa , Susannah , and Candide...
, but the company has a longstanding tradition of tapping talented singers on their way up (including some of the above named).
In the 2004, Michael Milenski
Michael Milenski
Victor Michael Milenski founded the Long Beach Opera in 1979, and was its general director for 25 seasons, retiring in 2004...
retired after 25 seasons at the helm of LBO and was succeeded by Austrian conductor Andreas Mitisek, who has continued LBO’s longstanding artistic philosophy of presenting an expanded vision of opera. His programming has emphasized contemporary opera composers (Philip Glass
Philip Glass
Philip Glass is an American composer. He is considered to be one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century and is widely acknowledged as a composer who has brought art music to the public .His music is often described as minimalist, along with...
, Ástor Piazzolla
Ástor Piazzolla
Ástor Pantaleón Piazzolla was an Argentine tango composer and bandoneón player. His oeuvre revolutionized the traditional tango into a new style termed nuevo tango, incorporating elements from jazz and classical music...
, Michael Nyman
Michael Nyman
Michael Laurence Nyman, CBE is an English composer of minimalist music, pianist, librettist and musicologist, known for the many film scores he wrote during his lengthy collaboration with the filmmaker Peter Greenaway, and his multi-platinum soundtrack album to Jane Campion's The Piano...
, Arvo Pärt
Arvo Pärt
Arvo Pärt is an Estonian classical composer and one of the most prominent living composers of sacred music. Since the late 1970s, Pärt has worked in a minimalist style that employs his self-made compositional technique, tintinnabuli. His music also finds its inspiration and influence from...
, Grigory Frid
Grigory Frid
Grigory Samuilovich Frid also Grigori Fried is a Russian composer of music written in many different genres, including chamber opera.Born in Petrograd, now St. Petersburg, Frid studied in the Moscow Conservatory with Heinrich Litinsky and Vissarion Shebalin. He was a soldier in the Second World War...
) as well as placed a strong Austro-German imprint on the company repertoire with such works as Richard Strauss'
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
The Silent Woman
Die schweigsame Frau
Die schweigsame Frau is an opera in three acts by Richard Strauss with libretto by Stefan Zweig after Ben Jonson's Epicoene, or the Silent Woman.-Performance history:...
, his own stage concept combining Goethe's
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...
The Sorrows of Young Werther
The Sorrows of Young Werther
The Sorrows of Young Werther is an epistolary and loosely autobiographical novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, first published in 1774; a revised edition of the novel was published in 1787...
with Schubert's
Franz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...
Winterreise
Winterreise
Winterreise is a song cycle for voice and piano by Franz Schubert , a setting of 24 poems by Wilhelm Müller. It is the second of Schubert's two great song cycles on Müller's poems, the earlier being Die schöne Müllerin...
and Wagner’s
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
Der Ring des Nibelungen
Der Ring des Nibelungen
Der Ring des Nibelungen is a cycle of four epic operas by the German composer Richard Wagner . The works are based loosely on characters from the Norse sagas and the Nibelungenlied...
in the abridged version by Jonathan Dove
Jonathan Dove
Jonathan Dove is a British composer of opera, choral works, plays, films, and orchestral and chamber music. He has arranged a number of operas for English Touring Opera and the City of Birmingham Touring Opera , including in 1990 a famous 18-player two-evening adaptation of Wagner's Der Ring des...
. In March 2009, Mitesek staged a highly original production and American premiere of Vivaldi's long-lost opera Motezuma.
Orchestra Manager since 1990: John Van Houten
John Van Houten
John Van Houten is an American orchestral tuba player. He is most notable for playing in various film soundtracks. John holds a Bachelors degree and a Masters degree in tuba performance from the University of Southern California, where he studied with Tommy Johnson. John is a freelance tubist in...
.