Contact: Davidson & Choy Publicity David Barber, [email protected] 323-954-7510 x20 (o) 213-718-7100 (c)
Contact: Jenny Rivera C.E.O. & Executive Director [email protected] 562-470-7464 x109 (o)
World Premiere Long Beach Opera re-imagination King Arthur by Henry Purcell Stage Director / Adaptation by Andreas Mitisek With Culture Clash and Musica Angelica
Three performances only! Sunday, January 12 at 2:30 pm Saturday, January 18 at 7:30 pm Sunday, January 19 at 2:30 pm
Beverly O’Neill Theatre, Long Beach Tickets at LongBeachOpera.org
Long Beach - December 3, 2019 – Long Beach Opera presents a new production of Purcell’s King Arthur - -- a collaboration with Chicano provocateurs CULTURE CLASH and the authentic sounds of LA ‘s premiere Baroque orchestra MUSICA ANGELICA -- in January 2020 for only three performances at Long Beach’s Beverly O’Neill Theatre. Performances are Sunday January 12, Saturday January 18 and Sunday, January 19.
In this world premiere of LBO's re-imagination of the work, with adaptation and direction by Andreas Mitisek in collaboration with Culture Clash, King Arthur returns as a superhero who fights a mysterious, strange and unnatural force that is attacking Earth and threatening life as we know it. Will he be able to save humanity? How will he stand up against a race of alien shape shifters who desire to conquer the galaxy?
King Arthur's experience as a knight – with the aid of Purcell’s most adventurous music -- comes in handy as he rescues his beloved princess. Featuring the authentic sounds of Musica Angelica Baroque Orchestra, with music direction by Concert Master Ilia Korol.
Purcell based his King Arthur on the battles between King Arthur's Britons and the Saxons, rather than the legends of Camelot -- although Merlin does make an appearance. It is a Restoration spectacular, including such otherworldly characters as Cupid and Venus plus references to the Germanic gods of the Saxons, Woden, Thor, and Freya.
The tale as told here centers on Arthur's endeavors to recover his fiancée, the blind Cornish Princess Emmeline, who has been abducted by his archenemy, the Saxon King Oswald of Kent. King Arthur contains some of Purcell's most lyrical music, complete with some of the most adventurous harmonies of his day.
For millennia, superheroes have battled supernatural forces and returned home "from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man," as the mythologist Joseph Campbell wrote. Heroes and heroines embark on perilous quests in search of lost loved ones, the secret of immortality, earthly paradise or simply great riches.
Many of these stories have elements in common, including clashes with monsters, battles with the elements, interventions by the gods, and tests of moral character, mental cunning and physical strength. These tales have been expressed in songs, literature, art and dance for thousands of years, and are still being reinterpreted today in books, comic strips, interactive games and adventure films.
For the audience, these stories don't show us how to acquire superpowers, but how to be the heroes of our own lives – by choosing altruism over the pursuit of wealth and power.
This production reunites the artistic team from LBO's production of Purcell’s Fairy Queen (2017): Andreas Mitisek (Adaptation / Stage Director / Production Design), Culture Clash, and Musica Angelica Baroque Orchestra.
Background
Henry Purcell (1659-1695) was one of the greatest English composers, flourishing in the period that followed the restoration of the monarchy after the Puritan Commonwealth period. He spent much of his short life in the service of the Chapel Royal as a composer, organist and singer. With considerable gifts as a composer, he wrote extensively for the stage (particularly in a hybrid musico-dramatic form of the time), for the church, and for popular entertainment. He was a master of English word-setting and of contemporary compositional techniques for instruments and voices. He died in 1695, a year after composing funeral music for Queen Mary.
Purcell wrote only one full opera, a short work supposedly designed for a girls’ school. The tragic story of Dido and Aeneas, with a libretto by Nahum Tate, has a perfection of its own. Dido’s final lament, before she kills herself, follows the model for such compositions established by Monteverdi 80 years before.
Other stage works by Purcell are in the hybrid form now known as semi-opera, combining spoken drama with a musical element that in the concert hall may be performed apart from its wider dramatic context. These semi-operas include King Arthur, with a text by the poet John Dryden, a work that includes fascinating music for a chorus of cold people, frozen by the Cold Genius but thawed by the power of Love.
Purcell provided incidental music, dances and songs for a great many plays, including Aphra Behn’s Abdelazar or The Moor’s Revenge, a rondeau from which provides the theme for Benjamin Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra.
In 17th-century England, opera had not fully developed as we know it today. Audiences were not sure about it; instead, the English preferred a mix of musical numbers and songs inserted into a stage play, dominated by spoken dialogue. This was what Londoners expected, and as a result, it became the formula composers followed for several decades. The terms "semi-opera", "dramatic[k] opera" and 2
"English opera" were all applied to Restoration entertainments (1660–1689) that combined spoken plays with masque-like episodes.
Tickets for King Arthur range from $49 to $150, and can be purchased either by calling the LBO Box Office at 562.470.SING (7464) ext. 1 or by going online to LongBeachOpera.org/Tickets. For information, please visit www.LongBeachOpera.org
This activity is supported in part by the California Arts Council, a state agency. Learn more at www.arts.ca.gov
Supported in part by a grant from the Arts Council for Long Beach and the City of Long Beach.
Long Beach Opera events are supported, in part, by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission
The 2020 LBO Season, Andreas Mitisek’s final season after seventeen years, continues in March with the LA premiere of The Lighthouse, music and libretto by Peter Maxwell Davies, at the Pacific Visions Theater at the Long Beach Aquarium, and followed by the US premiere of Billy The Kid, music by Gavin Bryars at the Long Beach Sunnyside Cemetery in May. The season culminates with a reprise of Frida, with music by Robert X. Rodriguez, at the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach in June.
LBO recently announced that during the search for the next Artistic Director, Yuval Sharon, described by The New York Times as opera’s “disrupter in residence,” will serve as the company’s Interim Artistic Advisor; Sharon will curate the 2021 season, including selecting the operas, productions, and artistic teams. He will also participate as director for one of the season productions.
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 support from individual donors, local businesses, public corporations, and private foundations.
CAST AND CREATIVE TEAM:
Cedric Berry Bass-Baritone CEDRIC BERRY wields “a bass-baritone of considerable power and agility” (Chicago Tribune). LBO productions include Elektra, Ceiling/Sky, Fairy Queen, Consul, Invention of Morel, Best of 20 and Central Park 5. He's performed with Los Angeles Opera, Industry Opera, Chicago Opera Theatre, Savonlinna Opera Festival of Finland, Banlieurs Bleues Festival of France and Ravinia Music Festival, to name a few. He's appeared with Pacific Symphony, Arizona Symphony, Santa Fe Symphony, Luckman Jazz Orchestra, Pasadena Pops Orchestra, California Phil, Los Angeles Phil and Telemann Chamber Orchestra of Japan. Visit www.cedricberry.com.
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Jamie Chamberlin Soprano Jamie has been hailed for her “superhuman soprano” (Schmopera) and “shimmering tones” (Opera News) as Faustine and Marilyn Monroe in LBO’s The Invention of Morel and Marilyn Forever. Also, at LBO: Cunegonde/Candide, Isolde/The Love Potion, Hazel George/The Perfect American, Foreign Woman/The Consul. Recently: Pasadena Symphony Pops w/ Michael Feinstein, Lucia di Lammermoor w/ POP, Mimi & Musetta w/ CalPhil at Disney Hall. Jamie is a Delos Recording Artist and featured on the soundtrack of The Coen Bros. Hail Caesar! Upcoming: Raphaella in World Premiere of Stewart Copeland’s rock oratorio Satan’s Fall. www.jamiechamberlin.com
Marc Molomot Tenor Possessed of a rare high-tenor voice and a winning stage persona, Marc Molomot enjoys an international career in opera and on the concert stage. Recent performances have included The Fairy Queen with Long Beach Opera’s co-production with Chicago Opera Theater, Arnalta in L'incoronazione di Poppea with Florentine Opera, Busoni’s Turandot in the role of Truffaldino with Bard Music Festival, Virgil Thomson’s The Mother of us All at Hudson Hall (a New York Times Best Classical Music Performance of 2017), and Wozzeck with the Houston Symphony in the role of Der Hauptmann. The live recording of this performance won a Grammy Award.
Darryl Taylor Countertenor Darryl Taylor's performances have been noted for their compelling artistry and authority. Opera highlights: title role in Phillip Glass' Akhnaten for Long Beach Opera; L.A. Opera’s Dido and Aeneas; Pergolesi and Vivaldi Stabat Mater with Lyra Baroque Orchestra of St. Paul, Minnesota; performances with the Carmel Bach Festival; the Bach Collegium San Diego under Richard Egarr, Solomon with the City Choir of Washington under Robert Shafer and performances at New York’s Carnegie Hall.. Founder of the African American Art Song Alliance, his recordings on Naxos and Albany record labels have received lavish praise. www.darryltaylor.com
Andreas Mitisek Stage Director / Adaptation Since 2003, Mitisek has been LBO's Artistic & General Director. Recent LBO directing credits: The Difficulty of Crossing a Field, King Gesar, Macbeth, Tell-Tale Heart, Van Gogh, The Paper Nautilus, Ainadamar, and Maria de Buenos Aires. Recent LBO conducting credits: 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: 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 has also conducted the Austrian and Italian premieres of Nixon in China. From 2012-2017 Andreas served Chicago Opera Theater as Artistic & General Director.
Culture Clash Adaptation Culture Clash's Richard Montoya, Ric Salinas, and Herbert Siguenza have earned critical acclaim for staging smart, comical social satire, & sharp political plays. 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. Some of them were 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
2 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.
Musica Angelica 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. Musica Angelica toured in March 2007 with Bach's St. Matthew Passion in Los Angeles, New York, Savannah (Savannah Music Festival), Mexico, Hungary, Austria, Spain, Italy and Germany. Los Angeles Times hailed, "Musica Angelica soars in a Baroque gem… a triumph… Haselböck’s leadership was nuanced and inspiring." Musica Angelica was described as a "world class Baroque orchestra" by KUSC FM Classical Music Radio. In 1998, Musica Angelica issued a recording of Vivaldi Concertos for Lute, Oboe, Violin and Strings and in 2007, Handel's Acis and Galatea. Musica Angelica collaborates with leading performing arts institutions in SoCal including Los Angeles Opera, Long Beach Opera, the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Norton Simon Museum, and the Los Angeles Master Chorale.
Long Beach Opera Calendar Information
World premiere of Long Beach Opera re-imagination of King Arthur Music by Henry Purcell Direction by Andreas Mitisek Music Director Ilia Korol Adaptation by Andreas Mitisek and Culture Clash Musica Angelica, orchestra
PERFORMANCES: Sunday, January 12, at 2:30 pm Saturday, January 18 at 7:30 pm Sunday, January 19 at 2:30 pm
VENUE: Beverly O’Neill Theater, 300 E. Ocean Blvd., Long Beach CA 90802
RUNTIME: Approx. 90 minutes without intermission Sung in English
PRE-OPERA Talk: ONE HOUR before each performance, there will be a pre-opera talk.. All ticket holders are welcome to attend.
TICKETS: Tickets range from $49 to $150 and can be purchased either by calling the LBO Box Office at 562.470.SING (7464) or by going online to https://www.LongBeachOpera.org/Tickets/
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: https://www.LongBeachOpera.org/the-Season/king-arthur
CAST: Cedric Berry, bass-baritone Jamie Chamberlin, soprano Marc Molomat, tenor Darryl Taylor, countertenor
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