From June 1–8, a consortium of some of Los Angeles County’s most prominent opera companies, along with Opera America, will present OperaFest LA, a weeklong performance festival running concurrently with the 2024 Opera Conference & World Opera Forum in downtown Los Angeles. Participating companies include Los Angeles Opera, Long Beach Opera, Pacific Opera Project, Synchromy, Overtone Industries, and Mission Opera, as well as Beth Morrison Projects with a special production.
Because of Los Angeles’ sprawling geography and perpetually gridlocked traffic, the city’s many diverse neighborhoods have come to support their own infrastructures and arts groups.
Marc A. Scorca, president and CEO of Opera America, said of the festival, “Visitors from around the world will experience the full scope of opera in America, from new experimental works to innovative productions of operas from the inherited repertoire.”
Long Beach Opera will present the West Coast staged premiere of Kate Soper’s Ipsa Dixit (a 2017 Pulitzer Prize finalist), June 1, 8, and 9 at the Art Theatre in Long Beach.
Pacific Opera Project will remount its acclaimed bilingual production of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, June 1, 2, 7, and 9 at the Aratani Theatre at the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center in Little Tokyo.
LA Opera will present Puccini’s Turandot on June 2, 5, and 8 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion (the production opens May 18). And on June 6, the company will present the world premiere of Joel Thompson’s Fire and Blue Sky, written for tenor Russell Thomas and also featuring mezzo-soprano Deborah Nansteel, with a libretto by poet Imani Tolliver. Also on that program is an orchestral suite from Thompson’s 2021 opera The Snowy Day.
Synchromy will present a pair of workshop performances: Dante De Silva’s Minute to Midnight, June 2 at the Wende Museum in Culver City, and Jason Barabba’s My Wings Burned Off, June 8 at the Colburn School. Also at Colburn on June 8: a screening of Vera Ivanova’s The Double.
Beth Morrison Projects will present the West Coast premiere of Magdalene, a chamber opera featuring 14 women composers set to the poems of Marie Howe, June 4, 5, 7, and 8 at REDCAT.
Mission Opera will present a 1980s glam interpretation of Franz Lehár’s operetta The Merry Widow, June 6–8 at the Canyon High School Performing Arts Center in Santa Clarita.
Overtone Industries will present excerpts from Songs and Dances of Imaginary Lands, June 7 at the Teatro Frida Kahlo in Historic Filipinotown.
