Opera Pacific was an opera company located in the Orange County, California, United States city of Santa Ana. It operated for 22 seasons before closing in 2008 after several seasons of deepening financial difficulties.
Opera Pacific was an opera company located in the Orange County, California, United States city of Santa Ana. It operated for 22 seasons before closing in 2008 after several seasons of deepening financial difficulties.
The first season began in 1985 with David DiChiera as General Director (until 1996), though the company traces its roots to 1962 and the annual Festival of Opera Association in Laguna Beach, where productions were performed in late summer at the Irvine Bowl, in English. In order to promote expansion, the Opera League of Laguna Beach was established to "encourage, support and sustain interest in the Festival of Opera." The first productions included such traditional repertory as Madame Butterfly , The Marriage of Figaro , and The Barber of Seville ; I Pagliacci and The Devil and Daniel Webster were presented as a double billing during the 1965 season.
In the early 1980s members of the Opera Leaque, along with other opera aficionados throughout Orange County, combined to form the core audience for the anticipated opening of the Orange County Performing Arts Center in neighboring Costa Mesa, at which time Opera Pacific was incorporated. Opera Pacific has been host to many of opera's greatest living legends, including the likes of Luciano Pavarotti in 1988, Dame Joan Sutherland in 1989, and in 1991 Plácido Domingo (in concert with soprano Ana Panagulias). Diva Kathleen Battle also made an appearance in 2001.
At its peak the company put on six productions each year, staging around six performances of each, but in its last years this fell to three staged operas in four performances each. Its financial artistic director was John DeMain.
On November 4, 2008, Opera Pacific announced it would cancel the rest of its 2008/2009 season due to financial difficulties and would likely close down operations permanently. [1] [2]
The company ran an "Opera Camp" each summer.
Orange County, often known by its initials O.C., is a county located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area in Southern California, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,186,989, making it the third-most-populous county in California, the sixth-most-populous in the United States, and more populous than 19 American states and Washington, D.C. Although largely suburban, it is the second-most-densely-populated county in the state behind San Francisco County. The county's three most-populous cities are Anaheim, Santa Ana, and Irvine, each of which has a population exceeding 300,000. Santa Ana is also the county seat. Six cities in Orange County are on the Pacific coast: Seal Beach, Huntington Beach, Newport Beach, Laguna Beach, Dana Point, and San Clemente.
Opera Australia is the principal opera company in Australia. Based in Sydney, its performance season at the Sydney Opera House accompanied by the Opera Australia Orchestra runs for approximately eight months of the year, with the remainder of its time spent at the Arts Centre Melbourne, where it is accompanied by Orchestra Victoria. In 2004, the company gave 226 performances in its subscription seasons in Sydney and Melbourne, attended by more than 294,000 people.
Dana Point is a city located in southern Orange County, California, United States. The population was 33,107 at the 2020 census. It has one of the few harbors along the Orange County coast, and with ready access via State Route 1, it is a popular local destination for surfing.
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Einstein on the Beach is an opera in four acts composed by Philip Glass and directed by theatrical producer Robert Wilson, who also collaborated with Glass on the work's libretto. The opera eschews traditional narrative in favor of a formalist approach based on structured spaces laid out by Wilson in a series of storyboards which are framed and connected by five "knee plays" or intermezzos. The music was written "in the spring, summer and fall of 1975." Glass recounts the collaborative process: "I put [Wilson’s notebook of sketches] on the piano and composed each section like a portrait of the drawing before me. The score was begun in the spring of 1975 and completed by the following November, and those drawings were before me all the time."
Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County is an American reality television series that originally aired on MTV from September 28, 2004, until November 15, 2006. The series aired for three seasons and was primarily focused on the personal lives of several students attending Laguna Beach High School. Its premise was originated with Liz Gateley, while Tony DiSanto served as the executive producer.
Every Good Boy Deserves Favour is a stage play by Tom Stoppard with music by André Previn. It was first performed in 1977. The play criticises the Soviet practice of treating political dissidence as a form of mental illness. Its title derives from the popular mnemonic used by music students to remember the notes on the lines of the treble clef. The cast comprises six actors, but also a full orchestra, which not only provides music throughout the play but also forms an essential part of the action. A chamber-orchestra version also exists.
The Brotherhood of Eternal Love was an organization of drug users and distributors that operated from the mid-1960s through the late 1970s in Orange County, California. They were dubbed the Hippie Mafia by the police. They produced and distributed drugs in hopes of starting a "psychedelic revolution" in the United States.
The Orange County Register is a paid daily newspaper published in California. The Register, published in Orange County, California, is owned by the private equity firm Alden Global Capital via its Digital First Media News subsidiaries.
The Festival Puccini is an annual summer opera festival held in July and August to present the operas of the famous Italian composer Giacomo Puccini.
The Pacific Symphony is a symphony orchestra from Orange County, California. The orchestra performs at the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall as a part of the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa, California. From 1987 to 2016, the orchestra's Summer Festival concerts took place at the Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre in Irvine, California.
Milena Kitic is a Serbian American operatic mezzo-soprano.
The Pageant of the Masters is an annual festival held by the Festival of the Arts in Laguna Beach, California, United States.
Gallimaufry Performing Arts is a theater and dance company founded in 2004 in Laguna Beach, California by Steve Josephson, the current Executive Artistic Director.
Pacific Chorale, founded in 1968, is a professional chorus performing in Costa Mesa, California at the Renée and Henry Segerstom Concert Hall at Segerstrom Center for the Arts.
Newport Harbor: The Real Orange County is an MTV reality television series, documenting the lives of several teenagers of affluent families in Newport Harbor, a seaside community located in Orange County, California, United States. It differs from the usual reality show in that it is structured as a traditional narrative than a straightforward observant documentary style.
Aliso Creek is a 19.8-mile (31.9 km)-long, mostly urban stream in south Orange County, California. Originating in the Cleveland National Forest in the Santa Ana Mountains, it flows generally southwest and empties into the Pacific Ocean at Laguna Beach. The creek's watershed drains 34.9 square miles (90 km2), and it is joined by seven main tributaries. As of 2018, the watershed had a population of 144,000 divided among seven incorporated cities.
The Laguna Beach Chamber Music Society is a non-profit organization that presents chamber music concerts in Laguna Beach, California and surrounding areas. The Society was founded in 1959 by cellist and Russian émigré Nicolas "Kolia" Levienne. Its first concerts were held in the Laguna Beach ballet studio of Lila Zali, Levienne's wife and former principal with the Original Ballet Russe and the Mordkin Ballet. Levienne was assisted by his brother Mischa, a violinist, in producing the initial concerts and also performing in them.
The Sawdust Art Festival, also known as The Sawdust or The Sawdust Festival, is an art festival held annually from late June through August in Laguna Beach, California. The festival features handicrafts as well as traditional fine art. It is non-juried, but exhibitors are required to be Laguna Beach residents. About 200,000 visitors attend each year. The Sawdust also hosts an annual Winter Fantasy art fair in mid-November through December, which is open to non-resident exhibitors.