Tag archives: Opera Santa Barbara
Nicholas Burlett is the new chair of Opera Santa Barbara replacing Joan Rutkowski after a four-year reign. Burlett, a graduate of Cornell University, New York, is a director of engineering for an international safety and security software firm and moved to our Eden by the Beach in 2004. “We must be willing to look for […]
Zach Mendez, Opera Santa Barbara’s Director of Operations and member of the organization’s team since 2018, and a member of the chorus before that, is leaving to dedicate his talents full time to his photography business. “Zach has been my closest partner, deputy, confidant, and friend for over four years, and every area of our […]
To the Riviera aerie of Joan Rutkowski, board chair of Opera Santa Barbara, for a delightful Bistro Musicale for gourmands and oenophiles organized by Epicurean SB founder Amy Baer Robinson, and concert pianist Jacopo Giacopuzzi, founder of the two-year-old Italian organization La Piazza. Jacopo and his sister, Maddalena, both alumni of the Music Academy, played […]
Opera Santa Barbara ended its season in grand style with a lavish production of Verdi’s 1853 classic La Traviata at the Granada, last performed in our Eden by the Beach 11 years ago. Soprano Anya Matanovic was superb as the titular Fallen Woman with her beloved played rousingly by tenor Nathan Granner in the three-act […]
Grand opera is returning to the Granada Theatre. After Opera Santa Barbara’s (OSB) two-plus years filled with ways to creatively cope with the COVID pandemic that ranged from virtual performances, to two Concerts in Your Car outdoor staged adaptations (that included, appropriately, a version of Carmen) and a season of smaller, shorter one-acts, reworkings, and […]
Opera Santa Barbara took over the cavernous stage at the Granada for A Night in Rome, a monochromatic themed tribute to the iconic 1960 Oscar-winning Federico Fellini-directed satire comedy-drama film starring Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg, with a sold-out crowd of 154 guests raising more than $180,000 for the popular organization. The boffo bash, emceed […]
Opera Santa Barbara, under artistic director Kostis Protopapas, brought a new dialogue to an old artform with its latest production, As One, at the Lobero. The innovative 75-minute production, featuring baritone Evan Bravos and mezzo soprano Ashley Kay Armstrong, both Chrisman student artist alumnae, as the transgender characters before and after transitioning. An on-stage quartet […]
Opera Santa Barbara was again in fine form when it presented Handel’s Semele at the Lobero, which was first performed in 1744 at London’s Covent Garden. A fusion of elements of opera, drama, and oratorio, the popular work is taken from Ovid’s Metamorphoses with Semele, the mother of the god Bacchus, superbly played by soprano […]
Opera soprano Jana McIntyre’s first public performance as a singer came at age five right here in Montecito. Except she wasn’t supposed to be singing. “We had to recite poems at our graduation at Crane,” said McIntyre, recalling her first year at Crane Country Day School, the K-8 school where academic challenge is balanced with […]
Just a couple of weeks after launching its new season with mariachi opera Cruzar la Cara de la Luna at the Granada, the singers, accompanied by talented dancers from the State Street Ballet and the Opera Santa Barbara Orchestra under artistic director Kostis Protopapas, were at the top of their game with a delightful double […]
The singers, under artistic director Kostis Protopapas, launched its first post-pandemic season with mariachi opera Cruzar la Cara de la Luna (To Cross the Face of the Moon), a 2010 commission from the Houston Grand Opera with music and lyrics by Jose “Pepe” Martinez. With inspiring music from Grammy winners Mariachi Los Camperos, the production, […]
It’s not much of an exaggeration to suggest that Opera Santa Barbara General Director Kostis Protopapas almost single-handedly kept live music alive in town during the worst months of the pandemic. In February, Operation Eurydice, part of Opera Santa Barbara’s Arts Advocacy campaign, created three live music series to bring in-person concerts to the public, […]
Everybody was in the right aria when Opera Santa Barbara’s Marylove Thralls hosted a sunset soirée to launch an entertaining new book, La Mia Pazza Famiglia by Kay Lemke. The dynamic duo met when Lemke, who hails from a small community, San Fior di Sopra, north of Venice, volunteered to help the opera and the […]
My job here at the Sentinel as a Man About Town encompasses keeping everyone informed about what’s been going on around town in the performing arts in and near State Street and beyond, even if some of it’s on the down low. The thing is, these days in my case the DL refers more to […]
If vocal fellow Byron Mayes’ name seems familiar, you’re not imagining things. The baritone, like all the other 2021 fellows matriculating at MAW’s Miraflores campus in Montecito this year, was part of MARLI, the Music Academy’s virtual-only season during the early part of the pandemic last summer. But the singer’s Santa Barbara-connected tenure goes back […]
Opera Santa Barbara won’t ease back into action, instead taking on a first-time production of Das Rheingold at the Lobero Theatre Anyone who thought Opera Santa Barbara might ease its reentry into live indoor operas with something out of the standard repertoire clearly doesn’t know Kostis Protopapas very well. OSB’s artistic and general director has […]
With the continued easing of pandemic restrictions, PCPA is returning after two summers to the Solvang Festival Theater, the charming outdoor amphitheater in the heart of the Santa Ynez Valley village. The stars will be live on stage as well as visible in the sky above starting in mid-July, when PCPA debuts an original production […]
The Amazons of the Music Academy of the West were positively unleashed after more than a year of monthly meetings via Zoom for a “Sip n’ Stroll” sunset soirée on the picturesque terrace of Hahn Hall on the Miraflores campus. “It is an absolutely fabulous feeling,” exclaimed event chair Roberta Grant. “Everybody has been absolutely […]
It was all two grand for words when Roger and Sarah Chrisman, just back from their home in Indian Wells after six months of lockdown, opened the doors of their charming Ennisbrook home for a concert by singers from Opera Santa Barbara’s Chrisman Young Artists Program. A pair of grand pianos, a Steinway and a […]
It was all Greek to many when Kostis Protopapas, general director of Opera Santa Barbara, celebrated his half-century with a delightful evening of music and song at the University Club. Kostis, who was born in Athens and moved to the U.S. in 1993 on an Onassis scholarship to study piano at The Boston Conservatory and […]
