Tag archives: Opera
Normally when Opera Santa Barbara’s (OSB) Artistic and General Director Kostis Protopapas signs a stage director for one of the company’s productions, he largely leaves the non-musical decisions behind. “I hire directors that I trust and I let them run with it,” he said, a formula that has served Protopapas well over his six-year tenure […]
We were all clearly in the right aria when the Music Academy staged Tchaikovsky’s classic Eugene Onegin at the Granada, directed by Peter Kazaras, head of Opera UCLA. With the orchestra under Slovenian-born conductor Daniela Candillari, Yale-educated baritone Samuel Kidd as Onegin, and soprano Johanna Will as his lover, they were absolutely superb in the […]
Patricia Westley, daughter of the Santa Barbara Polo Club’s John Westley, who used to manage the polo training school, had just scored the experience of a lifetime two months before Russia invaded Ukraine. The Kiwi-American opera singer had won an Atkins Foundation fellowship to work at the historic Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, finding an […]
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 […]
Westmont senior Sibongakonkhe (“Sibo”) Msibi joins an elite group of 20 Fellows this summer at the Vocal Institute at the Music Academy in Santa Barbara. The first Westmont student to achieve this honor, he aspires to become “one of the best opera singers out there.” Chosen from an international pool of talented applicants who seek […]
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 […]
The Music Academy of the West’s return to its normal extremely event-packed eight-week summer music festival in 2022 happily coincides with a major milestone for the institute headquartered right here in Montecito. If previous partnerships with the New York Philharmonic and the London Symphony Orchestra haven’t already done so, MAW’s 75th anniversary season truly places […]
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 […]
Westmont presents Aaron Copland’s great 20th century American opera The Tender Land January 28 and 30 at 7 pm at Center Stage Theater in Paseo Nuevo. Purchase tickets, which cost $15 for general admission, $10 for seniors or military, at the Center Stage box office at centerstagetheater.org. Please visit the Center Stage website to view […]
American composer Aaron Copland was inspired to write his opera The Tender Land when he saw Walker Evans’ famed Depression-era photographs and read James Agee’s “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.” Now, Westmont Opera is presenting the rarely seen 1954 work as its 2022 production at the Center Stage Theater, representing the school’s return to […]
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 […]
Carpinteria native Mike Eliason has taken tens of thousands of photos over the course of his 35-year career as a photographer in town. Eliason spent the first quarter-century as a newspaper photojournalist who worked for just about every paper in town, capturing sunsets and shooting alongside wildlife and wildfires before the Santa Barbara County Fire […]
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, […]
Opera Santa Barbara has come up with a most novel way to sell tickets to fans after the pandemic lockdown. Artistic director Kostis Protopapas has announced that a limited number of tickets for this season’s productions will be available to patrons on a name-your-own-price-basis. The name of this new initiative, made possible by a grant […]
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 […]
