Tag archives: Opera
Opera Santa Barbara (OSB) celebrated its 25th anniversary with a concert at the Lobero Theatre followed by a party across the street at the El Paseo Restaurant. To add some sparkle to the occasion, the evening began with a champagne reception on the terrace at the front of the theatre for 500 guests. After going […]
It was an evening of high note, not to mention many others in between, when Opera Santa Barbara pulled out all the stops to celebrate its 25th anniversary at the Lobero Theatre. The company, founded by soprano Marilyn Gilbert and the late Nathan Rundlett, presented a sold-out non-stop “hit parade” of opera favorites, conducted by […]
Opera Santa Barbara, celebrating its 25th anniversary, launched its latest season in cracking style with Puccini’s classic work La Boheme at the Granada. Director Omer Ben Seadia, who made her local debut three years ago with A Streetcar Named Desire and L’Italiana in Algeri, has done an artfully crafted four-act show with opera director Kostis […]
Fresh off a season opening concert of audience-pleasing music by Gershwin and others, the Santa Barbara Symphony next takes on two famously adventurous works by Igor Stravinsky, including his ballet score The Rite of Spring, which had a “scandalous” premiere 105 years ago in Paris, when the bizarre story of pagan sacrifice and the composer’s […]
An even newer work also gets its Santa Barbara debut over the same two weekends as UCSB Theater presents Vanity Fair, based on William Makepeace Thackery’s classic 1848 novel, and adapted for the stage with a modern twist by playwright Kate Hamill. Thomas Whitaker directs the tale of misadventures, friendship, and morally questionable acts, which […]
Bringing Return to the Forbidden Planet back to the Rubicon Theatre just two years after the Ventura debut of the hit early-1990s jukebox musical based on Shakespeare’s The Tempest and the 1956 science fiction film Forbidden Planet was a case of a trite theater cliché actually turning out to be true. “It very definitely is […]
Social gridlock reigned supreme at the home of Montecito artist Tom Mielko and his wife, Eileen, when they hosted a sunset soirée at their hilltop aerie. “After what our community has suffered earlier this year, we thought we needed something to really cheer everybody up,” says Tom. Among the guests quaffing the Veuve Clicquot and […]
Like most of the vocal Fellows at the Music Academy of the West (MAW), Benjamin Dickerson has an affinity both for art song and opera. But Dickerson has already reached the top tier in both endeavors at the Montecito summer festival. Dickerson claimed the coveted Marilyn Horne Song Competition in his only other summer in […]
The endless inventive stage director James Darrah teams with conductor James Conlon for an all-new production of Mozart’s comic opera The Marriage of Figaro, the 220-year old opus on passion and commitment set against class struggles and obstacles. Darrah turned the Music Academy of the West community on its ear in early July with OperaFest, […]
Director Brad Carroll said it was just a coincidence that the sequel to the movie version of Broadway smash-hit musical Mamma Mia opened just days before PCPA Theaterfest’s production opens at the Solvang Festival Theater this Friday night, July 27. But there’s no accident that the long-standing conservatory booked the show as the centerpiece of […]
Come Saturday and Monday, opera will be busting out all over the place at Miraflores. Rather than staging OperaFest – nee Opera Scenes – in its entirety in the cozy confines of Hahn Hall, where the Music Academy of the West (MAW) vocal Fellows are normally accompanied only by a single pianist, vignettes will be […]
Barbara Burger and Susan Aberle have been elected to Opera Santa Barbara’s board of directors. “Both Barbara and Susan have many years of service to the community and will be a great asset to our organization,” says Kostis Protopapas, artistic and general director. Barbara has a lengthy career in public relations and marketing primarily in […]
It was a case of high cees on the high seas when Roger and Sarah Chrisman hosted a nautical bash on their new 78-ft cruiser, Polaris II. The tony twosome, who took delivery of the Taiwanese-built vessel in February, welcomed 45 guests, who splashed out $1,000 a ducat, to raise funds for Opera Santa Barbara, […]
Rising young opera directing star Alison Moritz makes her Santa Barbara debut with Opera Santa Barbara’s (OSB) double bill of centennial celebrating Leonard Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti and Douglas Moore’s backstage farce Gallantry, slotting the two-day run of one-acts at Center Stage on Friday and Saturday, April 21-22, between productions of Madama Butterfly with Syracuse […]
Opera Santa Barbara’s (OSB) latest production, Gioachino Rossini’s romantic comedy The Barber of Seville at the Granada, was definitely on the cutting edge. The work, which premiered in Rome in 1816 to much hissing and jeering, is now one of the world’s most endearing operas – and it was easy to see why with a […]
Santa Barbara Natural History Museum’s 31st annual Wine and Food Festival on June 30 is going to be the biggest and best yet, raising around $110,000, predicts president Luke Swetland. The popular tourist attraction hosted a pre-fest bash for 60 guests at the Grassini Wine tasting room in El Paseo to promote the event. “There […]
For Santa Barbara’s first PuppetPalooza, creator Mitchell Kriegman has come up with a festival so vast and imaginatively populated with puppets, marionettes, and just about every other possible permutation of the genre giant and small, including literally the hand and glove, even his own character Clarissa might have a hard time explaining it all to […]
Santa Barbara’s musical youth shone at the First United Methodist Church when the youth opera and youth symphony under Opera SB artistic director Kostis Protpapas performed a creative production of Benjamin Britten’s Noah’s Flood. The 1958 work, based on a 15th-century Chester mystery play, featured bass-baritone Vincent Grana and mezzo soprano Chelsea Melamed as his […]
