Pacific Opera Project Presents 'Madama Butterfly;' June 1, 2, 7 & 9

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

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PACIFIC OPERA PROJECT PRESENTS
MADAMA BUTTERFLY ????

POP’s Acclaimed Bilingual Production of 
Puccini’s Opera Returns
June 1, 2, 7 & 9, 2024;
The JACCC’s Aratani Theatre in Little Tokyo

 “‘Madama Butterfly’ like never before: Sung in Japanese and English, with ethnically accurate casting.” - Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles, CA — Pacific Opera Project (POP) presents the return of its critically-acclaimed production of Madama Butterfly ???? on Saturday, June 1, 2024 at 7:00 p.m.; Sunday, June 2, 2024 at 3:00 p.m.; Friday, June 7, 2024 at 8:00 p.m.; and Sunday, June 9, 2024 at 3:00 p.m. at the Aratani Theatre at the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center. With a new bilingual libretto by POP Artistic Director Josh Shaw and Music Director Eiki Isomura, Madama Butterfly ???? is performed in both English and Japanese, bringing a sense of realism and inclusion to Puccini’s oft-performed opera that has rarely been seen in previous productions.

POP previously presented Madama Butterfly ???? on April 6, 13 and 14, 2019 at the Aratani Theatre in a co-production with Houston’s Opera in the Heights, becoming the first known production of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly to have the characters sing in their native languages. Opera Today called Madama Butterfly ???? “another remarkable achievement for POP, not only artistically but commercially,” while San Francisco Classical Voice praised the production, saying it was “on a visual scale beyond anything it has taken on before – a sumptuously costumed, fully staged, bilingual co-production.”

Madama Butterfly ???? was a long-gestating project for POP’s Artistic Director, Josh Shaw, and he knew that a revival was on the table after its initial run. “This bilingual production was born well over a decade ago when I asked the very simple question: How would these two people communicate if this story actually happened? Certainly not in Italian,” says Shaw. “In 2018, all the pieces magically came together when I reached out to Eiki Isomura about a co-production. By the time the show opened in 2019, we already knew we wanted to revive the production as soon as possible.”

Returning cast members include soprano Janet Szeipei Todd (LA Opera, Opera Santa Barbara) as Cio-Cio-San; tenor Peter James Lake (Opera North, Mobile Opera) as B.F. Pinkerton; baritone Kenneth Stavert (Santa Fe Opera, Gulfshore Opera) as Sharpless; mezzo-soprano Kimberly Sogioka (Washington National Opera, Detroit Opera) as Suzuki; tenor Steve Moritsugu as Prince Yamadori; and bass Norge Yip as the Imperial Commissioner. New to the production are tenor Taka Komagata (Hawai’i Opera Theatre, Savannah VOICE Festival) as Goro; bass Paul Chwe Minchul An (LA Opera, Chicago Opera Theater) as the Bonze; bass Hisato Masuyama as the Official Registrar; and mezzo-soprano Monica Isomura (Detroit Opera, Opera in the Heights) as Kate Pinkerton.

Kimono designers Sueko Oshimoto and Kentaro Terra of SK Kimono and the South Bay Singers led by Chorus Master Naoko Suga also return for this production. CSU Northridge’s Jishin Taiko Japanese drumming ensemble will perform in the Aratani courtyard before the show on June 1 and 7.

Prior to the opening of Madama Butterfly ????, POP presents Shizen: Love of Nature and the Nature of Love, a free recital as part of POP’s inaugural Artist Recital Series on Thursday, May 23, 2024 at 7:00 p.m. at POP HQ in Highland Park. “Shizen” is the Japanese word used to describe all things natural, whereas deeper meanings of the word go to the heart of connection between human beings and the physical and spiritual worlds. This recital program will explore the concept of shizen through Japanese songs that reflect on nature and human connection, featuring music by Yoshinao Nakada, Makiko Kinoshita, Toru Takemitsu, and many more, performed by cast members of Madama Butterfly ???? — mezzo-soprano Kimberly Sogioka, tenor Taka Komagata, tenor Steve Moritsugu, and pianists Eiki Isomura and Naoko Suga.

Tickets for Madama Butterfly ???? start at $15 and can be purchased at pacificoperaproject.com. Tickets for Shizen: Love of Nature and the Nature of Love are free to the public and can be reserved at bit.ly/shizenpop.

CALENDAR EDITORS PLEASE NOTE:
PACIFIC OPERA PROJECTS PRESENTS MADAMA BUTTERFLY ????
Who: Pacific Opera Project
When: Saturday, June 1 at 7PM; Sunday, June 2 at 3PM; Friday, June 7 at 8PM; Sunday, June 9 at 3PM
Where: The Aratani Theatre at the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center; 244 San Pedro Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012
Cast: Janet Szepei Todd as Cio-Cio-San; Peter James Lake as B.F. Pinkerton; Kenneth Stavert as Sharpless; Kimberly Sogioka as Suzuki; Taka Komagata as Goro; Steve Moritsugu as Prince Yamadori; Paul Chwe Minchul An as the Bonze; Norge Yip as The Imperial Commissioner; Hisato Masuyama as the Official Registrar; & Monica Isomura as Kate Pinkerton
Creative Team: Josh Shaw, Director & Libretto (English); Eiki Isomura, Music Director & Libretto (Japanese); South Bay Singers, Chorus; Naoko Suga, Chorus Master; & Sueko Oshimoto & Kentaro Terra of SK Kimono, Costume Design

PACIFIC OPERA PROJECT PRESENTS SHIZEN: LOVE OF NATURE AND NATURE OF LOVE
Who: Kimberly Sogioka, mezzo; Taka Komagata, tenor; Steve Moritsugu, tenor; and pianists Eiki Isomura and Naoko Suga
When: Thursday, May 23 at 7PM
Where: POP HQ; 125 S Ave 57, Los Angeles, CA 90042

Program subject to change.

About Pacific Opera Project

Founded in 2011, Los Angeles’s Pacific Opera Project (POP) is dedicated to providing quality opera that is accessible, affordable, and entertaining in order to build a broader audience for the art form. LA Magazine writes “If you think you hate opera, you’ve probably never seen a Pacific Opera Project show.” POP’s regularly sold-out performances take place in a wide variety of venues, from outdoors, to small clubs, big amphitheaters, and warehouses. LA Weekly named POP the “Best Opera Company in Los Angeles” in 2018, writing “making opera cool, affordable, accessible and enticing to young audiences is easier said than done. It’s also something every opera company in the country is trying desperately to do… [Pacific Opera Project] is not trying desperately to be hip. It just is.” In 2020, POP was awarded The American Prize in Opera Performance.

POP has presented more than 40 innovative new productions to date, including revolutionary drive-in productions of COVID fan tutte and the US staged premieres of two Gluck operas in November 2020, about which Opera Magazine wrote “Despite this plague year of postponements, POP has refused to bow to the pandemic or its restrictions...There is surely no opera company in this Covid-ravaged country with a better average for 2020.” Other critically acclaimed productions include Mozart’s Abduction from the Seraglio set as an episode of Star Trek; a “fan-tastic” (LA Daily News) Harajuku-themed Mikado; a Dick Tracy Don Giovanni; a Magic Flute inspired by 1990s video games, called “one of the freshest takes on Mozart’s 1791 classic I have come across” (Operawire); and many more. POP’s signature take on Puccini’s La bohème, “AKA The Hipsters,” set in modern-day Los Angeles, has become a holiday tradition, returning year after year to sold-out audiences and called “riotous” (LA Weekly) and “an undeniably fun night at the theater that should not be missed” (Stage Raw). POP gave the world premiere of Brooke deRosa’s The Monkey's Paw in 2017.

POP has been dedicated to reaching young audiences with performance and education since its inception, regularly performing for school-aged groups in family-friendly productions, including having a presence in 15 Title 1 schools. POP also partners with Bob Baker Marionette Theater, local YMCAs, and the Burbank Boys and Girls Club. During the COVID-19 pandemic, POP created interactive Education Packs appropriate for kindergarten to eighth-grade students to accompany videos of POP’s productions of The Magic Flute and Madama Butterfly.

In 2019, POP presented its most ambitious project to date: the first-ever true-to-story bilingual Madama Butterfly performed in LA’s Little Tokyo. A co-production with Houston’s Opera in the Heights, the production featured a new libretto written by POP’s Founding Artistic Director Josh Shaw and Opera in the Heights Artistic Director Eiki Isomura, presenting Puccini’s story as if it actually happened and attempting to answer the question: “How would Butterfly and Pinkerton communicate?” All Japanese roles were sung in Japanese by Japanese-American artists and all American roles were sung in English. San Francisco Classical Voice described the production as “on a visual scale beyond anything it has taken on before – a sumptuously costumed, fully staged, bilingual co-production… Pacific Opera Project deserves a great deal of credit for making this concept into a reality… innovative, creative, and immensely successful.”

POP presented the 2018 West Coast premiere of Giacomo Rossini’s rarely performed 1816 opera, La gazzetta “The Newspaper.” The first performances in the US were given in Boston at the New England Conservatory in 2013, and POP's production was only the second in North America. Opera Today raved about the premiere, writing “Director Josh Shaw has invested the proceedings with enough good comic ideas for at least three productions. Shaw has set the show in 1960’s Paris, with eye-popping set elements and brilliant uses of color which add to the manic feel… Mr. Shaw has fashioned a take-no-prisoners approach to the staging, which was rife with clever touches… Pacific Opera Project has evidently hit on a winning formula for a night out, serving up food, drink and an operatic discovery in equal measure.”

Learn more at www.pacificoperaproject.com.

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