Mar. 20-27: Pacific Opera Project Presents LA Staged Premiere of Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta, Starring Blind Soprano Cristina Jones

For Immediate Release
Contact: Katy Salomon | Morahan Arts & Media
katy@morahanartsandmedia.com | 863.660.2214

Pacific Opera Project Presents the Los Angeles Staged 
Premiere of Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta
March 20, 26, & 27 at the Aratani Theatre

Starring “The Blind Soprano” Cristina Jones in the Title Role, 
Playing a Princess who is Unaware that She is Blind

“POP is a ‘best-kept secret’ with a rabid following” – Santa Monica Daily Press

www.pacificoperaproject.com

Los Angeles, CA (February 3, 2022) — Pacific Opera Project (POP) presents Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta at the Aratani Theatre in Little Tokyo on Sunday, March 20, 2022 at 3:00pm; Saturday, March 26, 2022 at 7:30pm; and Sunday, March 27, 2022 at 3:00pm. Blind soprano Cristina Jones stars in the opera’s title role, playing a princess who is unaware that she is blind. Iolanta will be POP’s first opera presented in Russian, using English subtitles, and the Los Angeles staged premiere of the opera, performed with a 32-piece orchestra led by Isaac Selya, of Queen City Opera. POP will partner with low-sight organizations for this production to encourage awareness and to amplify their efforts. Special arrangements will also be made for low-sighted audience members, including braille programs.

Blind from birth, Iolanta has grown up in an enclosed garden near the castle of her father, King René. The king has managed to keep Iolanta unaware of her blindness and her caretakers wait on her hand and foot; despite this, Iolanta cannot help but feel that she is missing something precious. Soon Iolanta is visited by the King, bringing with him Ibn-Hakia, a magical healer who is confident he can restore Iolanta’s sight, but only if she is first made aware of her blindness and then truly desires to see. The King refuses this, fearing that failure would bring Iolanta great sorrow after learning that she cannot see. Soon the court is visited by Duke Robert, who is betrothed to Iolanta, and his friend, Count Vaudemont. Robert expresses his desire to be free from his engagement, as he has fallen in love with a countess. 

When Vaudemont finds his way to Iolanta’s garden, where he finds her sleeping, he falls in love with her; Robert leaves to bring Vaudemont assistance when he believes his friend has been enchanted by Iolanta. When the girl awakes, Vaudemont asks her to give him a red rose and, when she twice hands him a white rose, realizes that she is blind. The King soon discovers the lovers, and threatens to execute Vaudemont if Iolanta is not healed. In order to save Vaudemont from death, Iolanta agrees to allow the healer to use his powers on her. Robert returns with his guard and is surprised to see King René, father of his betrothed. With encouragement from Vaudemont, he confesses to the King that he has fallen in love with another woman and could never love anyone else, including René’s daughter, Iolanta. The King cancels the wedding contract, and allows Iolanta to marry Vaudémont, explaining that he only threatened to execute him so that Iolanta would agree to the treatment. Iolanta returns, and under the power of the healer, she is able to see for the first time, but is unclear if her sight will remain without the healer’s magic hold on her. Vaudemont pledges his undying love to Iolanta, whether she can see or not. 

The cast also includes Ben Werley as Vaudemont, Andrew Potter as King Rene, Simon Barrad as Robert, Andrew Hiers as Ibn-Hakia, Megan Potter as Martha, Brooke Iva Lohmann as Brigitta, Danielle Marcelle Bond as Laura, Ben Lowe as Bertran, and William Grundler as Almerik. 

Program Information
Iolanta
Sunday, March 20, 2022 at 3:00pm
Saturday, March 26, 2022 at 7:30pm
Sunday, March 27, 2022 at 3:00pm
Aratani Theatre | 244 San Pedro St. | Los Angeles, CA 90012
Tickets: $12-60. Opening night (3pm show) has an option for special $100 tickets, which include a reception with the artists after the show.
Link: www.pacificoperaproject.com/iolanta 

Tchaikovsky – Iolanta
Sung in Russian with projected English subtitles; Braille libretti and audio programs available.

Cast:
Director: Josh Shaw
Conductor: Isaac Selya
Assistant Director: Carson Gilmore
Costumes: Maggie Green

Iolanta: Cristina Jones
Vaudemont: Ben Werley
King Rene: Andrew Potter
Robert: Simon Barrad
Ibn-Hakia: Andrew Hiers
Martha: Megan Potter
Brigitta: Brooke Iva Lohmann
Laura: Danielle Marcelle Bond
Bertran: Ben Lowe
Almerik: William Grundler

About Cristina Jones
Cristina Jones is a soprano hailing from Southern California. She has performed recitals, oratorio and operatic works in the United States, England, and Scotland.

Highlights include Fauré’s Requiem, John Rutter’s A Mass for the Children, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, as well as Verdi’s Rigoletto and Falstaff, Bernstein’s Candide, Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Mozart’s Così fan tutte and Der Schauspieldirektor, Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, Jonathan Dove's Flight, and Handel’s Rodelinda. More recently, she was featured as the soprano soloist in Beethoven’s 9th Symphony under the direction of Dr. Kimo Furumoto with the Rio Hondo Symphony, Rossini’s Stabat Mater with the Laguna Beach Chamber Singers, and she also prepared the role of the mother in Amahl and the Night Visitors by Menotti with Opera California under the direction of Dr. Philip Roh.

Born with retinopathy of prematurity, an eye condition which eventually left her totally blind, Cristina began her musical training at the age of eight upon joining the Johnny Mercer’s Children’s Choir at the Braille Institute under the direction and guidance of Anne Bell.  Thanks to Anne’s guidance and encouragement, she was inspired to study music more fully at California State University, Fullerton School of Music.

In 2013, she received her Bachelors of Music from CSUF, where she studied with Linda Leyrer, Mark Salters, and Janet Smith. Upon receiving her Master of Arts in Voice Performance in 2015, Cristina graduated with honors from the Royal Academy of Music in London, where she studied under Julie Kennard and Iain Ledingham. Currently, Cristina is performing in various concerts and operas, teaching private voice, and studying privately with Fred Carama.

When she’s not screeching for audiences or at students, Cristina is tap dancing, laughing, reading a good book, going on adventures with her guide dog Dwayne, or advocating and raising awareness for an empowered and enriched life as a soprano who happens to be blind. Learn more at www.theblindsoprano.com.

About Pacific Opera Project
Founded in 2011 by Artistic Director Josh Shaw and Music Director Stephen Karr, Los Angeles’s Pacific Opera Project (POP) is dedicated to providing quality opera that is innovative, 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.

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 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.”

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 of The Mikado, The Barber of Seville, Sweeney Todd, Cosi fan tutte, Gianni Schicchi, L'enfant et les sortilèges, and La bohème. POP has ongoing internships with Occidental College and collaborates with their Glee Club every other year, as well as internships with The Waverly School and Orange County School of the Arts. POP also partners with 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. Learn more at www.pacificoperaproject.com.

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