FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Katlyn Morahan | Morahan Arts and Media
katlyn@morahanartsandmedia.com | 646-378-9386

PACIFIC OPERA PROJECT PRESENTS 1950’S INSPIRED PRODUCTION OF THE ELIXIR OF LOVE

Performances on September 9, 10, 11, 16, 17, 18
at El Portal Theater

www.pacificoperaproject.com

Los Angeles, CA (July 26, 2022) — Pacific Opera Project (POP) reprises their smash hit, 1950s inspired production of The Elixir of Love (L’Elisir D’Amore) with six performances at El Portal Theater from Friday, September 9, 2022 to Sunday, September 18, 2022. Sung in Italian with supertitles sourced from classic 1950s song lyrics, the opera is set in a diner evoking classic scenes from Happy Days or Grease. With a nostalgic nod to 1950s era Americana, Donizetti’s late-eighteenth century tale of love triangles and love potions is reenergized with the retro fashion of rebellious teenagers during the rock and roll era. First debuted in 2017, POP’s performance of The Elixir of Love was called “an astoundingly enjoyable production” (Stage and Cinema).

Cast members include tenor Arnold Livingston Geis (Carmina Burana led by Gustavo Dudamel at the Hollywood Bowl, Intimate Apparel at Lincoln Center Theater) as Nemorino, soprano Oriana Falla (Concert for Peace with the Washington Concert Society, Disney’s Encanto) as Adina, baritone Aaron Keeney (Escamillo in Carmen at Minnesota Opera) as Belcore, bass Byron Mayes (2021 Music Academy Vocal Institute Fellow) as Dr. Dulcamara, and soprano Savannah Greene (Aspen Summer Music Festival and Opera NEO training programs) as Giannetta. Artistic Director and POP co-founder, Josh Shaw, directs the production and Kyle Naig conducts, with choreography by Amy Lawrence, lighting design by Bo Tindell, and costume design by Maggie Green.

Additional productions in Pacific Opera Project’s 2022-23 season include the U.S. premiere production of a rare Vivaldi opera, Ercole Su’l Termodonte, with a period orchestra on January 6 to 21, 2023 at The Highland Park Ebell Club; The Magic Flute AKA #Superflute, set in classic video games from the early 1990s, on March 17 to 26, 2023 at El Portal Theater; and Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance on May 19 to 28, 2023 outdoors on the lawn at the Heritage Square Museum.

Performance Details
THE ELIXIR OF LOVE (L’ELISIR D’AMORE)
Pacific Opera Project
Friday, September 9, 2022 at 8:00pm
Saturday, September 10, 2022 at 7:00pm
Sunday, September 11, 2022 at 3:00pm
Friday, September 16, 2022 at 8:00pm
Saturday, September 17, 2022 at 7:00pm
Sunday, September 18, 2022 at 3:00pm
El Portal Theater | 5269 Lankershim Blvd | North Hollywood, CA
Tickets: $30-$250
Ticket Link: https://www.pacificoperaproject.com/elixir

Cast
Nemorino - Arnold Livingston Geis
Adina - Oriana Falla
Dr. Dulcamara - Byron Mayes*
Belcore - Aaron Keeney*
Giannetta - Savannah Greene

*Pacific Opera Project debut

Staff
Director - Josh Shaw
Conductor - Kyle Naig
Choreographer - Amy Lawrence
Lighting Designer - Bo Tindell
Costume Design - Maggie Green

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.

Photo credit: Martha Benedict

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