Pacific Opera Returns to Forest Lawn Glendale for Production of Gilbert & Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance

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

PACIFIC OPERA RETURNS TO FOREST LAWN
GLENDALE FOR PRODUCTION OF GILBERT &
SULLIVAN’S THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE 

Performances on May 19, 20, 21, 26, 27, 28

www.pacificoperaproject.com 

Los Angeles, CA (April 4, 2023) — Pacific Opera Project (POP) returns to one of its most beloved outdoor venues for W.S. Gilbert & Arthur Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance from Friday, May 19, 2023 through Sunday, May 28, 2023 at Glendale Forest Lawn. A scenic spot overlooking Los Angeles and the San Gabriel Mountains, this venue has been the site for sold-out POP performances including Hansel & Gretel (2021) and Lucia di Lammermoor (2017). POP invites audience members to dress in costume and picnicking is encouraged.

Cast members include baritone Jake Stamatis (Sarasota Opera, Music Academy of the West, Seagle Festival) as The Pirate King; soprano Chloe Sundet (Opera Neo, Wenatchee Valley Symphony, Leavenworth Summer Theater) as Mabel; tenor Brian Wallin (Arizona Opera, Baltimore Concert Opera, Opéra de Montréal) as Frederic; bass-baritone E. Scott Levin (LA Opera, Union Avenue Opera, Opera Santa Barbara), as Major-General Stanley; contralto Emily Geller (St. Petersburg Opera, Tri-Cities Opera) as Ruth; bass Phil Meyer (Center Stage Opera, Mission Opera) as Police Sergeant; baritone William Grundler (Opera Santa Barbara, Opera San Luis Obispo) as Samuel; mezzo-soprano Alexandra Bass as Kate; soprano Morgan Paige as Edith; soprano Julia Johnson as Isabel. Founding Artistic Director, Josh Shaw, directs the production. Caleb Glickman makes his POP debut as conductor. Salette Corpuz is the costume designer. 

POP hosts POPaganza on Wednesday, April 26, 2023 at 6:30 p.m., the first public event at POP’s new POP HQ AKA "The POPera Shop" in Highland Park. POP’s biggest  party of the year features POP’s announcement of the 2023-2024 season along with a catered dinner and drinks, performances by POP artists, and an exclusive first chance to purchase season tickets.

Performance Details
THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE
Pacific Opera Project
Friday May 19, 2023 at 7:30 p.m.
Saturday May 20, 2023 at 7:30 p.m.
Sunday May 21, 2023 at 7:30 p.m.
Friday May 26, 2023 at 7:30 p.m.
Saturday May 27, 2023 at 7:30 p.m.
Sunday May 28, 2023 at 7:30 p.m.
Forest Lawn | 1712 S Glendale Ave | Glendale, CA 91205
Tickets: $30 general admission (tables for 2 and 4 available)
Ticket Link: https://www.pacificoperaproject.com/pirates

Cast
Brian Wallin - Frederic
Chloe Sundet - Mabel
Jake Stamatis - The Pirate King
Scott Levin - Major-General Stanley
Emily Geller - Ruth
Phil Meyer - Police Sergeant
William Grundler - Samuel
Alexandra Bass - Kate
Morgan Paige - Edith
Julia Johnson - Isabel

Staff
Director - Josh Shaw
Conductor - Caleb Yanez-Glickman
Choreographer - Amy Lawrence
Costumes - Salette Corpuz

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 at top of release by Martha Benedict

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