Pacific Opera Project Presents Die Fledermaus in Collaboration with the Occidental College Glee Club on February 17 & 18

For Immediate Release
Contact: Leah Rankin | Morahan Arts & Media
leah@morahanartsandmedia.com | 863.660.2214

Pacific Opera Project Presents Die Fledermaus in
Collaboration with the Occidental College Glee Club 
on February 17 & 18

“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… It’s not trying desperately to be hip. It just is.” – LA Weekly

www.pacificoperaproject.com

Los Angeles, CA (December 12, 2023) — Pacific Opera Project (POP) presents Johann Strauss II’s Die Fledermaus on Saturday, February 17, 2024 at 7:00 p.m. and Sunday, February 18, 2024 at 3:00 p.m. at Thorne Hall at Occidental College in collaboration with the Occidental College Glee Club and featuring a new libretto by POP’s Artistic Director, Josh Shaw. 

The production tells the tale of a Hungarian countess, a Russian prince, a magically attractive watch, and a bat costume – which make for a strange plot in any setting, except in a time not that long ago when anything was possible: the Golden Age of Hollywood! Audience members will be transported back to a time to when an actress has access to a Hungarian Princess costume, a maid is an aspiring chorus girl, a mysterious Russian playboy comes to town to throw around some money, and a matinee idol with panache for the ladies is in a little hot water with the local police.

The cast of Die Fledermaus includes: baritone Schyler Vargas (The Atlanta Opera, Arizona Opera) as Gabe Valentine; soprano Avery Boettcher (Sociedad Artística del Tec & Teatro Graticello, Opera Tampa) as Rosie Lynne; baritone Luis Orozco (Opera Omaha, Nashville Opera) as Freddie Falcone; baritone William Grundler (Opera Santa Barbara, Opera San Luis Obispo) as Blind; soprano Chloe Sundet (Opera Neo, Wenatchee Valley Symphony) as Adele; contralto Emily Geller (Salt Marsh Opera, Teatro Lirico d’Europa) as Boris Orlofsky; bass-baritone E. Scott Levin (LA Opera, Union Avenue Opera) as Frank, Chief of Police; and tenor Derrek Stark (The Metropolitan Opera, Dayton Performing Arts Alliance) as Alfredo Caruso. Desiree Lavertu takes the role of Chorus Master while Caleb Yanez Glickman conducts this production directed by POP’s Founding Artistic Director, Josh Shaw, with choreography by Amy Lawrence.

"Performing in Fledermaus was some of the most fun I ever had on stage!” said POP Artistic Director Josh Shaw. “It's a party from start to finish and always fun for those on stage–and usually for those in the seats too. But there have always been inconsistencies and outlandish moments in the plot that drive me crazy. I set out to address some of those with this new update. And when in doubt...play to the hometown crowd. Who in LA doesn't love a good old fashioned Hollywood setting?"

Performance Information
Die Fledermaus
Pacific Opera Project
Occidental College Glee Club
Saturday, February 17, 2024 at 7:00 p.m.
Sunday, February 18, 2024 at 3:00 p.m.
Thorne Hall at Occidental College | Thorne Rd | Los Angeles, CA 90041
Tickets: $15-$150
Link: https://www.pacificoperaproject.com/die-fledermaus 

Cast
Schyler Vargas, baritone
Avery Boettcher, soprano 
Chloe Sundet, soprano
Derrek Stark, tenor
Emily Geller, contralto 
Luis Orozco, baritone
William Grundler, tenor
Scott Levin, bass-baritone
Catherine Antonia Samartin, soprano

Staff
Josh Shaw, director
Desiree Lavertu, chorus master 
Caleb Yanez Glickman, conductor 
Amy Lawrence, choreographer
Salette Corpuz, costume designer

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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