Pacific Opera Project Presents US Premiere of 'La Scuola de’ Gelosi,' Jan 10-19

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

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PACIFIC OPERA PROJECT PRESENTS
US PREMIERE OF ANTONIO SALIERI’S
LA SCUOLA DE’ GELOSI

January 10-12; 17-19, 2025
The Highland Park Ebell Club, Los Angeles, CA

Los Angeles, CA — Pacific Opera Project (POP) presents the US premiere of Antonio Salieri’s La Scuola de’ Gelosi (The School for Jealousy) on Friday, January 10, 2025 at 7:30PM; Saturday, January 11, 2025 at 7:30PM; Sunday, January 12, 2025 at 3PM; Friday, January 17, 2025 at 7:30PM; Saturday, January 18, 2025 at 3PM; and Sunday, January 19, 2025 at 3PM at The Highland Park Ebell Club in Los Angeles. Directed by POP Artistic Director Josh Shaw and conducted by Kyle Naig, this production will feature an elaborate proscenium set that mimics the stage and seating of an 18th-century Italian opera house.

A dramma giocoso in two acts, La Scuola de’ Gelosi first premiered at the Teatro San Moisè in Venice in December 1778; Salieri revised the score in 1783 for performances at the Burgtheater in Vienna. As with much of Salieri’s works during his lifetime, La Scuola de’ Gelosi was a great success across Europe, yet alongside his other musical works, the opera slowly disappeared from the canon during the 19th-century. It was not until Peter Shaffer’s 1979 play Amadeus and the subsequent Academy Award-winning 1984 film adaptation by Miloš Forman when Salieri’s music received renewed interest amongst the public. Even still, the first modern revival of La Scuola de’ Gelosi occurred only recently, in 2016 at the Teatro Salieri in Legnano, Italy, with POP presenting the first-ever US revival with this production.

“I’ve been interested in Salieri operas since POP presented a Mozart/Salieri double bill of The Impresario and Prima la musica e poi le parole back in 2015,” says Shaw. “There are several Salieri operas I would like to get to, but La Scuola de’ Gelosi caught my attention with a few really nice ensembles that are particularly complex and interesting. And of course the subject – jealousy – is timeless and ever-relevant. The piece hits on many of the same themes as Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte, but without the impractical and unbelievable mustached disguises.”

"Thanks to the movie Amadeus, Antonio Salieri is arguably the most famous forgotten composer in musical history,” says POP’s Executive Director Katherine Powers. “Yet most modern audiences have never heard his music. POP's U.S. premiere production of Scuola breathes new life into a sparkling comedy by a great composer who never got his due."

The plot of Scuola concerns two couples who mirror each other: Blasio and Ernestina, a bourgeois couple, and Count and Countess Bandiera, an aristocratic couple of means. Blasio and the Countess are both convinced their counterparts are cheating on them, although the difference between the two is that Ernestina is entirely faithful while the Count flaunts his affairs. When the Count sends a letter concerning business to Blasio, Ernestina uses this as an opportunity to get back at her spouse, who routinely locks her up in their house to prevent her from her supposed cheating. However, the Count decides to court Ernestina in earnest, and a comedy of errors ensues.

Cast members for La Scuola de’ Gelosi include tenor Patrick Bessenbacher (Opera San Jose, Florentine Opera) as Count Bandiera, soprano Avery Boettcher (El Paso Opera, Florida Grand Opera) as Countess Bandiera, baritone Tommy Glass (Metropolitan Opera, Atlanta Opera) as Blasio, soprano Julia Johnson (Opera San Jose, Opera Naples) as Ernestina, bass-baritone Scott Levin (LA Opera, Opera Santa Barbara) as Lumaca, soprano Emily Scott (Long Beach Opera, New Zealand Opera) as Carlotta, and tenor Dominic Salvati (Opera San Luis Obispo, New Opera West) as the Lieutenant.

Tickets for La Scuola de’ Gelosi start at $15 and can be purchased at pacificoperaproject.com. This production offers table and general seating. Tables include a bottle of wine and a charcuterie platter.

CALENDAR EDITORS PLEASE NOTE:
PACIFIC OPERA PROJECTS PRESENTS LA SCUOLA DE’ GELOSI
Who: Pacific Opera Project
When: Friday, January 10, 2025 at 7:30PM; Saturday, January 11, 2025 at 7:30PM; Sunday, January 12, 2025 at 3PM; Friday, January 17, 2025 at 7:30PM; Saturday, January 18, 2025 at 3PM; and Sunday, January 19, 2025 at 3PM
Where: The Highland Park Ebell Club; 131 S Avenue 57, Los Angeles, CA 90042
Cast: Patrick Bessenbacher as Count Bandiera, Avery Boettcher as Countess Bandiera, Tommy Glass as Blasio, Julia Johnson as Ernestina, Scott Levin as Lumaca, Emily Scott as Carlotta, Dominic Salvati as Lieutenant
Creative Team: Josh Shaw, director; Kyle Naig, conductor; Hailey Springer, costume designer; Urangoo Batbayar, stage manager

About Pacific Opera Project
Founded in 2011, and based in Highland Park, Los Angeles’s Pacific Opera Project (POP) reimagines opera as an affordable adventure, by making unforgettable, entertaining performances accessible for all. A mobile opera company, POP has presented over 60 productions in more than 20 venues, reaching over 50,000 audience members. 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 variety of venues that celebrate LA’s Northeast and Downtown communities, including outdoor museums and cemeteries, small clubs, 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… [POP] is not trying desperately to be hip. It just is.” In 2020, POP was awarded The American Prize in Opera Performance.

Known for unforgettable reimaginings of familiar operas, POP’s innovative productions have included the fan-favorite and critically acclaimed productions Mozart’s Abduction from the Seraglio set as an episode of Star Trek; a “fan-tastic” (LA Daily News) Harajuku-themed Mikado; #Superflute, 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).

During the pandemic, POP presented a revolutionary drive-in production of COVID fan tutte and the U.S. staged premieres of two Gluck operas, 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.” In April 2021, the LA Times noted that POP produced “the first major musical or theatrical event in Los Angeles County in nearly 14 months.” To this day, POP offers free live-streamed and archived performances that are available online to audiences around the world, garnering over 328,000 lifetime views. 

In 2024, POP remounted its groundbreaking bilingual Japanese/English Madama Butterfly ???? performed in Little Tokyo’s JACCC Aratani Theatre. The LA Times hailed the production as “revisionist and enlightening,” continuing, “The singers… are believable and stunning. The tragedy has a kind of inevitability that feels more Mishima than the maudlin Italian original… Pacific Opera Project has a triumph on its hands.”

In addition to reimagining familiar favorites, POP is known for presenting undiscovered and forgotten gems, updated for modern audiences. POP presented the 2018 West Coast premiere of Giacomo Rossini’s rarely performed 1816 opera, La gazzetta “The Newspaper.” Opera Today raved about the premiere, writing “Director Josh Shaw has invested the proceedings with enough good comic ideas for at least three productions. 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.” 

In 2024, POP presented the modern US premiere of Antonio Cagnoni’s bel canto meta-comedy, Don Bucefalo. Updated to the 1960s, the site-specific production was set and presented in Highland Park’s Garibaldina Society, recently featured in the LA Times for its family-style pasta dinners and Italian retro charm. To date, POP has presented three U.S. premieres (La Scuola de’ Gelosi will be its fourth), two world premieres, and three LA premieres.

POP’s Education & Community Engagement Department was established in 2021 to support ABIDE (Accessibility, Belonging, Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity), by offering free engagement events and serving students in in-school and summer education programs. POP’s in-school programs are provided at no cost to Title I schools.

Learn more at www.pacificoperaproject.com.