Pacific Opera Project Presents 'Turandot,' March 14, 15 & 22

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

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PACIFIC OPERA PROJECT PRESENTS
PUCCINI’S TURANDOT

Featuring Real-Life Husband and Wife Team
2024 Richard Tucker Award-Winning Tenor Clay Hilley as Calàf & Soprano Sara Duchovnay as Liù

March 14, 15 & 22, 2026
JACCC’s Aratani Theatre; Los Angeles, CA

Los Angeles, CA — Pacific Opera Project (POP) continues their season with Puccini’s Turandot on Saturday, March 14, 2026 at 7:30PM; Sunday, March 15, 2026 at 3PM; and Sunday, March 22, 2026 at 3PM at the Japanese-American Cultural and Community Center’s Aratani Theatre in Los Angeles, CA. Directed by POP Artistic Director Josh Shaw and conducted by Ben Makino, Turandot also features the real-life husband and wife team of tenor Clay Hilley, winner of the 2024 Richard Tucker Music Foundation Award, and Sara Duchovnay, in the roles of Calàf and Liù respectively. Turandot will be sung in Italian with English supertitles.

One of the most acclaimed operas of all time, Turandot is best known for the tenor aria “Nessun dorma,” made famous by tenors Luciano Pavarotti and Plácido Domingo in the 1980s and 1990s, and has been featured in many films and television shows, including Bend It Like Beckham, Sing, and Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation. Previously staged at Gulfshore Opera to critical acclaim, this staging of Turandot transports the action to a mythical kingdom of ice and snow — a land frozen, like the heart of its princess, Turandot. “Turandot is about fantasy, about legend, and about love. In this setting, all of that is ramped up and heightened in a beautiful way that represents the core of the story — the melting of Turandot's icy heart by bravery, and ultimately the love of Calàf,” says Artistic Director Shaw. “I cannot wait to hear this cast, which is very possibly the most vocally talented we've ever had, bring the story to life.”

This production of Turandot takes place in the mythic past, in a far-off icy kingdom. Outside the Imperial Palace, an edict is read to the crowd: any prince seeking to marry Princess Turandot must answer three riddles. If the prince fails, he will die. The most recent suitor, the Prince of Persia, is to be executed at the moon’s rising. Among the onlookers are the foreigner Liù, her aged master, and the young Calaf, who recognizes the old man as his long-lost father, Timur, a vanquished king. Only Liù has remained faithful to him, and when Calaf asks her why, she replies that once long ago, Calaf smiled at her. As the Prince of Persia goes to his death, the crowd calls upon the princess to spare him. Turandot appears and wordlessly orders the execution to proceed. Transfixed by the beauty of the unattainable princess, Calaf decides to win her, to the horror of Liù and Timur. The three ministers of state; Ping, Pang, and Pong, appear and try to discourage Calaf, but he is unmoved. He reassures Liù, then strikes the gong that announces a new suitor.

?Cast members for Turandot include soprano Shannon Jennings (Opera Orlando, Gulfshore Opera) as Turandot, tenor Clay Hilley (Bayreuth Festival, Wiener Staatsoper, Deutsche Oper Berlin) as Calàf, soprano Sara Duchovnay (Opera Roanoke, Grand Teton Music Festival) as Liù, bass Colin Ramsay (Metropolitan Opera, Opera Santa Barbara) as Timur, baritone Sergio Manzo (Fort Worth Opera, Opera North) as Ping, tenor Spencer Hamlin (Metropolitan Opera, Santa Fe Opera) as Pang, tenor James Callon (LA Opera, Opera San Jose) as Pong, baritone Jeffrey Goldberg (Cedar Rapids Opera, Opera Naples) as the Mandarin, and tenor Manfred Anaya (Dayton Opera, Opera Theater of St. Louis) as the Emperor.

General admission seating for Turandot ranges from $15-$100. Tickets can be purchased at pacificoperaproject.com.

CALENDAR EDITORS PLEASE NOTE:
PACIFIC OPERA PROJECTS PRESENTS TURANDOT
Who: Pacific Opera Project
When: Saturday, March 14, 2026 at 7:30PM; Sunday, March 15, 2026 at 3PM; and Sunday, March 22, 2026 at 3PM
Where: The Aratani Theatre at the Japanese-American Cultural and Community Center; 244 South San Pedro St,
Los Angeles, CA 90012
Cast: Shannon Jennings as Turandot, Clay Hilley as Calàf, Sara Duchovnay as Liu, Colin Ramsay as Timur, Sergio Manzo as Ping, Spencer Hamlin as Pang, James Callon as Pong, Jeffrey Goldberg as the Mandarin, Manfred Anaya as the Emperor
Creative Team: Josh Shaw, director; Ben Hakino, conductor

About Pacific Opera Project
Recently named amongst the Best of Classical Music in 2024 by the LA Times, 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 68 productions in more than 20 venues, reaching over 65,000 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.”

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 337,000 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 four U.S. premieres, 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.

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