Long Beach Opera is a Southern California opera company serving the greater Los Angeles and Orange County metroplex. Founded in 1979, it is the oldest established professional opera company in the L.A. area. Though small in size, the company has surveyed a stunning breadth of repertoire in 28 seasons—from its adventurous exploration of lesser known works to its daring interpretations of established operas – offering an alternative vision of opera even before L.A. had its own operatic mainstream.
History
The company, originally known as Long Beach Grand Opera, was a venture sponsored by the Long Beach Symphony Association to mark the inaugural season of the city’s Terrace Theater. Michael Milenski, formerly of the San Francisco Opera and San Jose Opera, was tapped to mount the first production in March, 1979, Verdi’sLa Traviata starring Metropolitan Opera stars Benita Valente and Louis Quilico. The success of that production led to the company’s formal incorporation independent of the Long Beach Symphony with Milenski as its executive director. The orchestra manager since 1990 is John Van Houten. Following a period of early growth marked by the presentation of repertory staples, Long Beach Opera took a radical departure from the operatic mainstream. Under Milenski’s guidance, the company developed an alternative vision for opera – to present striking visual drama that would speak directly to contemporary audiences while maintaining the highest musical standard. That new era was launched by two important productions in 1983-84: Britten'sDeath in Venice and Monteverdi'sThe Coronation of Poppea starring Catherine Malfitano, a production the Los Angeles Times' chief music and dance critic Martin Bernheimer called LBO's "wild, wonderful Poppea." Both operas were staged by the maverick director Christopher Alden, whose career was given major impetus by his partnership with LBO. Significant LBO productions during Milenski's tenure included Powder Her Face by Thomas Adès, Richard Strauss’ Elektra, Janáček'sFrom the House of the Dead, The Beaumarchais Trilogy and the complete operas of Claudio Monteverdi. Several American premieres have been presented on the LBO stage, including King Roger by Karol Szymanowski, Mozart’s, Schoenberg’sDie Jakobsleiter, Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s Turning, I Saw Great Injustice and John Cage’sEuroperas 3&4. Celebrated singers who have sung with LBO include Jerome Hines, Cesare Siepi, Ruth Ann Swenson, James Morris and Jerry Hadley, but the company has a longstanding tradition of tapping talented singers on their way up. In 2004, Michael Milenski retired after 25 seasons at the helm of LBO and was succeeded by Austrian conductor Andreas Mitisek, who has continued LBO’s longstanding artistic philosophy of presenting an expanded vision of opera. His programming has emphasized contemporary opera composers as well as placed a strong Austro-German imprint on the company repertoire with such works as Richard Strauss'The Silent Woman, his own stage concept combining Goethe'sThe Sorrows of Young Werther with Schubert'sWinterreise and Wagner’sDer Ring des Nibelungen in the abridged version by Jonathan Dove. In March 2009, Mitesek staged a highly original production and American premiere of Vivaldi's long-lost opera Motezuma. In June 2019 LBO presented the world premiere of The Central Park Five, an opera by Anthony Davis with libretto by Richard Wesley, about the Central Park jogger case. The opera won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in May 2020.
