Long Beach Opera Announces Revised Dates for PETER LIEBERSON'S KING GESAR and DUKE ELLINGTON'S QUEENIE PIE

Long Beach Opera's Artistic and General Director Andreas Mitisek announces the company's 2014 plans to produce five rarely performed 20th and 21st century, "Out Of Bounds," operas. The new season includes the Southern California premieres of Duke Ellington's "street opera" Queenie Pie and John Adams' controversial The Death of Klinghoffer; An American Soldier's Tale, Kurt Vonnegut 's provocative remake of Igor Stravinsky'sThe Soldier's Tale paired with Wynton Marsalis' jazz-driven A Fiddler's Tale; and a reprise of LBO audience favorite, David Lang's haunting The Difficulty of Crossing a Field. Three of the five composers-Adams, Marsalis and Lang-are actively contributing to today's music scene, while Stravinsky and Ellington made indelible marks on 20th century music.

Commenting on his selections, Mitisek says, "In 2014, we will play outside the boundaries of the field, exploring stories that are O.P.E.R.A: outside-the-box, provocative, engaging, relevant and adventurous."

As an add-on to its 2014 season, LBO will offer its second "Outer Limits" production in September 2013 with King Gesar by Peter Lieberson on the sands of Long Beach.

Tickets: Subscriptions go on sale today and are available from the LBO Box Office at 562-432-5934 and online at www.longbeachopera.org. First-time subscribers receive a 50% discount.

SEASON DETAILS:

Duke Ellington's QUEENIE PIE (Southern California premiere)
Jan 26 at 7pm, Feb 1 at 8pm, Feb 2 at 2pm / Warner Grand Theatre, San Pedro

LBO's 2014 season opens with the Southern California premiere of jazz icon Duke Ellington's Queenie Pie. The opera is inspired by the real life Madame C. J. Walker, whose hair care products made her the first female African-American self-made millionaire. Bursting with Ellington's signature big band sounds, his only opera blends clever lyrics with jazz and musical theater. Ellington's fascination with assimilation takes Queenie Pie on a search for a miracle cosmetic cream, love and happiness. In her quest, she leaves the streets of Harlem; journeys to an exotic island; and eventually returns to Harlem triumphant. Social status, beauty and racial divides are redefined by the Duke in a bubbling musical affair forging hot jazz, cool blues and swinging rhythms. In 1986, Robert Palmer writing for the New York Times, described the opera as "quintessential Ellington."

In collaboration with librettist Betty McGettigan, Ellington worked on the opera from 1967 until his death in 1974. Since then, different versions have been produced (1986 in Philadelphia and Washington, DC; 1993 in Brooklyn; and 2008 by the Oakland Opera Theater). LBO will perform the version that librettist McGettigan created for the Butler Opera Center at the University of Texas at Austin in 2009, proclaiming it to be the closest to Ellington's original vision.

Queenie Pie will be a co-production with the Chicago Opera Theater (COT) under the joint directorship of Andreas Mitisek. COT will open the work on February 15, 2014.

John Adams' THE DEATH OF KLINGHOFFER (Southern California premiere) March 16 at 7pm, March 22 at 2pm, Terrace Theater, Long Beach

In October 1985, four members of the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF) took control of the cruise ship Achille Lauro near the coast of Egypt and demanded the release of 50 Palestinians held in Israeli jails. When denied permission to dock in Syria, the hijackers senselessly killed disabled Jewish-American passenger Leon Klinghoffer as he sat in his wheelchair and threw his body overboard. Adams' opera is a meditation on terrorism from multiple angles. Adams has said the tragedy of the opera is that the Klinghoffers were caught between two historical forces that continue to collide today.

Originally commissioned by five US and European opera companies, as well as the Brooklyn School of Music, the original concept was conceived by Peter Sellars and choreographer Mark Morris with a libretto by Alice Goodman. In 1991, initial productions in Brussels and Brooklyn caused a firestorm of controversy over claims of unbalanced treatment of the terrorists and the Klinghoffers. After a 1992 staging in San Francisco, the opera was not fully performed again in the US until June 2011 (with later revisions by Adams) at the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, directed by James Robinson. Mr. Robinson will be directing LBO's production.

The Death of Klinghoffer is expected to be performed by the Metropolitan Opera during its 2014-2015 season. Anthony Tommasini, music critic for the New York Times, has called the opera a "searing, mystical and ambitious work...one of Mr. Adams's most intricate, entrancing and impressive scores."

The Death of Klinghoffer is also part of the LA PHIL's "Minimalist Jukebox Festival," a citywide multidisciplinary festival focusing on minimalism and curated by Creative Chair John Adams.

AN AMERICAN SOLDIER'S TALE - A FIDDLER'S TALE
May 4 at 7pm, May 10 at 2pm/ Center Theater, Long Beach

A double bill of fact and fable begins May 4, 2013, when LBO stages two performances of An American Soldier's Tale, poet and essayist Kurt Vonnegut's re-imagining of Igor Stravinsky's original composition (The Soldier's Tale), alongside A Fiddler's Tale, musician and composer Wynton Marsalis' own version of the classic music and story.

Igor Stravinsky's composition is based on a dark Russian fable with Faustian overtones about a deserting soldier who trades his soul for unlimited economic gain, only to lose everything in the bargain. Stravinsky's score bursts with military marches, tangos, waltzes and ragtime jazz.

An American Soldier's Tale - Music by Igor Stravinsky/ Libretto by Kurt Vonnegut

A lifelong intellectual pacifist, Kurt Vonnegut was a master of satire and dark humor. His experience as a soldier and prisoner-of-war during World War II had a profound effect on his life and colored his future writing. In 1993 he wrote a new libretto to Stravinsky's music basing the story on Private Eddie Slovik, the only American soldier executed for desertion in World War II. Vonnegut creates a dark satire on war and the plight of American soldiers.

A Fiddler's Tale - Wynton Marsalis/ Words by Stanley Crouch

Premiered in 1998, jazz trumpeter and classical musician/composer Wynton Marsalis' work was written as a companion piece for Stravinsky's The Soldier's Tale. Marsalis adds an American twist to the original story, recounting the fate of a musician who sells her soul to a record producer. Following Stravinsky's basic structure and using the same seven instruments plus narrator, Marsalis reinterprets the music through the lens of American jazz and blues.

David Lang's THE DIFFICULTY OF CROSSING A FIELD June 22 at 7pm, June 28 at 8pm June 29 at 2pm, Terrace Theater, Long Beach

Concluding the 2014 season, LBO reprises 2011 audience favorite, The Difficulty of Crossing a Field. The plot centers around a slave owner in the pre-Civil War South who walks across his field and disappears in plain view of his family, his neighbors and his slaves, forever altering the relationships among them. Throughout the opera, a chorus of slaves and slave owners provide alternate versions of the farmer's mysterious disappearance. Throughout the dreamlike episodes hovers the issue of American slavery. Originally written for the Kronos Quartet with a libretto by playwright Mac Wellman, Lang's music is a unique fusion of modernism, minimalism and rock.

In his review of LBO's 2011 production, Los Angeles Times critic Mark Swed wrote that "the Terrace Theater is not that Terrace Theater. The address hasn't changed, but the audience sits, for this marvelous production, on the stage looking out into the auditorium...Long Beach is busy making history."

2014 SEASON: DATES, TIMES, VENUES

Queenie Pie
Venue: Warner Grand Theatre, San Pedro, CA
Dates: January 26 at 7pm, February 1 at 8pm, February 2 at 2pm

The Death of Klinghoffer
Venue: Terrace Theater, Long Beach, CA.
Dates: March 16 at 7pm, March 22 at 2pm

An American Soldier'sTale---A Fiddler's Tale
Venue: Center Theater, Long Beach, CA.
Dates: May 4 at 7pm, May 10 at 2pm

The Difficulty of Crossing a Field
Venue: Terrace Theater, Long Beach Dates: June 22 at 7pm, June 28 at 8pm, June 29 at 2pm

COMING SOON: "OUTER LIMITS 2013"

Peter Lieberson's KING GESAR (Southern California premiere)
September 7,13,14, 2013 at 8pm
Venue: Harry Bridges Memorial Park, 811 Queens Way, Long Beach CA 90802 http://www.longbeach.gov/park/parks_and_open_spaces/parks/queen_mary_events_park.asp

Before the new season begins, audiences will sit on a beach under the stars for composer Peter Lieberson's King Gesar, the story of legendary Tibetan warrior king, Gesar of Ling, who rose from obscurity to battle the demons that enslave humankind. "King Gesar was conceived as a kind of campfire opera," says Lieberson. "I visualized a situation akin to Tibetan 'performances': the campfire in a pitch black night under the dome of an immense starry sky or a daytime community gathering in a very large tent or small town square---familiar situations in which people eat, drink, and tell stories."

King Gesar marks LBO's second "OUTER LIMITS" production (the first was Gavin Bryar's The Paper Nautilus in September 2012). Supported by a three-year, $300,000 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the series of musical outliers comprises at least one production a year from 2012-2015 and two productions annually beginning in 2016. Says Mitisek, "At LBO, we love exploring works that defy classification and are thrilled that The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has given us this opportunity to expand the boundaries of the unexpected."

Long Beach Opera (LBO) is internationally known for cutting-edge interpretations of unconventional repertoire. LBO creates immediate, inventive and often boldly avant-garde productions for an adventurous audience and stands apart from most other companies in the number of world, American and West Coast premieres it has staged. Founded in 1979, LBO is one of the largest professional opera organizations in Southern California and the oldest in the Los Angeles/Orange County region. LBO's performance history includes more than 100 operas ranging from the earliest works of the 17th century to the new operas of the 21st.

For additional information about the season, visit www.longbeachopera.org.

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