Tournament of Roses Association and Pacific Opera Project Present Free Family Sunset Concert in July

The Pasadena Tournament of Roses Association will present Pacific Opera Project in concert on Saturday, July 29, 2023 at 6:30 p.m. on the lawn of the Tournament House. The free 90-minute event features POP favorites Arnold Livingston (tenor), Ben Lowe(baritone), Oriana Falla (soprano), and Emily Geller (contralto), with Music Director Brian Holman performing operatic and musical theater hits from shows including Rigoletto, Carmen, La Traviata, The Barber of Seville, West Side Story, and more. The event is held on the lawn of Tournament House and the public is invited to picnic as early as 5:00 p.m. Attendees should bring their own chairs and blankets. This event is completely free to the public, and guests can RSVP on POP’s website.

The 2024 Tournament of Roses theme “Celebrating a World of Music” brings us together through music. In a world of different cultures, beliefs, hopes, and dreams, one language unites us all — music. The sound, texture, rhythm, form, harmony, and expression meld together to move, soothe, excite, and delight the world. From bossa nova to blues, classical to country, metal to mariachi, and rock to rap, thousands of genres invite us to become one in celebrating a world of music. Whether near or far, young or old, Tournament of Roses presents “Celebrating a World of Music” through year-long festivities that culminate on New Year’s Day at the Rose Parade. 

Later this summer, POP kicks off its 2023-2024 season with an hour-long version of POP’s hit 2021 production Hansel & Gretel by Engelbert Humperdinck on Friday, August 4, 2023 at 5:30 p.m.; Saturday, August 5, 2023 at 5:30 p.m.; and Sunday, August 6, 2023 at 3:00 and 5:30 p.m. at Descanso Gardens. Sung in English, this operatic take on The Brothers Grimm tale is ideal for audiences of all ages and is free with admission to the Gardens. POP’s production of Hansel & Gretel has been praised by Opera News as “fresh, imaginative, witty, and imbued with a keen sense of both rhyme and rhythm.”

Later in August, POP returns to The Ford Amphitheatre for a one-night-only performance of The Barber of Seville on Friday, August 25, 2023 at 8:00 p.m.In a modern-day, accessible spin on Rossini’s beloved comedic classic, the production is set in Hollywood where pop princess Rosina (mezzo-soprano Meagan Martin) is fresh out of rehab after a messy breakup and public meltdown. Baritone Jonathan McCullough makes his POP debut as Figaro, a stylist to the stars. Additional cast members include bass Andrew Potter as Don Basilio, an aging rock legend, turned celebrity voice coach; tenor Sergio Gonzalezas Hollywood heartthrob Count Almaviva, and bass-baritone E. Scott Levin as Rosina’s overbearing producer and manager, Dr. Bartolo. Kyle Naig conducts this production, which is sung in Italian with English supertitles.

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Performance Details:

Free Sunset Concert
Pacific Opera Project
Saturday, July 29, 2023 at 6:30 p.m. (Picnicking may begin as early as 5:00)
Tournament House | 391 South Orange Grove Boulevard | Pasadena, California 91184
Tickets: Free
Link: https://www.pacificoperaproject.com/tournament-of-roses

Program:
Operatic and music theater highlights from Rigoletto, Carmen, La Traviata, The Barber of Seville, Sweeney Todd, West Side Story, and more.

Cast:
Arnold Livingston, tenor
Ben Lowe, baritone 
Oriana Falla, soprano 
Emily Geller, contralto

Staff:
Music Director, Brian Holman

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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 Weeklynamed 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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