Long Beach Opera highlights New Pacific Visions Space in the Aquarium
Long Beach Opera tackles Peter Maxwell Davies’ modern sea-based thriller in the environs of the new Honda Pacific Visions Theater at the Aquarium of the Pacific.
There will be four performances, March 21, 22, 28 and 29. The interactive theater space boasts cutting-edge, high-definition technology with a breathtaking 32-foot-tall 180-degree arc wrap-around projection wall and effects.
Based on a true story, this haunting opera is an atmospheric combination of detective mystery and ghost story, mixing courtroom testimony with fantastical flashbacks.
In the prologue, three officers from a lighthouse-vessel report to a Court of Enquiry how they arrived to relieve three lighthouse keepers and find the place deserted. The main act flashes back to the keepers (working the lighthouse far longer than usual), nervously passing the time by singing songs. But out of the fog, their past emerges to taunt them.
The original inspiration of this work came from reading Craig Mair’s book on the Stevenson family of Edinburgh. This family, apart from producing the famous author Robert Louis, produced several generations of lighthouse and harbor engineers.
In December 1900, the lighthouse and harbor supply ship Hesperus based in Stromness, Orkney, went on its routine tour of duty to the Flannan Isles light in the Outer Hebrides.
The lighthouse was empty – all three beds and the table looked as if they had been left in a hurry and the lamp, though extinguished, was in perfect working order, the men had disappeared into thin air.
There have been many speculations as to how and why the three keepers disappeared. This opera does not offer a solution to the mystery but indicates what might be possible under the tense circumstances of three men being marooned in a storm-bound lighthouse long after the time they expected to be relieved.
The new 300-seat Honda Pacific Visions Theater at the Aquarium of the Pacific is a breathtaking two level seating theater, featuring a 130-foot-wide by 32-foot-tall screen, curved in a 180 degree arc and a retractable 30-foot-diameter floor projection disc, all working together to dip audiences into a virtual environment. Long Beach Opera will create the first public opera production in this immersive space.
Over the course of his career, Maxwell Davies’s status changed from enfant terrible to leading cultural figure at the heart of the British establishment. His appointment in 2004 as Master of the Queen’s Music is a tribute to the revolutionary influence he has had on the British contemporary music scene and the public’s perception of it. From his radical works of the 1960s, he developed a more conventional, but no less startlingly original, idiom often drawing on the music and landscape of the Orkney Islands where he lived from 1971 until his death in 2016.
His major dramatic works include full-length ballets Salome and Caroline Mathilde, music-theatre works Eight Songs for a Mad King and Miss Donnithorne’s Maggot, and operas Resurrection, The Lighthouse, The Doctor of Myddfai, and Taverner, which was recently released by NMC Records on a Grammy-nominated disc with the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Oliver Knussen. Maxwell Davies’s last opera Kommilitonen! (Young Blood!) received critical acclaim for its world premiere run of performances at London’s Royal Academy of Music, with the Daily Telegraph labelling the composer “a master symphonist”.
Maxwell Davies’ huge output of orchestral work comprises ten symphonies – hailed by the Times as “the most important symphonic cycle since Shostakovich” – as well as numerous concerti including the Strathclyde Concerto series and most recently his violin concerto Fiddler on the Shore, written for Daniel Hope and first performed in 2009 by the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and at the BBC Proms. Maxwell Davies’ light orchestral works include An Orkney Wedding with Sunrise and Mavis in Las Vegas, and five large-scale works for chorus including the oratorio Job. His landmark cycle of ten string quartets, The Naxos Quartets, were described in the Financial Times as “one of the most impressive musical statements of our time”.
Long Beach Opera (LBO) is internationally known for its 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 opera companies in the number of world, American, and West Coast premieres the company has staged. Founded in 1979, it is the oldest professional opera company in the Los Angeles/Orange County region with a performance history of more than 110 operas, ranging from the earliest works of the 17th century to operas of the 21st. LBO’s ever?growing repertoire has provided stimulus for the subsequent founding of other local opera companies, catapulting Southern California into the spotlight as a major opera epicenter. LBO is a recognized and respected member of the U. S. cultural community, receiving funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, California Arts Council, the County of Los Angeles, and the City of Long Beach, along with generous support from individual donors, local businesses, public corporations, and private foundations.
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The nonprofit Aquarium of the Pacific is a community gathering place where diverse cultures and the arts are celebrated and where important challenges facing our planet are explored by scientists, policymakers, and stakeholders in search of sustainable solutions. The Aquarium is dedicated to conserving and building nature and nature’s services by building the interactions between and among peoples. Home to more than 12,000 animals, Aquarium exhibits include Pacific Visions, Ocean Science Center, Molina Animal Care Center, and the Tentacles and Ink and FROGS: Dazzling & Disappearing exhibits. Beyond its animal exhibits, the Aquarium offers educational programs for people of all ages, from hands-on activities to lectures by leading scientists. Field trips for schoolchildren are offered at a heavily discounted rate, from $7 to $8.50 per student. The Aquarium offers memberships with unlimited FREE admission for 12 months, VIP Entrance, and other special benefits. Convenient parking is available for $8 with Aquarium validation. For more information, please visit aquariumofpacific.org or call (562) 590-3100.
