Long Beach Opera is once again making a case for opera as something far more unruly and adventurous than the traditional image of a grand theater and a velvet curtain.<\/p>\n
For its 2026-27 season, the company will take audiences aboard an ocean liner, into the rehearsal room and into intimate performance spaces, presenting works that range from Baroque masterpieces to contemporary experimental music \u2014 and a new opera still in development.<\/p>\n
The season will open Sept. 26 aboard the Queen Mary, with three works by genre-defying composer Georges Aperghis: \u201cLe corps \u00e0 corps,\u201d \u201cLes Sept Crimes de l\u2019amour\u201d and \u201cR\u00e9citations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Artistic Director James Darrah Black directs, with Music Director Christopher Rountree conducting a cast that includes soprano Habin Kim, synth-pop performance artist and electronic musician Geneva Jacuzzi, percussionist Brian Cannady, and soprano saxophonist M.A. Tiesenga.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a typical beginning for a company that has spent years challenging expectations about what opera can be, as Aperghis\u2019 works blur the boundaries between music, theater and physical performance.<\/p>\n
\u201cLe corps \u00e0 corps,\u201d for example, turns a percussionist\u2019s vocalizations into a dramatic account of an intense foot race, while \u201cLes Sept Crimes de l\u2019amour\u201d combines music, movement and props, and \u201cR\u00e9citations pushes the solo voice into extended techniques that emphasize both its virtuosity and its strangeness.<\/p>\n
The human voice itself is a central thread running through the season. As Black put it on the LBO website, the 2026-27 programming considers the voice at a time when its power feels particularly significant amid accelerating technology, the constant noise of the news, and everything else competing for our attention.<\/p>\n
In January, the company will shift from the Queen Mary to First Congregational Church, 241 Cedar Ave., for \u201cTormento Seicento,\u201d featuring soprano Amanda Forsythe with viola da gamba virtuoso Cristiano Contadin and his ensemble Opera Prima.<\/p>\n
This Jan. 26 program will explore Baroque music by Claudio Monteverdi, Luigi Rossi, Tarquinio Merula and Barbara Strozzi, bringing audiences into the dazzling and improvisational world of the mid-18th century through historically informed performance.<\/p>\n
Just a few days later, on Jan. 30, LBO will return to the Queen Mary for a recital curated by soprano Anna Schubert and Black.<\/p>\n
The program has yet to be announced, but Anna Schubert is a familiar face and a beloved operatic voice in Southern California and beyond.<\/p>\n
April will bring a reimagining of a canonical work, with Peter Brook\u2019s \u201cImpressions of Pelleas\u201d from 1992, a condensed and powerful adaptation of Claude Debussy\u2019s groundbreaking opera \u201cPell\u00e9as et M\u00e9lisande.\u201d<\/p>\n
Adapted by composer Marius Constant and legendary director Peter Brook, the work distills Debussy\u2019s only opera into a dreamlike exploration of secrecy, desire, jealousy and fate. Black will direct the April 3 performance aboard the Queen Mary.<\/p>\n
Then comes one of the season\u2019s biggest productions: George Frideric Handel\u2019s \u201cTolomeo\u201d on May 1, presented in collaboration with Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra.<\/p>\n
Black\u2019s staging of \u201cTolomeo\u201d was presented by Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra in the Bay Area and New York this past summer, earning enthusiastic reviews and audience awards.Now, Long Beach audiences will get the chance to see the production aboard the Queen Mary.<\/p>\n
LBO\u2019s commitment to the creative process will become especially visible on May 16 with a free workshop of \u201cThe Passion of Nell\u201d at UCLA\u2019s Little Theater, in collaboration with the experimental music collective Wild Up and Opera UCLA.<\/p>\n
Written by LBO Studio Artist Shelley Washington with a libretto by Lisa Teasley, this new opera tells the true story of Nell Theobald, a model whose obsession with soprano Birgit Nilsson ended in tragedy.<\/p>\n
Rather than waiting until a new opera is polished and ready for its world premiere, LBO is inviting audiences to see the work in progress, featuring Wild Up alongside professional and student singers.<\/p>\n
LBO\u2019s 2026-27 season will conclude June 5 with Ana Sokolovi\u0107\u2019s \u201cSvadba (Wedding),\u201d a chamber opera performed entirely a cappella and sung by six female voices.<\/p>\n
Directed by Sara E. Widzer and conducted by Christopher Rountree, the production will use original Serbian poetry and musical elements inspired by Balkan folklore, along with everyday objects and images, to tell the story of a bride preparing for her wedding.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s something deceptively simple about the premise \u2014 but Sokolovi\u0107 transforms a familiar ritual into a celebration of friendship, community, tradition and the enormous changes that accompany a major turning point.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s music that finds the extraordinary in the ordinary, a fitting conclusion to a season built around the idea that opera doesn\u2019t have to stay inside the fanciful boundaries usually assigned to it.<\/p>\n
By placing opera aboard a historic ship, in churches, at UCLA, and inside the development process itself, LBO is continuing its effort to make the art form more accessible without whittling away its ambition.<\/p>\n
For more information, go to longbeachopera.org\/2026-2027<\/a>.<\/p>\n New Works Festival<\/p>\n After earlier installments in May and June, Long Beach Shakespeare Company\u2019s 2026 New Works Festival will return for its final burst of performances from Friday to Sunday, Sept. 18-20, bringing a fresh slate of plays to the stage.<\/p>\n These works, which will be performed at the Helen Borgers Theatre, 4250 Atlantic Ave., will include a Shakespearean showdown, a harrowing story of survival and four short plays by emerging student playwrights.<\/p>\n The weekend will open with \u201cShav versus Whitmore\u201d by Thomas M. Copeland and \u201cThe Ghosts of the Globe Theatre\u201d by Arthur Allison, presented at 8 p.m. Friday and 4 p.m. Sunday.<\/p>\n In \u201cShav versus Whitmore,\u201d the question is deceptively simple: can one man rewrite William Shakespeare?<\/p>\n The answer unfolds in a battle of pride, relevance and wit as two men face off in a single room.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Ghosts of the Globe Theatre,\u201d meanwhile, takes a supernatural trip into Shakespearean history. Set around the infamous June 29, 1613, performance of \u201cHenry VIII\u201d \u2014 when the original Globe Theatre burned after a theatrical cannon reportedly set fire to its thatched roof \u2014 Allison\u2019s play imagines what might happen when the ghosts of the Globe are forced to perform alongside the living players. Unfortunately for the spirits, the actors aren\u2019t exactly helping matters.<\/p>\n Beneath the comic premise is a more poignant idea: if you had only five more minutes with the people you love, what would you say?<\/p>\n The festival will then present \u201cTucked Away\u201d by Joni Ravenna at 8 p.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday.<\/p>\n The drama follows four very different young women being held captive on the top floor of an abandoned building as part of a human trafficking operation. With no electricity or running water and few obvious means of escape, the women must find a way to connect with one another if they hope to survive.<\/p>\n The weekend will also include the latest installment of the company\u2019s Student New Works, showcasing four short plays from young writers.<\/p>\n Hannah Ko\u2019s \u201cWith Meh Power Comes Some Responsibility\u201d asks what happens when five D-list superheroes don\u2019t make the cut; Zack Scrima\u2019s \u201cThis Play Is About Bugs\u201d puts a dung beetle and a mosquito at the center of a contemporary reimagining of an ancient fable; Mara Swanson\u2019s \u201cYou Into Bad Girls\u201d takes a comic turn, following a confident sister who pretends to be her shy sister at a bar in an attempt to impress a bartender; and Mateo Tomas Hercules Gonzalez\u2019s \u201cTriggerfish\u201d features an Airbnb check-in that spirals into absurdism.<\/p>\n Together, these September performances will provide a nice final chapter for the Long Beach Shakespeare Company\u2019s 2026 New Works Festival: a weekend that moves from Shakespearean ghosts and literary sparring to contemporary drama, a buggy fable, a vacation rental comedy and more.<\/p>\n