Lighting Designer

Writing is the preservation of identity in the new opera Omar from Grammy award-winning artist Rhiannon Giddens and composer Michael Abels. A true story of an indomitable faith enshrined in a two-hundred-year-old autobiography in an opera acclaimed by The New York Times as a “sweeping achievement.”
In the early 1800s, Islamic scholar Omar Ibn Said is forcibly taken from his village in West Africa and sold into slavery in Charleston, South Carolina. Attempting to flee, he is imprisoned in Fayetteville and taken to the plantation of another slaveholder, eager to convert him to Christianity. There Omar records his story in Arabic, transforming his world into an expansive canvas of text and faith, profoundly realized in Kaneza Schaal’s transcendent production.

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Omar

War Memorial Opera House

From one of the storytellers behind the film Coco comes a modern take on Don Quixote bursting with imagination and Tejano music. The valiant knight—a.k.a. Jose Quijano—sets out to find his long-lost love.  But nothing is as it seems, he gets lost in his fantasies and the community wrestles with his dangerous reality.  This fast-paced, bilingual fable about the joys and perils of being the hero of your own story was proclaimed “revelatory” by the San Francisco Chronicle.  SCR is thrilled to welcome back Herbert Siguenza of Culture Clash to play Jose Quijano.

Quixote Nuevo

South Coast Repertory

It’s 1889 when Shane, a loner with a dark and mysterious past, rides into the heart of Wyoming’s cattle country. He’s instantly idolized by the young Bob Starrett, whose settler parents welcome Shane into their home and put him to work on their farm, where Shane discovers the family he never had. Meanwhile, hostility grows between the ruthless rancher Fletcher and the settlers starting their farms. When Fletcher plans to squeeze them out, Shane’s dangerous ways resurface as he fights to save the Starretts from ruin. This Guthrie commission by renowned playwright Karen Zacarías interrogates the assumptions and myths of the American West.

Shane

Guthrie Theater

In 1807, a 37-year-old scholar living in West Africa was captured and forced aboard a slave ship bound for Charleston, South Carolina. Omar Ibn Said's life and Muslim faith are remembered and retold in this inspirational West Coast premiere inspired by his remarkable 1831 autobiography (the only known surviving American slave narrative written in Arabic).
Set in the shifting darkness of memory and imagination, Omar follows his compelling journey from a peaceful life in his homeland to enslavement in a violent, foreign world. Lost in the wilderness of his thoughts and his stolen life, he's haunted by memories of his family and the people he encounters along the way. Through it all, he somehow remains true to himself and his faith, against all odds. The luminous score—composed by Rhiannon Giddens and Michael Abels—incorporates distinctive West African traditions with traditional opera instrumentation.
Tenor Jamez McCorkle makes his company debut in the title role, with bass-baritone Daniel Okulitch in a double role as two very different slave masters. Norman Garrett makes his company debut as Omar's brother, with Barry Banks as the auctioneer and Jacqueline Echols as Julie, an enslaved woman who gives Omar the key to a better life.

Los Angeles Music Center

Directed by LBO’s Artistic Director and visionary James Darrah, George Frideric Handel’s glorious music and surprisingly relevant drama re-emerges as a site specific, cinematically driven, wildy raucous contemporary party. A story of ill-fated romance, long lost familial relationships and conquerors and their captors, LBO’s GIUSTINO will elevate the ambiguities of gender already present in baroque opera and examine how stereotypes can be shattered even in the most traditional stories. Darrah’s breakthrough stylistic hybrid of cinema-theater recontextualizes the salon-like qualities of Handel’s 18th century work to a transitory, temporal space, further challenging the current norms of 21st century classical music consumption.

The libretto and score will be taken apart and reassembled by Darrah, conductor Christopher Rountree, and exciting young composer Shelley Washington, and will be performed with both authentic baroque specialists as well as contemporary musical and dramatic updates. The action of the scenes will move amongst the audience and to different parts of the location, and will be live-filmed to create a movie within an opera playing at all times. And just as spectators did during the time of Handel, the audience will be encouraged to truly revel in the decadence and transcendence of Handel’s glorious music without the trappings of traditional, staid classical music performances.

Pablo Santiago

Lighting Designer

Events

5 - 21 Nov, 2023

Omar · San Francisco Opera

Sep 30 - Oct 28, 2023

Quixote Nuevo · South Coast Repertory

2 - 27 Aug, 2023

Shane · Guthrie Theater

Oct 22 - Nov 13, 2022

Omar · LA Opera

21 - 28 May, 2022

Giustino · Long Beach Opera

About

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