Stage Director

Verdi's take on the Shakespeare play about blind jealousy and its tragic consequences. Delivered with the irrepressible dramatic force and finely honed expressive craft of the great composer's final years. This is some of the most exquisite music in the entire operatic repertoire.

EPSG:4326

Otello

Lucie Stern Community Theatre

In early 1900’s Nagasaki, an American naval officer weds a young Japanese woman. Months later he leaves her, unaware that she is pregnant with his son, and promises to come back. Three years later, she is nearly destitute and shunned by her family for becoming a Christian, but she is steadfast in her conviction that he will return. He does return, with a new American wife, remorseful but ready to take his son back with him. Devastated, Butterfly gives up the child and commits suicide.  Madama Butterfly is based on the play by David Belasco, which was very popular when it premiered in 1900. The play's success reflected the shock waved sent around the world by the American triumph in the Spanish-American war, as a result of which the once mighty Spanish Empire lost Cuba and the Philippines. The young and socially awkward Pinkerton serves as an allegory for the nascent American empire, well meaning but not fully aware of its impact on the ancient cultures with which it came into contact.  This is considered Puccini's dramatically most effective and powerful score.  It is one of the 10 most performed operas in the repertoire.

Madama Butterfly

Don Giovanni, the ultimate libertine womanizer, counts his romantic conquests by the hundreds. Challenged to a duel by the father of one of his victims, the Commendatore, he handily kills the old man. Encountering the old man’s statue at the cemetery, he invites it to come to dinner at his palace. The statue accepts, and later turns up to carry the unrepentant Don Giovanni to hell for his misdeeds.

Don Giovanni

Salomé is intrigued by John the Baptist, the prisoner that King Herod (her stepfather) keeps in the underground cistern. She slips away from a state banquet hosted by Herod and insists on seeing the prisoner. He's brought out and she is instantly infatuated with him, but he rejects her. When Herod begs her to dance the Dance of the Seven Veils, she agrees, and later demands the head of John the Baptist as her reward.  An exploration of desire, love and female power, amidst the corruption of the Roman Empire.

Stage Director

Richard Harrell

Events

Upcoming events

13 - 22 Feb, 2026

Salome · West Bay Opera

Past events

May 23 - Jun 1, 2025

Otello · West Bay Opera

13 - 22 Oct, 2023

Madama Butterfly · West Bay Opera

About

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