Name: Aria Gala
Start: 2026-07-12T18:00:00
Location: La Jolla Woman's Club

Opera Neo

Long before Gounod’s famous Faust, a 26-year-old French composer named Louise Bertin took on Goethe’s epic drama and created something entirely her own. Fausto, receiving its American premiere with Opera Neo, is an astonishingly rare work, seen only at its 1831 Paris premiere, its modern revival in Essen, Germany, and now here in San Diego. Bertin’s score is raw, visceral, and unfiltered, blending Mozartian classicism, Italian opera, German magic opera, and emerging French Romanticism into a strikingly eclectic yet deeply personal musical voice. The opera follows an aging and disillusioned scientist’s desperate bargain with the Devil to reclaim youth and pleasure, posing eternal questions about the value of knowledge and the price of love. Both bold and deeply human, Fausto invites audiences to rediscover a forgotten masterpiece and encounter a uniquely youthful female perspective on one of Western culture’s most enduring stories.

Fausto

Old Town San Diego State Historic Park

Enjoy an evening of beautiful music at the La Jolla Woman's Club as Opera Neo presents each of the young artists singing their signature aria.

Aria Gala

La Jolla Woman's Club

In celebration of the San Diego Museum of Art’s centennial and Opera Neo’s 15th Anniversary Season, Opera Neo artists present a unique recital. This “exhibition” of art songs is curated to explore and complement some of the works of art in the museum’s galleries, spanning several centuries of art history and bridging multiple continents. The performance at the La Jolla Woman’s Club will be accompanied by immersive projections, and directed by Samantha Fox and Beatrice Huang.

A Night at the Museum: Art Song Recital

Rossini’s Il turco in Italia is a witty, self-aware comedy that playfully blurs the line between life and art. Fueled by curiosity, attraction, and cultural collision, the opera centers on the encounter between Selim, a Turkish traveler, and Fiorilla, a free-spirited Italian woman, whose mutual fascination ignites a whirlwind of romantic confusion and comic chaos. Beneath the laughter, the opera examines cultural and gender divides, and the tension between personal desire and social expectation. Rossini’s music drives the comedy with restless energy and quick turns of perspective, using rapid-fire ensembles and abrupt changes of direction to pull the audience into a world where flirtation becomes strategy, identity is constantly negotiated, and no one is quite as settled as they pretend to be. The music sparkles with rapid-fire ensembles, lyrical elegance, and irresistible comedic timing. As entertaining as it is insightful, Il turco in Italia remains remarkably relevant, offering a witty yet pointed look at relationships, identity, and the ever-lasting challenge of being true to oneself.