The Romance of the Rose
Cast & Team
Kate Soper
Composer & Librettist
Kate Soper is a composer, performer, and writer. A Pulitzer Prize finalist, she has been hailed by The Boston Globe as "a composer of trenchant, sometimes discomfiting, power" and by The New Yorker for her "limpid, exacting vocalism, impetuous theatricality, and mastery of modernist style." Praised by the New York Times for her "lithe voice and riveting presence," Soper performs frequently as a new music soprano and has been featured as a composer/vocalist on the New York City-based MATA festival and Miller Theatre Composer Portraits series, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's MusicNOW series, and the LA Philharmonic's Green Umbrella Series. As a non-fiction and creative writer, she has been published by McSweeney's Quarterly, PAJ, the Massachusetts Review, Theory and Practice, and the Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies.
Soper is a co-director of Wet Ink, a New York-based new music ensemble dedicated to seeking out adventurous music across aesthetic boundaries, and is the Iva Dee Hiatt Professor of Music at Smith College. Current and upcoming projects include “HARK,” a play for actors and string quartet; "Orchestra Orpheus Opus Onus," a solo show about the end of music; and “The Hunt,” an opera for three sopranos to premiere at NYC’s Miller Theatre in October 2023. She lives in Western Massachusetts with her husband John.
James Darrah
Director
James Darrah’s visually arresting work at the intersection of theater, opera and film has become known for a singular cinematic elegance that is “experimenting and forging a new art form.” (The Wall Street Journal) His “filmic conception puts a fresh — even revelatory — gloss” (The New York Times) on both new works and pieces from within the operatic repertoire, pushing opera into new interdisciplinary territory and forging new dramatic frontiers.
His recent work as a director, screenwriter, and GRAMMY award-nominated producer includes projects that continue to explore the merging of film, and television formats, and a re-definition of opera. He is the new Artistic Director and Chief Creative Officer of Long Beach Opera, is in collaboration with Martha Graham Dance Company for a three-year exploration of dance and opera, and was recently the Creative Director for Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra’s digital content in 2020/21. Darrah was also Artistic Director of Opera Omaha’s ONE Festival from 2016-2021 where he was praised for "expanding the boundaries of the operatic form" (The Wall Street Journal) by establishing a first-of-its-kind residency for artists both within and adjacent to the operatic genre.
His track record developing and directing acclaimed premieres and newly staged productions includes the world premieres of Ellen Reid's Pulitzer Prize-winning opera p r i s m (LA Opera/Prototype Festival), Missy Mazzoli's operas Breaking the Waves (Opera Philadelphia, Prototype) and Proving Up (Opera Omaha, Miller Theater), Michael Tilson Thomas’ Four Preludes on Playthings on the Wind (SF Symphony, LA Phil, New World Symphony), Frank Zappa's full live score of 200 Motels (Los Angeles Philharmonic for the 10th Anniversary of Walt Disney Concert Hall with Esa-Pekka Salonen), The Brightness of Light by Kevin Puts with Reneé Fleming (Tanglewood/Boston Symphony Orchestra), The Bernstein Centennial for PBS (Tanglewood/BSO) and Academy Award-winner John Corigliano’s new opera The Lord of Cries (The Santa Fe Opera). He continues his focus on new works with the world premiere of Pulitzer finalist composer Kate Soper’s The Romance of the Rose for Long Beach Opera in 2023.
He has worked extensively and mentored with conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, directing over eleven productions and visual concerts with him for the San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic and the New World Symphony. With Opera Philadelphia he staged both opera productions and operatic films: he was the producer, production designer and screenwriter for the GRAMMY-nominated film adaptation of Soldier Songs by composer David T. Little and wrote, directed, and produced an original film adaptation of Poulenc’s La voix humaine. In 2021/22 he also completed two cinematic opera projects with Boston Lyric Opera: a stop motion animated feature-length film adaptation of Philip Glass’ The Fall of the House of Usher and the world premiere of Desert In starring singer Isabel Leonard: an original miniseries Darrah as directed and co-created alongside Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Reid and television writer christopher oscar peña. He has crafted new productions of Philip Glass' Les enfants terribles (Opera Omaha, Long Beach Opera) and directed the US coastal premieres of Jennifer Higdon’s opera Cold Mountain (Music Academy of the West) and Jonathan Dove’s The Other Euridice (Bay Chamber Concerts) and Flight (Juilliard, Opera Omaha, UCLA).
Darrah’s music videos for opera artists including Joyce DiDonato, Missy Mazzoli, Ellen Reid and Jakub Józef Orliński are known for their “enigmatic twists” (NPR) and have been distributed by the Warner Music and Erato record labels as well as online with LA Opera. Additional stage work includes productions with the LA Philharmonic, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Salle Pleyel in Paris, The Barbican Centre, The Lucerne Festival, The Handel Festspiele in Karlsruhe, Germany, The Handel and Haydn Society in Boston, Boston Lyric Opera, The Getty Villa, Malibu, Human Resources LA, Trinity Wall Street’s 12th Night Festival, Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and new work and tours in Berlin, Lisbon and São Paolo, Brazil.
He is committed to cultivating the next generation of performers and serves as Creative Producer of Special Projects for Music Academy of the West, where he was also Creative Director from 2017-2020. He was Artist in Residence and Creative Producer at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in 2022, and is currently on the faculty of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television teaching production design. He trained at UCLA (MFA, 2010) and The Juilliard School, has been profiled in GQ-Europe, the Los Angeles Times, SF Classical Voice, ALTA Magazine, and ALL ARTS NY, is a winner of the national Princess Grace Award in Theater, a five-time nominee for productions in the International Opera Awards (including Best New Director), and has had two world premieres win the annual MCNA "Best New Opera" award.
He is a native of San Antonio, Texas and lives in Los Angeles, California.
Christopher Rountree
Conductor
Christopher Rountree is the founder, conductor and creative director of the pathbreaking L.A. chamber orchestra Wild Up. The group’s eccentric mix of new music, pop and performance art quickly jumped from raucous DIY bar shows to being lauded as the vanguard for classical music by critics for The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, public radio’s Performance Today, and The New York Times, where Zachary Woolfe called the group “…a raucous, grungy, irresistibly exuberant…fun-loving, exceptionally virtuosic family.” Wild Up started in 2010 with no funding and no musicians, driven only by Rountree’s vision of a world-class orchestra that creates visceral, provocative experiences that are unmoored from classical traditions.
In 2019 he curated and conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s FLUXUS Festival, the experimental music component of the Phil’s 100th season in collaboration with the Getty Research Institute. The 16-concert FLUXUS Festival united icons of contemporary art with classical music for the first time, placing Yoko Ono next to Ryoji Ikeda and Luciano Berio; La Monte Young next to Steven Takasugi next to John Cage. Ragnar Kjartansson’s Bliss, an ecstatic 12-hour rendering of Mozart, stood next to Alison Knowles’ Make a Salad, performed by 1,700 people. David Lang’s crowd out took over downtown L.A., as orchestra musicians launched the watermelons of Ken Friedman’s Sonata for Melons and Gravity off the top of Walt Disney Concert Hall.
As he’s become regarded as one of the most exciting and iconoclastic conductors and programmers in the field, Rountree’s inimitable style has led to collaborations with Björk, John Adams, Yoko Ono, David Lang, Scott Walker, La Monte Young, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Mica Levi, Alison Knowles, Yuval Sharon, Sigourney Weaver, Tyshawn Sorey, Ragnar Kjartansson, Ashley Fure, Julia Holter, Claire Chase, Missy Mazzoli, Ryoji Ikeda, Du Yun, Thaddeus Strassberger, Ellen Reid, Ted Hearne, James Darrah, and many of the planet’s greatest orchestras and ensembles including: the National, San Francisco, Houston, Cincinnati, Colorado, San Diego and Chicago Symphonies, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, International Contemporary Ensemble, Roomful of Teeth, Opera national de Paris, the Washington National, Los Angeles, Omaha, San Diego, and Atlanta Operas, and the Martha Graham Dance Company. He has presented compositions and concerts at Walt Disney Concert Hall, Palais Garnier, Mile High Stadium, the Coliseum, the Echoplex, Kennedy Center, Philadelphia Museum of Art, ACE Hotel, National Sawdust, MCA Denver, The Hammer, The Getty, a basketball court in Santa Cruz, and at Lincoln Center on the New York Philharmonic’s Biennale.
Lucas Steele
“The Dreamer”
As a generative artist, writer, and director, Lucas Steele is currently developing work that occupies the intersection of creativity and trans-media innovation. Prodigiously writing his first musical compositions at the age of seven, his influences are many. From echoes of Brahms and Debussy to neoclassical repetition and Icelandic noir with a splash of The Beatles, his latest works merge isolated emptiness and lush romanticism with a touch of pop culture.
Broadway credits include: Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812, The Threepenny Opera at Studio 54 (with Alan Cumming and Cyndi Lauper). Off-Broadway: credits include Myths and Hymns (Prospect Theater Company), The Kid (The New Group), The Great Comet (Ars Nova, Kazino), Emojiland (The Duke on 42nd St.), Wickets (3LD), Oliver Twist (TFANA), Novenas for a Lost Hospital (Rattlestick Theater), Corpus Christie (Bowery Lane). A Tony nominee and Lucille Lortel Award winner for his portrayal of Anatole Kuragin in The Great Comet, he also received Elliot Norton and IRNE award nominations for playing the role at American Repertory Theater in Boston. Television/film credits include “Dangerous Liaisons” (pilot,) “Photo Op”, and “Cavan.”
Anna Schubert
“Lady Reason”
Described as "luminously expressive" with a "silvery voice" that "moves from innocence to devastation with an actor's ease," Anna is passionate about bringing new voices, stories, and musical ideas to life. She enjoys an eclectic career that takes her all over the world - premiering new works by living composers, performing old favorites by dead ones, and recording a wide variety of sounds for film and television.
Anna made her debut on the new music scene with the LA-based company The Industry, singing the ethereal soprano role of L in scenes from Anne LeBaron's LSD: The Opera. Since then, she has performed in a stunning array of new productions and premieres, including the role of the Controller in Opera Omaha's production of Jonathan Dove's Flight, Bernstein's Mass with the LA Phil, and creating the role of Bibi in the world premiere of Ellen Reid's Pulitzer Prize-winning opera p r i s m with LA Opera and Beth Morrison Projects. Her performance in p r i s m was described as "revelatory" (Catherine Womack, I Care If You Listen), and subsequently led to a successful run at Theatro Municipal de São Paulo.
Anna also performs roles from the standard operatic canon and concert repertoire. Highlights include Orff's Carmina Burana, and myriad Baroque and Classical works such as Handel's Messiah and Dixit Dominus; Mozart's Exsultate, Jubilate, Requiem, Vesperae solennes de confessore, and Mass in C Minor; Bach's St. Matthew Passion and Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut; and Haydn’s Die Schöpfung. Recently, she premiered a staged and reimagined version of Orlando di Lasso's Lagrime di San Pietro with 20 other singers from the LA Master Chorale, which launched a worldwide tour through the Ravinia Festival, the Salzburg Festival, and in Australia, Mexico, England, France, Germany, and several U.S. states.
Outside the world of classical vocals, Anna enjoys a stimulating and versatile career as a session singer. Her voice appears in various film and TV soundtracks, including “The Lion King” (2019), “Mulan” (2020), “Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker,” “Creed,” “Minions,” as well as in Danny Elfman's latest album, Big Mess. Her solo soprano vocals can be heard dramatically soaring over orchestra and choir in the films “Birds of Prey” (2020) and “Keanu” (2016), as well as the Netflix series “Midnight Mass.”
Laurel Irene
“Shame”
Laurel Irene, Los Angeles-based "astounding...downright superhuman" (LA Times) vocal artist and voice researcher, specializes in bringing new compositional works to life with vocal repertoire ranging from Monteverdi to Mozart to the wacky, wild, and extreme sounds of the 21st century. With incredible vocal range, agile flexibility, and "resigned, compassionate, forbearing, affectionate, sympathetic, absolving" (LA Times) emotional connection that stretches from playful to unhinged in the span of a page, she draws on her expertise in vocal research to heighten unique timbres, textures, and vocal expressions. In 2019 she performed the role of Countess Almaviva in REDCAT's 12-hour endurance art piece, earning Mark Swed's acclaim as "one of the most astonishing performances, vocally and interpretively, I have ever encountered". Other features include Long Beach Opera (Kate Soper's Voices from the Killing Jar), Musica Angelica (Purcell's The Fairy Queen), The Kennedy Center (Baljinder Sekhon premiere), LA Phil (Composer Fellowship Program, John Cage's Europeras 1 & 2), The Getty Museum (Steve Reich's Drumming), The Industry (Du Yun and Raven Chacon's Sweetland), LACMA Sunday Evening Concerts (Dominick Argento's Letters from Composers), The Box Gallery (Nice Day for the Races opera premiere), Monday Evening Concerts (John Sheppard's Media Vita, Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians), and The First Congregational Church, L.A. (Vivaldi's Gloria, Pergolesi's Stabat Mater, Fauré's Requiem, Vaughan Williams' Dona Nobis Pacem). A recent winner of the Beverly Hills National Auditions, she also regularly performs with chamber and vocal music ensembles across Los Angeles.
As an avid voice educator and co-founder of the educational organization, VoiceScienceWorks and the N.E.O. Voice Festival, she gives voice workshops at conferences and collegiate settings across the United States and Europe including the Pan-American Vocology Association, American Choral Directors Association, Acoustical Society of America, Harvard University, York University, College of the Holy Cross, California Institute for the Arts, University of California Los Angeles, and Cornish College of the Arts.
Laurel is an alumna of performance programs at the USC Thornton School of Music (M.Mus.), New Music on the Point, Cortona New Music Sessions, Oregon State University, California State University L.A., and the Summer Vocology Institute.
Phillip Bullock
“God of Love”
Praised by Opera News for his “appealingly suave baritone”, Phillip K. Bullock, a native of Washington DC, has been featured in operas, recitals and concerts throughout the United States and Europe. Phillip had the pleasure of performing the role of Jake, in Porgy & Bess, at the Sächsische Staatsoper in Dresden, Germany and he has covered the same role in The Royal Danish Opera’s new production in Copenhagen, Denmark. Recently, Phillip made his debut with the Atlanta Opera and Cincinnati Opera in their productions of Gounod’s Romeo & Juliet and Puccini’s Tosca respectively. In addition to standard opera, Phillip has extensive experience performing other genres of music and had the pleasure of premiering many new works of opera and masterworks that celebrate the fusion of styles; most recently including Deep Blue Sea, the award-winning production from the famed Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, and the critically acclaimed Castor & Patience, the latest opera from composer Gregory Spears and poet Tracy K. Smith.
Later this season, Phillip appears as the baritone soloist in Dave Brubeck’s The Gates of Justice with UCLA’s Milken Center for Music of Jewish Experience, followed by a reimagined production of Scott Joplin’s Treemonisha with The Opera Theatre of St. Louis.
Tiffany Townsend
“Idleness”
A native of Jackson, Mississippi Soprano Tiffany Townsend is quickly making a name for her rich voice and interpretative talent. In 2022, Tiffany Townsend returned to Opera Philadelphia as the featured soloist in George Walker's Lilacs and she also performed Strauss's Four Last Songs with the Artosphere Festival Orchestra. In the summer of 2022, she was a Filene Artist with Wolf Trap Opera performing Samuel Barber’s Knoxville Summer of 1915 with the National Orchestral Institute + Festival. She joined the LA Opera’s Domingo-Colburn-Stein Young Artist Program in the 2019/20 season. At LAO, she has been seen as Léontine in The Anonymous Lover in 2020 and Ines in Il Trovatore in 2021. Townsend holds a Professional Studies Certificate in Opera from the Curtis Institute of Music, a Master of Music from the Juilliard School, and a Bachelor of Arts in Music from Millsaps College.
Upcoming engagements include Verdi’s Requiem with Bakersfield Symphony Orchestra, and George Walker’s Lilacs and Faure Requiem with The New Jersey Symphony.
Bernardo Bermudez
“Pleasure”
Venezuelan American Baritenor Bernardo Bermudez, started his musical education at The Conservatory of Music Juan Manuel Olivares, in Caracas Venezuela. He has recently begun essaying roles and repertoire for the Tenor voice. Currently living in the United States he has performed in productions and concerts with companies including San Diego Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Long Beach Opera, Anchorage Opera, Portland Opera, Opera Santa Barbara, The San Diego Symphony, Pacific Opera Project, Opera North, Union Avenue Opera, West Bay Opera, Livermore Valley Opera and The Music Academy of the West, to name a few. Most recent operatic roles performed include the central character Laurentino in Cruzar La Cara De La Luna, as well as his signature role of Diego Rivera in Frida, by Robert Xavier Rodriguez. Equally comfortable singing Tenor or Baritone repertoire, other operatic roles performed include Don Jose in Carmen, The Messenger in Aida in San Diego Opera production in fall 2019. Figaro in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire, Danilo in The Merry Widow, Silvio in Pagliacci, Escamillo in Carmen, Valentin in Faust, Belcore in L’elisir d’amore, the title role in Don Giovanni, Papageno in Die Zauberflöte, Count Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro, Vidal Hernando in Luisa Fernanda, Aeneas in Dido & Aeneas, other roles include El Dancairo and Morales in Carmen, Marullo in Rigoletto, Schaunard in La Boheme, Price Yamadori in Madama Butterfly, as well as Morald in the North American stage premier of Richard Wagner’s Die Feen, as part of Los Angeles Opera’s Ring Festival. He participated as a voice fellow at the prestigious Summer Festivals at The Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara California, under the direction of famous American Mezzo Soprano Marilyn Horne, Opera North in New Hampshire under the direction of Louis Burkot as well as Opera Neo in San Diego California under the direction of Peter Kozma.
He received 1st place in NATS LA singing competition, 1st place winner in AEIOU, 39th Annual Opera Scholarship and Competition, finalist in the Burbank Philharmonic Hennings-Fischer Opera Competition, Opera Buffs Grant recipient, semifinalist in the Loren L. Zachary National Vocal Competition, recipient of the Doug Acker Memorial Vocal Scholarship, and 2nd place winner in the Virginia Hawk Vocal Competition. Most recently he has received the Music Academy of the West Alumni Enterprise Award in 2019 and 2020. Mr. Bermudez is also co-founder of Opera4Kids, a new music education non-profit organization, whose mission is to inspire young minds to thrive through the use of the transformative power of live vocal and classical music performance.
Tivoli Treloar
“The Lover”
Australian-American mezzo-soprano Tivoli Treloar has performed roles including Galatea (Acis and Galatea), Cherubino (Le nozze di Figaro), Flora Bervoix (La traviata) and Alisa (Lucia di Lammermoor). Tivoli is honored to be making her debut with Long Beach Opera! Recently, Tivoli was a featured soloist and chorister with GRAMMY®-nominated Seraphic Fire in their annual tour, A Seraphic Fire Christmas. In 2022, she was a finalist for the VanderLaan Prize at Opera Grand Rapids where she won the Friends of the Opera Award, and a finalist for the Ryan Opera Ensemble at Lyric Opera of Chicago. Last summer, Tivoli was a fellow in the Lehrer Vocal Institute at the prestigious Music Academy of the West 2022 Summer Festival. Tivoli was invited to return to Music Academy this upcoming summer and will attend the 2023 Summer Festival as a second-year fellow.
Tivoli is currently finishing her Bachelor of Music degree at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music where she will be singing the principal role of Athena in the world premiere of the new opera, Quake, in June 2023. Additionally, she is a member of the Vocal Gluck Ensemble at UCLA, which serves the Los Angeles community by bringing free, high-quality performances to underserved audiences.
Tivoli is a dancer and choreographer with years of training and performance experience. She has performed roles including Dewdrop Fairy and Arabian Princess in The Nutcracker and Firebird in scenes from The Firebird. Tivoli attended the Bolshoi Ballet Academy Summer Intensive where she studied with instructors from the academy in Moscow. She also trained with members of the Radio City Rockettes where she learned their precision dance technique. In 2021, Tivoli was the Choreographer for a production of La traviata. Recently, she worked with Nicola Bowie as the Assistant Choreographer for the production of Eugene Onegin at Music Academy. Tivoli has choreographed and performed in multiple concept videos for filmed music recitals. She enjoys collaborating with all types of artists to create exciting new works featuring various mediums of art.
Prairie T. Trivuth
Scenic Designer
Prairie is a Thai theater and film designer. Her passion for narrative-focused environmental and spatial design led her from Bangkok to Los Angeles to study and work in stage and production design. As a designer, she is influenced by her training and background in architecture, where her goal has been to uncover an archetypal solution while exploring all possible morphologic directions, and at the same time to have fun detangling a constellation of relationships between all things in humanity’s everyday lives as portrayed through written words and music. To apply such a paradigm to design for performances, Prairie reaches for a visual clarity that emphasizes the fleeting moment where for truth to emerge within the beholder, reality has to make way for belief.
Molly Irelan
Costume Designer
Molly Irelan is a Los Angeles-based Costume Designer. She prides herself on a holistic approach to her work and is trained in the history and construction of garments as well as design. Molly holds a Bachelor’s degree in Costume History and Design from the University of Redlands (2010), an Associate degree in Fashion Design from the Art Institute of Portland (2012), and an MFA in Costume Design from UCLA (2016).
Molly has designed costumes for film, television, commercials, music videos, and over a dozen operas around the United States and internationally. She has been the Assistant Costume Designer for Oscar-nominated designers on films produced by Ridley Scott, Roland Emmerich, and Francis Ford Coppola, among others, including “Phoenix Forgotten” (2017), “Survivors” (2018), “The Lunch” (2021), “Bad Therapy” (2020), and “Pepcy and Kim” (2021), starring Jennifer Hudson.
She’s been a costumer for many films and TV series including Catherine Hardwicke’s series “Don’t Look Deeper” (2020), HBO’s “The Little Things” (2021), Olivia Wilde’s “Don’t Worry Darling” (2022), “The 4400” (2021), HBO’s “Minx” (2022), and “Best Foot Forward” (2022) for Apple +.
Molly has also been a frequent close collaborator of director James Darrah. Having designed operas L'elisir d'amore (2017), Le Nozze di Figaro (2018), and Cold Mountain (2019) at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, Amadigi (2016), Orphée (2020) at UCLA, Rev 23 (2020) at The Prototype Festival, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning p r i s m (2018) in Los Angeles, New York, São Paulo Brazil, and the Kennedy Center. For screen Molly designed the opera miniseries desert in (2021) and mini-feature MirrorFlores (2021). In 2022 she designed an acclaimed La Clemenza di Tito at The San Francisco Conservatory of Music, The Tragedy of Carmen at Velaa in the Maldives, Eugene Onegin at Music Academy of the West, and a sold-out new Le Nozze di Figaro with Raphäel Pichon and James Darrah at The Handel and Haydn Society in Boston.
Pablo Santiago
Lighting Designer
Pablo Santiago is a Mexican-American Lighting Designer and the winner of the Richard Sherwood Award and Stage Raw Award and multiple Ovation Award nominee. Pablo is proud to have long-standing collaborations with many great artists such as James Darrah, Jose Luis Valenzuela, Ellen Reid, Missy Mazzoli, Karen Zacarias, Bill Rouch, Patricia Mcgregor, Ted Hearne, Christopher Rountree, Francois-Pierre Couture, Adam Rigg, Adam Larsen and Yuval Sharon. Pablo has designed for companies such as Santa Fe Opera, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Los Angeles Opera, San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Symphony, Boston Lyric Opera, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Opera Omaha, Center Theater Group, Music Academy of The West, Broad Museum and Beth Morrison Projects. Some of the amazing venues he has worked at include Teatro Municipal Sao Paulo, The Goodman Theater, Disney Hall, Davies Hall, Mark Taper Forum, Kennedy Center and Arena Stage in DC, La MaMa in NYC, Skirball Center, Paramount Theater, Huntington Theater and Majestic Theater in Boston, and BAM- Harvey Theater. Recent highlights include The Lord of Cries (Santa Fe Opera), The Fall of The House of Usher and desert in (digital feature films for Boston Lyric Opera); the Anonymous Lover (Digital Content- LA Opera); Pulitzer Winner p r i s m (Sao Paulo, LAO, Prototype Festival), Macbeth and Mother Road (Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Arena Stage); Place (BAM-LA PHIL-Beth Morrison Projects), Proving Up (ONE Festival/Opera Omaha and Miller Theater); Valley of The Heart and Zoot Suit (Mark Taper Forum); Threepenny Opera, Norma (Boston Lyric Opera); Destiny of Desire (Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Goodman Theatre, Arena Stage); War of the Worlds (Los Angeles Philharmonic and The Industry); Breaking the Waves (OperaPhila and Prototype Festival); Pelleas et Melisande (Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra); Flight, Pagliacci and Madame Butterfly (Opera Omaha); On The Town (San Francisco Symphony); Skeleton Crew and The Cake (Geffen Playhouse).
Carlos Mosquera
Sound Designer
Carlos Mosquera, born in Venezuela, has been passionate about music from a young age. Through Venezuela’s National System of Youth and Children’s Orchestras and Choirs called “El Sistema,” a music education program that reaches 400,000 children, Carlos received his first job as a percussionist performer for the Simon Bolivar Orchestra. He then graduated with a B.A. in Sound Technology from the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA).
After graduating, Carlos has become immersed in music and sound technologies. He became the Recording Engineer for the L.A. Philharmonic, Sound Engineer for The Colburn School of Music in Los Angeles, Recording and Mixing Engineer for The Herb Albert School of Music at UCLA, and an L-ISA Mixing Engineer for L-Acoustics, and Audio Developer for L-Acoustics’ new immersive audio technology. As engineer, Carlos has worked on numerous major shows such as Lorde, Lady Gaga, Childish Gambino, Alt-J, LA Philharmonic, Deadmau5, Aerosmith, Bon Iver, Adelaide Philharmonic, Enrique Iglesias, Katy Perry and Cages.
On his own time, he developed a positional app called Guiding Sounds, for the visually impaired using inaudible impulses reproduced by speakers. It’s an accessible, scalable, and cost-efficient solution that allows blind individuals to access real-time information of their location, enabling them to find exactly where they are, and how to interact with the world in a whole new way, no internet required.
Carlos’s passion for music, sound, mixing, and coding extends beyond his professional career.
McCall Cadenas
Associate Director
McCall Cadenas is a visual storyteller born and raised in East Los Angeles. Her narratives center around the female perspective and issues of identity with the intention of encapsulating the preservation of her culture. As a director, McCall likes to challenge the status quo. She remains at the forefront collaborating with up-and-coming artists in various mediums creating work that is fresh and captivating. McCall takes pride in finding new ways to collaborate with creatives in a variety of fields, including the science, fashion and culinary arts, and incorporates their unique artistry into the narrative space. McCall is also the founder of East Los Angeles Creative, a nonprofit, with the goal of uplifting emerging artists and amplifying underrepresented voices in the greater East Los Angeles area. Her vision is to provide a platform for these artists to showcase their work, deliver the resources to bring their visions to life, and establish a support system to further strengthen the community of artists in Los Angeles. The Romance Of The Rose is McCall’s directorial debut with the Long Beach Opera. She is honored to be working with an incredibly talented team!
George R. Miller
Design Associate
George R. Miller (he/him) is a director and designer of opera, dance-theater, installation, and film. Recognized for discipline-colliding, site-specific, and installation-based stagings, George’s contemporary approach to both classical repertoire and newly devised work centers around the creation of intimate space – physical and emotional – as a landscape for dramatic happenings in fine art performance.
Recent highlights include work presented by Opera Philadelphia, Long Beach Opera, Wild Up, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Soho House New York, The York Theatre Company, The Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard College, and a joint private showcase for The Metropolitan Opera Club and Park Avenue Armory Avant-Garde.
Created during the COVID-19 pandemic, George’s film, ERWARTUNG // EXPECTATION, a contemporary adaptation of Arnold Schoenberg’s song Erwartung (from Vier Lieder Op. 2, No. 1) premiered at Long Beach Opera’s inaugural LBO Film Festival, as well as Opera Philadelphia’s Festival O - two of America’s first operatic film festivals of the kind. It will be released for streaming on Opera Philadelphia’s Digital Channel in Spring 2023. A truly multidisciplinary artist, his opera-fashion collaboration with designer Terrence Zhou (Bad Binch TONG TONG), choreographer Matilda Sakamoto, and composer Katie Jenkins, FACE(S) OF GOD, was featured in Vogue last year.
Upcoming projects include: Expostulation(s) of Mary, a new chamber opera for voices, strings, dancers, and electronics, expanding Henry Purcell’s The Blessed Virgin’s Expostulation into a lattice of ancient and new music — in development with composer-performer Eliza Bagg (Roomful of Teeth, Lisel), choreographer Julia Eichten (L.A. Dance Project, AMOC) in collaboration with the GRAMMY nominated L.A.-based experimental ensemble Wild Up. George is currently at work on an intimately-staged new production of Franz Schubert’s Winterreise for singer and dancers, in development with YCA award-winning bass-baritone William Socolof and acclaimed pianist Chris Reynolds, along with a theatrical and live-cinematic adaptation of Francis Poulenc’s La Voix Humaine, in collaboration with filmmaker Julia Ponce Díaz. He is currently a 2023 Artist-in-Residence at Nancy Manocherian’s The Cell Theatre in New York City.
George has worked with companies and presenters in America and abroad, including The American Repertory Theater, American Modern Opera Company (AMOC), Beth Morrison Projects, The Brooklyn Museum, The Brooklyn Youth Chorus, The Chicago Children’s Choir, Lisson Gallery, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New Dialect, Opera News, The Philadelphia Orchestra, PROTOTYPE Festival, The Ravinia Festival, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence France, Savvy Contemporary Berlin, and with artists such as Peter Sellars, Matthew Aucoin, James Darrah, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Christopher Allen, Zack Winokur, Banning Bouldin, Thuthuka Sibisi, Christopher Rountree, Kevin Newbury, Kayla Farrish, and Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons.
George is a graduate of Vanderbilt University, where he studied classical music composition, theory, and fine art.