THE OPERA SHOW presents the most beautiful music ever written exquisitely performed in a spectacular and exuberant 21st century showcase. Mitch Sebastian's ravishing production is startling and fresh – a vivid MTV-style presentation with dazzling choreography animating great works of classical music. The result is an enchanted world where thrilling music is brought to life in an alluring, playful and electrifying evening that will delight opera enthusiasts and newcomers alike.

THE OPERA SHOW premiered in England in the summer of 2008.  It was created by an eclectic team of theatre artists, stylists, designers and classical musicians and features a high-caliber performing company of 4 vocalists, 5 dancers and 8 musicians.  The show is presented in three acts, each with its own distinct visual and musical personality.  The show is anchored by a collection of well known arias sung by consummate vocalists.  These pieces are presented outside their narrative context but inside a series of visual allegories that burst forth onto the stage like an exceptionally vivid dream.  

ACT ONE opens with a barrage of color in an imagined Italian palace populated by flamboyant aristocrats and their waggish attendants. It's a larger than life, wigged-out world where the glamorous governess and winsome maid flap around the doddery Duchess and flirt with the wayward Count. The visual and musical cues recall the Baroque origins of opera, but here time is unfixed. This is a place where the antiquated meets the au courant and where a potpourri of otherwise anachronistic musical styles cheerfully coexist: Handel and Purcell blithely rub elbows with Rossini and Mozart as we hear LASCHIA CHI'IO PIANGA and DIDO'S LAMENT alongside arias from THE MAGIC FLUTE and THE BARBER OF SEVILLE. Just as this inflated balloon is about to pop, a mysterious figure appears to introduce the Neapolitan tenor's O SOLE MIO and mark the beginning of a new era.

Romantic music inspires a ballet in ACT TWO. It’s the 1940’s. The stage is split with a recording studio above and the modest home of a working-class family below.  A band of session musicians and a parade of elegantly dressed opera singers ready themselves for recording in a studio in Italy as a family across the continent in Spain gathers to listen to music on the gramophone.   A needle is delicately placed on the record, the studio whirls to life and the sounds of the original recording pour into the room below.   In a series of choreographed vignettes that are at turns funny and affecting, each member of the family is roused from their daily routine and invigorated by the power of the music.  Puccini and Catalani provide heart and soul, Verdi’s LA DONNA E MOBILE, Bizet’s TOREADOR SONG and Verdi’s drinking song from LA TRAVIATA are mined for humor and charm and HABANERA from CARMEN is the joyous, celebratory finale.  

In ACT THREE the show propels itself forward, fueled by futuristic fashion, special effects and digital orchestrations.  Music from Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Dvorak and Puccini is re-imagined electronically; as if the starship Rock and Roll landed on the planet Opera. In this science fiction musical fantasyland anything can and does happen: a ballerina dances gracefully en pointe before Rusalka’s, SONG TO THE MOON, a violinist and tap dancer duel to Bach’s TOCATTA AND FUGUE in D MINOR and an electric guitar and coloratura soprano rock Mozart’s QUEEN OF THE NIGHT. 

HIGHLIGHTS
LA DONNA E MOBILE \ TOREADOR SONG \ HANSON BOHEME \ THE FLOWER DUET \ LARGO AL FACTOTUM \ DIDO’S LAMENT BARCAROLLE \ O MIO BABBINO CARO \ LA WALLY \ HABANERA \ CARO NOME \ PAPAGENO, PAPAGENA \ LASCIA CH’IO PIANGA \O SOLE MIO \ QUEEN OF THE NIGHT \ NESSUN DORMA