During Pacific Opera Project’s final dress rehearsal for its January production of La scuola de’ gelosi, fierce dry gusts kept blasting the doors wide open. There was smoke everywhere — a devastating pair of wildfires had been tearing through Los Angeles all week. Company leadership faced a choice: continue with the comedic production as planned, which some worried could appear tone-deaf, or cancel the opera.
“Around noon on opening day, I got an email from one of our longtime supporters and donors that their house had burned down on Wednesday, but they still wanted to come to the opera and even to bring extra people with them,” says Josh Shaw, the company’s artistic director. In that moment, he decided to continue with the production, providing a space to forget about the terrible realities of the week. “Particularly in LA, there’s just a lot of worry about perception, and I decided that if we can safely provide people some happiness, we should,” Shaw says.
The first weekend saw about 80% of the small theater’s 200 seats filled. POP received numerous messages of gratitude, like “This means a lot to us. ... Looking forward to forgetting ourselves for a while tonight,” and “Thanks for proceeding. Our little group has indeed been impacted — a lost garage, a lost house, lost and damaged cars — but we are really looking forward to tonight’s performance.” The production’s second weekend sold out completely, and the company’s relief fundraiser raised thousands for artists affected by the fires, including a pair of Pacific Opera Project singers who had lost their homes.
Other area opera companies created additional relief funds and efforts. LA Opera created a fund and provided LA residents affected by the fires, first responders, and support teams free tickets to a concert featuring Broadway star Kelli O’Hara in February. That performance packed the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion to its gills, and the City of Los Angeles provided free parking. “You really felt a sense of civic pride,” says Christopher Koelsch, LA Opera’s president and CEO. “It was an incredible demonstration of the power of collective joy.”
LA Opera partnered with the YMCA on food and supply drives and provided teaching artists to camps for children who couldn’t attend school. The company also added 40 hours of paid time off for employees to use for volunteer efforts. “We’ve concluded our response to the immediate need, but rebuilding will be an ongoing process,” Koelsch says.
Visit OPERA America’s Los Angeles Recovery Support for a detailed list of resources, recovery efforts, and fundraisers.
