It looks like opera will be coming back to Orange County in 2010, but not to the Performing Arts Center.
The St. Regis Monarch Beach resort in Dana Point is hosting an invitation only event Saturday night to unveil the first annual Italian Opera Festival, planned for August and September next summer. Conductor Stefano Vignati, music director of the Tuscia Opera Festival in Viterbo, Italy, and founder of something called the Italian American Opera Foundation, will lead a 40-member orchestra at the kick-off soiree.
Plans for the festival, to be led by Vignati, are a little sketchy as well as unsettled at this time. Repertoire hasn’t been set, nor have artists been announced. The planners are looking into performing in Latern Bay Park in Dana Point. Scheduled for August 22 - September 15, 2010, the Italian Opera Festival will focus ”on the masterpieces of the Italian Opera,” and “celebrate Italian style through a series of cultural, artistic and culinary experiences, all at an impeccable level of luxury and service,” according to the news release. No comment, according to me.
The festival will also attempt to develop the Sunrise Emerging Artists Program, which provides opportunities for young artists to train alongside professional artists and debut in the Italian Opera Festival productions.
Among the backers of the festival are the City of Dana Point and Sebastian Paul Musco, former chairman of the board at Opera Pacific, which went under in November.
