Opera is one thing, but Oakland Opera Theater is something else. Founded by composer and director Tom Dean, and resurrected in 1997 after a firebombing incident inadvertently destroyed much of its resources, the theater has converted a former bar into downtown’s Oakland Metro. With a thrust stage, flexible seating, refreshment bar, and fine sound system, the Metro is ideal for the all-encompassing, multimedia productions at which this small company excels. Audiences encounter computer-generated imagery and live footage projected in front of, around, and behind singers; hand-held puppets; and multiracial casts as adept physically as they are vocally. While the company frequently performs original operas, such as Tom Dean and David Barrows’ multilingual adaptation of Federico Garcia Lorca’s “impossible theater” creation, Así Que Pasen Cinco Años, they have recently been having a field day with operas that Virgil Thomson and Ned Rorem set to Oaklander Gertrude Stein’s ridiculous texts. Don’t miss May’s offering of Three Sisters Who Are Not Sisters.
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