{"id":3274,"date":"2014-08-11T20:42:53","date_gmt":"2014-08-11T20:42:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lbpost.com\/articles\/life\/arts-culture\/long-beach-opera-to-perform-famed-ceiling-sky-for-first-time-ever-in-socal\/"},"modified":"2014-08-11T20:42:53","modified_gmt":"2014-08-11T20:42:53","slug":"long-beach-opera-to-perform-famed-ceiling-sky-for-first-time-ever-in-socal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/hi-lo\/art\/long-beach-opera-to-perform-famed-ceiling-sky-for-first-time-ever-in-socal","title":{"rendered":"Long Beach Opera to Perform Famed ‘Ceiling\/Sky’ for First Time Ever in SoCal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cI was looking at the ceiling and I saw the sky.\u201d<\/p>\n

These words were uttered by someone who experienced the massive 1994 Northridge earthquake that rocked the entirety of the Los Angeles County region\u2014and they’ve become the inspiration for, and title of John Adams and June Jordan\u2019s famed opera\/musical theatre hybrid.<\/p>\n

Adams himself describes the opera as a \u201cpolyphonic love story in the style of a Shakespeare comedy,\u201d where the cast of twenty-something Angelenos\u2014a reformed gang leader, a minister, a cop\u2014go through the struggles and beauties of life a la The Threepenny Opera<\/em>. Just add some idiosyncrasies particular to Ceiling\/Sky<\/em>: blues, gospel, funk, and pop. Yes, all rolled into a single opera.<\/p>\n

\"JeVoudrais\"It premiered in 1995 in Berkeley, moving onto productions in New York, Montreal, Paris [pictured<\/em>], Hamburg and Edinburgh, eventually having a recording of its music and songs released in 1998.<\/p>\n

But despite its basis within and surrounding LA, Ceiling\/Sky<\/em> has never been performed in SoCal until now, with the Long Beach Opera (LBO) performing the genre-defying production thanks to the LA County Arts Commission\u2019s Zev Yaroslavsky Signature Series.<\/p>\n

Given her passing in 2002, Jordan never saw her libretto work for Ceiling\/Sky<\/em> see the light of a single LA stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s surprising that Ceiling\/Sky<\/em> has never been done in LA,\u201d said LBO Artistic Director Andreas Mitisek. \u201cWe\u2019re righting a wrong with this performance. I love the idea of exploring something different\u2026 The LBO motto has always been \u2018expect the unexpected.\u2019 For Adams to have liberated himself, to have been able to dive into all these different genres, is impressive. June Jordan was an amazing poet. This piece speaks to the time and takes us back.\u201d<\/p>\n

LBO\u2019s performance of Ceiling\/Sky will premiere August 23 at the Ford Theatres, located at 2580 Cahuenga Blvd. East in Hollywood. It plays for one night only. Tickets range from $60 to $125. For more information and tickets, click here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

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The famed opera\/musical theatre hybrid that is I Was Looking at the Ceiling and I Saw the Sky <\/em>has never seen the lights of a Los Angeles stage, despite LA being the home of its story\u2014that is, until now. And the Long Beach Opera will be performing its SoCal premiere August 23.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":211,"featured_media":68539,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[15],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-3274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art","tag-long-beach-opera","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/211"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3274\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3274"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=3274"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=3274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}