Bay Area Opera Collaborative is a company powered by its artists, dedicated to creating exceptional performance and theater management opportunities with the goal of developing a passion for classical vocal music in the modern audience. Our goal is to reach a wider audience and include first-time opera goers.
How BayOp Started:
It started with Ewa, Nicole, Carmelo, and Carmello. Four singers who met and became friends performing in The Merry Widow at Lyric Theatre of San Jose who shared the belief that opera should be fun, interesting, and accessible. They asked themselves, how do we prove to a modern audience that opera is cool?
Ewa has a passion for classical era opera, as well as the intimate setting of chamber opera and thought that Haydn's "Lo Speziale" would be a perfect opera to perform with her friends. After much thought, they all agreed the story of an apothecary could be perfectly conceptualized after AMC's Breaking Bad.
With the inaugural production chosen, they applied for Dragon Theatre's Second Stages grant. Fortunately Dragon Theatre took a chance on an opera, and understood the vision of a drug dealer singing in Italian while cooking meth. Within a summer the group was founded and received their first grant, proving in part that the world is ready for opera that is as cool as the music is beautiful.
