West Edge Opera is an opera company based in the

East Bay The East Bay is the eastern region of the San Francisco Bay Area and includes cities along the eastern shores of the San Francisco Bay and San Pablo Bay. The region has grown to include inland communities in Alameda and Contra Costa counties ...

. Originally known as Berkeley Opera, the company was created in 1979 by Richard Goodman, an opera enthusiast and professor at

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant uni ...

. The company changed its name to West Edge Opera after losing its performance space at Berkeley's Julia Morgan Theater and moving to El Cerrito. Since then, the company has been known for its frequent moves and unconventional performance spaces. These have included the abandoned 16th Street train station and the Pacific Pipe warehouse, both in Oakland. After a crackdown on alternative performance spaces due to the 2016 Ghost Ship fire, the company moved to the Craneway Convention Center, a former automobile assembly plant in

Richmond Richmond most often refers to: * Richmond, Virginia, the capital of Virginia, United States * Richmond, London, a part of London * Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town in England * Richmond, British Columbia, a city in Canada * Richmond, California, ...

for its 2018 season. For the 2019 season, West Edge Opera performed in Oakland's Bridge Yard near the Bay Bridge. The site was once a maintenance building for the now-defunct Key System trains. Under music director Jonathan Khuner and general director Mark Streshinsky, both previously of the

San Francisco Opera San Francisco Opera (SFO) is an American opera company founded in 1923 by Gaetano Merola (1881–1953) based in San Francisco, California. History Gaetano Merola (1923–1953) Merola's road to prominence in the Bay Area began in 1906 when h ...

, the company has focused on lesser-known, contemporary, and otherwise avant-garde operas. These have included ''

Lulu Lulu may refer to: Companies * LuLu, an early automobile manufacturer * Lulu.com, an online e-books and print self-publishing platform, distributor, and retailer * Lulu Hypermarket, a retail chain in Asia * Lululemon Athletica or simply Lulu, ...

'' by Alban Berg, ''The Chastity Tree'' by

Vicente Martín y Soler Anastasio Martín Ignacio Vicente Tadeo Francisco Pellegrin Martín y Soler (2 May 175430 January or 10 February 1806) was a Spanish composer of opera and ballet. Although relatively obscure now, in his own day he was compared favorably with his ...

, '' Hydrogen Jukebox'' by Philip Glass and

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...

, and '' Quartett'' by

Luca Francesconi Luca Francesconi (born 17 March 1956) is an Italian composer. He studied at the Milan Conservatory, then with Karlheinz Stockhausen and Luciano Berio. Early years Luca Francesconi was born in Milan. His father was a painter who edited ''Il ...

. Elkhanah Pulitzer is a frequent director (''

The Tender Land ''The Tender Land'' is an opera with music by Aaron Copland and libretto by Horace Everett, a pseudonym for Erik Johns. History The opera tells of a farm family in the Midwest of the United States. Copland was inspired to write this opera aft ...

'', ''Mahogany Songspiel'', ''Hydrogen Jukebox'', ''Lulu'', ''

Powder Her Face ''Powder Her Face'', Op. 14 (1995), is a chamber opera in two acts by the British composer Thomas Adès, with an English libretto by Philip Hensher. The opera is 100 minutes long. It was commissioned by the Almeida Opera, a part of London's A ...

'', ''Quartett,'' and ''

The Threepenny Opera ''The Threepenny Opera'' ( ) is a " play with music" by Bertolt Brecht, adapted from a translation by Elisabeth Hauptmann of John Gay's 18th-century English ballad opera, '' The Beggar's Opera'', and four ballads by François Villon, with mu ...

''). West Edge Opera currently functions as a festival, showing three operas during late summer. It also hosts Snapshot, a presentation of excerpts from new operas by Bay Area artists.

References

External links

Company website
{{authority control California opera companies 1979 establishments in California Music of the San Francisco Bay Area Musical groups established in 1979