Arts & Entertainment

The Broad Announces Its 5th Season Program

The 2012-13 season will include the world premier of 'Una Venganza,' co-produced with the Los Angels Opera. Ground will break this year on a new music hall next to the Broad Stage.

Premieres from the vanguard of global jazz, theater and dance companies and a partnership with the Los Angeles Opera will see the Santa Monica College of Performing Arts Center through its fifth season, when it will erect a new $12.5-million music hall next to .

The season will begin Sept. 1 with Brazilian jazz singer Luciana Souza. Other season highlights will include the Fourth Annual Westside Jazz Experience featuring Pat Metheny, Rickie Lee Jones and the Fabulous Thunderbirds, and the return of family programs, including a gravity-defying hit from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

"People will come to know The Broad Stage as the place to see world-renowned artists departing from the expected, to discover emerging artists re-imagining their disciplines, and to experience classic works interpreted in new ways," said Artistic Director Dale Franzen in announcing the new season's line-up.

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From May to June 2013, The Broad Stage—the heart of the college's Performing Arts Center—and LA Opera will present six performances of the world premiere of Dulce Rosa, a fully-staged new opera by composer Lee Holdridge and librettist Richard Sparks. Based on the Isabel Allende short story Una Venganza, the title role will be performed by Uruguayan soprano María Eugenia Antúnez

The co-production of Dulce Rosa is the inaugural project of the "LA Opera Off Grand" series, devoted to new and eclectic repertoire presented in venues away from the company's home at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

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Amid the fifth anniversary season productions, concerts and special events, Santa Monica College will break ground on a new 165-seat music hall to join the Broad Stage and the 99-seat Edye Second Space, a smaller black box theater. Once constructed in the winter of 2013, the East Wing will allow the school to expand its offerings.

"What's most exciting about this third space is that it will help us expand the scope of our programming and The Broad Stage reputation as a unique cultural landmark that is beautiful, intimate and state-of-the-art," says Franzen.

The two-story, 12,000-square-foot facility will contain a multi-purpose room, offices, and music classrooms. It will provide Santa Monica College with new performance and rehearsal studios. The project is funded by Measure AA, a bond that was passed by Santa Monica and Malibu voters in 2008.

In a statement, Franzen said he envisions the Broad Stage becoming the West Coast hub for new, cutting-edge work from artistic capitals like London and New York.

"When we opened in 2008 we said this was the kind of theater artists would love to play in and, happily, they seem to feel welcome," he said. "We set out to become the place where our community could experience the world up the street. Our reach is international but our heartbeat is local."

To purchase tickets and for more information about The Broad Stage's 2012-2013 Fifth Anniversary Season, visit thebroadstage.com or call (310) 434-3200. Packages for the 2012-13 season go on sale June 25, 2012 and single tickets go on sale July 30, 2012.

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