The Votes Are In!
2024 Readers' Choice is back, bigger and better than ever!
View Winners → Home / Neighborhood / Riverside County /
Palm Springs Opera in the Park to celebrate silver anniversary
Riverside County Mar 30, 2024
Operatic soprano Alaysha Fox. | Photo courtesy of the Palm Springs Opera Guild of the Desert/Facebook
by
share with
The Palm Springs Opera Guild is set to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Opera in the Park featuring six “power-house vocal soloists,” organizers announced Tuesday.
The annual free concert at Sunrise Park — set for Sunday, April 7 at 5 p.m. — is among Palm Springs’ most popular cultural events.
“For a quarter-century, Opera in the Park has been a beloved annual tradition for thousands of music lovers from across Southern California,“ Opera Guild CEO Laurie Baldwin said in a statement. “Opera has a unique power to engage and uplift, and Palm Springs Opera Guild is thrilled to once more have our community’s support in offering this free program to residents and visitors to the Coachella Valley.”
This year’s performers are sopranos Alaysha Fox and Krista Renée Pape, who recently won the guild’s Vocal Competition, mezzo-soprano Erin Alford, countertenor Corey Hable, tenor Jesús León and baritone Ryan Wolfe.
The Coachella Valley Classical Voices ensemble will provide support vocals with accompaniment by Catherine Miller, an accomplished pianist and guild board member. Doug Nagel, Coachella Valley Classical Voices founding director, will be the event’s emcee.
The eclectic program includes some of opera’s most lovely and widely popular compositions, organizers said. The music spans from the baroque era — Monteverdi and Handel — to the 20th Century — Bernstein — “with plenty of audience favorites from classics including Verdi’s Rigoletto, and Puccini’s Turandot,” organizers said.
Since 1999 the free concert has drawn thousands of music enthusiasts to Palm Springs each year to enjoy an evening of operatic favorites in Sunrise Park, located at 480 S. Sunrise Way.
Organizers encouraged the audience to bring chairs, blankets and picnic-style food to eat on the lawn at this family-friendly, ticketless event.
The Palm Springs Opera Guild gave “special thanks to Opera in the Park’s Platinum Sponsor The Augustine Foundation; Gold Sponsor Newman’s Own Foundation; and Silver Sponsors The City of Palm Springs and Thomas Patrick and Stephen Rulo.”
For more information or to ask questions about the event, organizers said to call 760-325-6107 or email laurie@palmspringsoperaguild.org.
