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 countie ...

. 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 university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of Californi ...

. The company changed its name to West Edge Opera after losing its performance space at Berkeley's

Julia Morgan Theater The Julia Morgan Theater, located in the former St. John's Presbyterian Church, is a historic building in Berkeley, California designed by architect Julia Morgan. The wooden building at 2640 College Avenue is built in the American Craftsman styl ...

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 Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

. 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, a ...

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 The Key System (or Key Route) was a privately owned company that provided mass transit in the cities of Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda, Emeryville, Piedmont, San Leandro, Richmond, Albany, and El Cerrito in the eastern San Francisco Bay A ...

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 Alban Maria Johannes Berg ( , ; 9 February 1885 – 24 December 1935) was an Austrian composer of the Second Viennese School. His compositional style combined Romantic lyricism with the twelve-tone technique. Although he left a relatively sm ...

, ''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 ''Hydrogen Jukebox'' is a 1990 chamber opera featuring the music of Philip Glass and the work of beat poet Allen Ginsberg. Its name is taken from a phrase coined by Ginsberg, from his 1955 poem Howl. History Of the project, Glass said: In 19 ...

'' by

Philip Glass Philip Glass (born January 31, 1937) is an American composer and pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. Glass's work has been associated with minimalism, being built up from repetitive ...

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 Genera ...

, 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 C ...

Elkhanah Pulitzer Elkhanah Pulitzer is an American stage director and librettist who primarily works in opera. She was an assistant director at San Francisco Opera from 2008 to 2013 and was the artistic curator for SF Opera Lab. Since 2010, Pulitzer has worked ext ...

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 Al ...

'', ''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 music ...

''). 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