“Faust” makes a good deal in Vallejo

VALLEJO - Verismo Opera delivers an impressive performance of Gounod’s opera “Faust'' at Vallejo’s Mira Theatre with a professionally trained cast who sing passionately in French, with English supertitles projected above the stage.

The dedicated volunteer cast exudes true love of their craft, while a 10-piece chamber orchestra complements them with a dramatic score. Verismo board member and singer Marsha Sims credits music director Michael Moran. “Michael organized the orchestra, got really good quality players and they all sound really good,” she said.

Faust runs Saturdays and Sundays through March 12.

Verismo Opera has no shortage of talent. “Faust” is cast with three sets of lead performers who rotate through the company's six performances. Sims says the triple-casting provides optimum opportunity for all the great singers to perform with the company.

“Some of our singers have used Verismo Opera as a training ground and gone on to higher level quality opportunities,” Sims said. For example, former Verismo singer Ben Brady made the prestigious Metropolitan Opera semifinals and now sings professionally at the San Jose, Santa Fe and Eugene operas.

With an abundance of male roles and more women in the company than men, three of the lead male roles are played by women in the production.

“The last time we did ‘Faust’ we had five Marguerites,” board president, singer and artistic director Eliza O'Malley said. “Then I just realized that, especially with this period in opera, there's not a real strong case for sticking with the original male or female for a particular part.”

“Faust” was first performed in Paris in 1859. Based on the play by Goethe, it tells of the fall of the scholar Faust. Disillusioned with the pursuit of knowledge, Faust makes a deal with the evil spirit Méphistophélès to win the favor of the innocent young Marguerite.

Sims said she is excited that Verismo’s audience is growing. “When we first started out it was really challenging to get enough people to come,” she said. “People didn't know about us.”

O’Malley hopes to get more people in the audience, and also on the stage. “We want to pull more people from the local community to participate in the productions.”

“Part of our mission is to bring opera to an area that's underserved and keep the ticket prices low,” O’Malley said. She said she wants to get the word out so that people who've never experienced opera or who can’t afford to go to San Francisco will fill the seats.

Tickets for San Francisco Opera’s “Madame Butterfly'' start at $26 for a remote balcony seat on a weeknight, and go up to $445 for a box. Verisimo’s “Faust'' tickets are all $20. N95 or KN95 masks plus proof of vaccination required to attend.

The Mira Theatre is owned and operated by the Mira Theatre Guild. It sports a large, well equipped stage and seats 164. Smaller and cozier than the cavernous Empress Theatre, it’s an ideal size to enjoy unamplified music and vocals up close while not feeling crowded.

The theater is in the former Bay Terrace School, which was acquired by the Mare Island Recreation Association in 1963. They renovated the Beaux Arts building and finished converting the theater into a fully-functioning performance space in 1967. The association was renamed Mira Theatre Guild in the 1980s. The guild just announced that they’re changing the name of the Bay Terrace Theater to the Mira Theatre.

Meja Pannell-Tyehimba came on board as the new vice president of the Mira Theatre Guild in 2021.She said she’s trying to get more people involved in volunteering, to raise funds to care for the historic building and to hire staff to handle things like building maintenance.

But her primary goal is to increase programming and make the theater into a performing and visual arts center for the city of Vallejo. She wants to change the perception that the theater is only for the surrounding Vallejo Heights neighborhood. “It's not a clubhouse for a few,”  she said.

In addition to the regular Verismo Opera and Black Box Radio Stars productions, last year’s events included Tina D’Elia’s one-woman performance “Overlooked Latinas”, a recital by Asian American pianist Ting Luo, a week-long Summer Arts Camp for kids aged 6 to 8, Chocolate Rainbow Theater Company’s multimedia production “Unmasked, Stories Form the Heart”, the International KidsNFilm Festival, and Dia de los Muertos celebrations.

Poetry by the Bay will begin hosting their monthly open mic at the theater on March 22.

“I'm really trying to get folks to realize that this theater needs to be used,” Pannell-Tyehimba said. “They need to come on over!”

More information about Verismo Opera is at https://www.verismoopera.org/, and information about the Mira Theatre Guild is at https://miratheatreguild.org/