About the Nonprofit
Visit Our Website
Mission Opera values our audience base and strives to include community members from all walks of life, racial and ethnic groups, ages and backgrounds in staffing, casting and all other aspects of its productions. We strive to tell the stories of those suppressed voices, who have not always had a voice that was welcomed in opera and musical theater. We are committed to cultural equity, inclusion and diversity and strive to include and tell stories featuring the communities we serve. The San Fernando and Santa Clarita Valleys are made up of over 30 percent Latino-identifying persons. Nearly 40 percent of the population of the San Fernando Valley is foreign born, with Latin America supplying 47 percent and Asian countries 42 percent of this share. To meet the needs of our community, we recently produced Gian Carlo Menotti’s “The Telephone” in Spanish as “El Teléfono” in a double bill with “The Old Maid and the Thief,” for only $15 general admission.
In pursuit of our commitment to cultural equity, Mission Opera strives to keep its productions affordable and relevant, which is important to the community we serve. The aforementioned show featured supertitles in both English and Spanish, to be more accessible to our general public. We partnered with the local Latino Business Alliance to recruit and advertise to a wider Hispanic community, and the opera “El Teléfono” marked our first all-Spanish production (with English supertitles, of course).
We also support youth audiences and teach kids about opera. Our educational outreach program, called "Boxtop Opera," goes to low-income schools, free of charge, to provide an hour program to students of all ages to teach them about opera. These students are invited to our Mainstage shows as part of the Cultural Arts Passport program in the LAUSD and others.
