Pacific Opera Project’s lavish production
can’t rescue an opera that rarely catches fire

Oriana Falla and David Silvano

Pacific Opera Project gave composer-librettist Héctor Armienta’s 2022 opera, Zorro, a lavish Los Angeles premiere last weekend at San Gabriel Mission Playhouse. Alas, strong production value was not enough to put life into this instantly forgettable new opera.

In 1811 Los Angeles, when the city was still a Spanish colony, Diego, the son of a rich landowner, returns after studying swordsmanship in Spain. He runs into his former lover, Carlota, and they reminisce. Then he runs into his childhood friend, Ana Maria, and they reminisce. He meets LA’s new mayor (also an old friend), General Moncada, who begins brutally enforcing the caste system. Sprinkled throughout are complaints about being poor and mentions of abuse against the Indians. Act 1 climaxes at a ball, where Diego, now disguised as “Zorro,” rescues a prisoner from being Moncada’s first public example of law enforcement.

Ana Maria (Oriana Falla) and Carlota (Miriam Mouawad) with ensemble

Armienta’s music is harmonious and gentle, but it doesn’t let loose with emotion. Most of the opera is a sung play with little in the way of arias and musical set pieces, and when there are, they’re short and less than satisfying, lasting long enough merely to build momentum. Characters talk about being unhappy, but there’s barely a hint of dissonance in the music—not even a musical jolt when Moncada kills a man in his office. It just meanders as if nothing can break LA’s perpetual springtime. Yes, the music is pleasant, but that’s all it is. There’s talk about injustice against the Indians, but we never see any, which is important when you want to build up a villain. There’s so little action in the first hour that I began to wonder if Zorro was a zarzuela, a style that’s OK with thin plots as long as there’s a steady stream of beautiful songs and melodies. However, Zorro doesn’t have melodies, just a series of pleasant notes.

Carlota (Miriam Mouawad) and (Diego) David Silvano

This mildness-to-a-fault approach extends to the tell-don’t-show libretto, which seems scared to give us any kind of discomfort. There’s basically no suffering, not even romantic suffering, in the first act. The whole point is that Zorro is a masked pulp hero fighting bad guys, yet this Moncada is less threatening in two hours than a villain is in the first five minutes of a rote B-western. A few characters are activist types in the modern mold, advocating for the oppressed, but all the characters inhabit the luxurious milieu of the Spanish elite, even Ana Maria, a mestiza who has no problem getting to the landowners’ ball. We never see outside their comfortable lives.

General Moncada (Luis Orozco), Carlota (Miriam Mouawad) and (Diego) David Silvano

Armienta wrote in English and Spanish, an interesting idea that opens up the possibility for both English and Spanish speakers to see the opera without reading. This was not the case. Characters switched between languages randomly and without communicating ideas in both languages. It made no sense for the time period or the characters. Since I’m not fluent in Spanish, I had to refer to the difficult-to-read bilingual supertitles, which, confusingly, switched languages mid-line. And the writing itself? Here is one cliché: “Your destiny is to bring hope where there is none.”

Armando Contreras as Sergeant Gomez and Camila Lima as Luisa

The cast, though attractive and talented, was ill-served by the opera. With no strong numbers, the actors defaulted to generic tenor, generic mezzo, generic old woman, etc. Conductor Caleb Yanez Glickman frequently allowed the 24-piece orchestra overwhelm the actors, who also needed to project their voices more. Only Oriana Falla (Ana Maria) consistently showed verve, with a voice strong enough to cut through. Armando Contreras (Gomez) and Camila Lima (Luisa) were a charming rom-com counterpart, but they didn’t pair up until the opera was almost over. Major characters got passionate love duets and solos, but they were well past the halfway point and very short. Diction was OK. An extravagant 36-member chorus spent hardly any time on stage.

Sold as an “action opera,” Pacific Opera Project emphasized elaborate, exciting swordplay. Yet Brian Danner’s fight choreography lacked imagination, peril, and speed as actors swirled and hopped. The opera’s fight scenes were few and, like everything else, short. Choreographer Mario Vilches completely wasted the 17 CALIACA Ballet Folklórico dancers, who, save for one particularly noisy background dancer, stood and watched Diego and Ana Maria slowly and passionlessly dance during the Act 1 finale.

Constructed as a series of 13 blackout scenes, this is another opera that dies in noisy silence at scene changes while sets scrape into position. However, director-designer Josh Shaw’s handsome set of Spanish architecture is detailed, believable, and lovely to look at, especially in this gorgeous house, but it was slathered in Darrell Clark’s unflatteringly garish lighting. Costumes by Hailey Springer were colorful, but had a sameness to them, making the mass of performers indistinct.

Toypurina (Jessica Gonzalez-Rodriguez), Diego (David Silvano) and Carlota (Miriam Mouawad)

Zorro’s trademark “Z” that he slashes makes a single appearance. We all know how he slices the letter into clothes, but that kind of quick, small, detailed action doesn’t read well when done in a large theater. Being opera, I was expecting some grand, theatrical, physical interpretation. Think Douglas Fairbanks slicing the sail in The Black Pirate (1926). Instead, this Zorro motions the “Z” over his target’s chest, while a dim video projector throws the letter over the set. Zzzz…

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photos by Nick Rutter

Zorro
Pacific Opera Project
San Gabriel Mission Playhouse
320 S. Mission Dr. in San Gabriel
performed May 16–17, 2026
for tickets, visit Pacific Opera Project

for more shows, visit Theatre in LA

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