Another Darrah project, the episodic opera series desert in, cocreated with Reid and playwright Christopher Oscar Peña ( Jane the Virgin, Insecure), debuted in June and is currently available on BLO’s website.Ī graduate of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, Darrah, who is 37, discovered the Ancient Order of the Wooden Skull team through alumni connections.
The animated version streamed online from January to June and was praised as “ most ambitious and spectacular project of the season” by the Boston Globe. But when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, making that impossible, he encouraged the company to reimagine it digitally. Darrah had planned to direct the opera live in Boston. Inside the studio, Darrah was overseeing the production of Boston Lyric Opera’s stop-motion animated version of Glass’s The Fall of the House of Usher, based on Edgar Allan Poe’s short story. This article appears in the Summer 2021 issue of Alta Journal. Or perhaps they were making longer-term plans in February, LBO would announce Darrah as its new artistic director and chief creative officer, only the third in the company’s 42-year history. Maybe they were discussing the socially distanced performance of Philip Glass’s Les Enfants Terriblesthat Darrah was preparing to direct for the company on a parking-garage roof in May. When I arrived, the Los Angeles–based opera director was wrapping up a phone meeting with Jennifer Rivera, the executive director and CEO of Long Beach Opera. One sunny Friday in early December of last year, Darrah was busy being opera at the Ancient Order of the Wooden Skull animation studio in Glendale. “He comes from a place of knowing and loving so many art forms, and he can move between them all fluidly.
Why? Because “James is the future,” she says. When I ask composer Ellen Reid what people should know about her friend and collaborator James Darrah, her answer is straightforward and concise: his name.
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