How does opera fit into the modern age? Diana Farrell, president and artistic director of Lyric Opera of Orange County, shares her thoughts.
Diana Farrell is the president, artistic director and founder of the up-and-coming Lyric Opera of Orange County (LOOC), which aims to champion contemporary and reimagined classic works in approachable settings, as well as Orange County artists. In 2022, Diana was named a Women Leader in Orange County Arts and an OC Visionary by the Los Angeles Times.
Aside from her directing and her entrepreneurial pursuits, Farrell is a librettist and avid lyric spinto soprano. She is the winner of the 2023 American Prize, Women in Opera Division and 2023 AIMS in Gratz Vocal Competition among other awards, and anticipates the productions of two new works for which she wrote the librettos. Farrell holds an artist diploma from the Cleveland Institute of Music, a Master of Music in vocal performance from Youngstown State University, and a Bachelor’s of Arts degree in music from Westfield State College.
Farrell is now the president and artistic director of Lyric Opera of Orange County, a burgeoning opera company that champions Orange County artists and contemporary and traditional works reimagined for the modern audience. She and the company make their Carnegie Hall debut this January with the new opera “The Yellow Wallpaper,” composed by Brooke DeRosa and written by Farrell, and based on the haunting 1876 novella by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The performance will premiere in Orange County next fall.
On a recent Friday afternoon, I sat down with Farrell over coffee. She is a woman of many talents and despite a busy calendar, remains humble and surprisingly down-to-earth. Dressed casually but smartly in blue jeans, a crisp white T-shirt and an autumn-colored blazer, she orders a whole milk latte and we dive in.
Culture OC: Diana, you are a woman of many talents and accomplishments. Which project are you most proud of, and why?
Diana Farrell: Having the opera company in and of itself was kind of the first big achievement, but one of the things we are slowly becoming known for is championing new opera, contemporary composers and new works and making sure that the stories are still relevant and give our younger audiences something to be attracted to; not just the same stories on repeat. Even though there’s plenty of beautiful music, we need what’s onstage to reflect what’s going on in modern times.
One of the biggest projects I’ve ever undertaken that’s coming up next year is that I was hired and commissioned by the Assyrian Arts Institute to write a libretto, hire a composer, and produce a brand new work based on the “Epic of Gilgamesh.” So, for me, getting to actively create the new work, even though based on a 6,000-year-old legend, (makes me proud.)
The moral of the story is very relevant today: it’s about the idea of mortality vs. legacy. It’s the idea that no one’s going to live forever; that you’re not going to conquer time, and so your immortality becomes the legacy you leave behind.
Not only is that parallel important for the Assyrian Arts Institute for their message (I’m part Assyrian, which is why they sought me out and hired me for this job), it's about this stateless nation of Assyria as a metaphor for Gilgamesh, but with the opera company here locally.
When I first moved to Southern California there was no organization that was creating opera regularly in the county, and certainly not one that was giving people their first shot and helping them grow professionally and providing them with the steps on the ladder to be able to leave and sing elsewhere professionally.
LOOC is going to be producing the world premiere of “Gilgamesh” next season in March 2026. It’s very cool to see my own personal passions about creating opera and telling a story and leaving my own mark on the world to be realized through LOOC, which 10 years ago, was the first way I thought maybe I can leave a mark and create something that I always wish I had when I was a young artist.
Culture OC: How did you get started in opera?
Farrell: I always knew I wanted to sing, and I always studied music, and I went to school specifically for music. I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do. I knew I liked acting and I had always done a lot of Shakespeare, even in high school. So when I went to college, I was a music major but I auditioned for the theater department because we didn’t have an opera program at the school. I got some really great parts in the theater department doing classical theater: Euridepes, Checkov, Christopher Marlowe, etc.
As I started getting more and more into classical voice, I realized, “Ooh, I can do this and classical theater. And it’s called opera.” It was a little bit different from the Broadway stuff. I’ve always been drawn to classical music. It was almost by accident that I discovered I could do all the things at one time. I always liked the idea of storytelling on the stage. I loved the sound and the feeling in a hall, even of going and hearing an acoustic voice. It’s just so different than having sounds manipulated by amplification, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it feels so much more visceral.
The first time I went to the opera I loved that feeling of being in the audience and not even realizing you’re holding your breath with the soprano (“Lucia di Lamermoor” was the first opera I ever saw) and realizing that not one person in the room breathed until she did, and it was like, “Ohh! That’s magic!” You can control 2,000 people in one space. That’s pretty special.
Culture OC: What’s the climate for opera like in O.C.? Why did Opera Pacific close its doors in 2008? What are the challenges of programming and audience development?
Farrell: In Orange County there’s an expectation from existing audiences from the Opera Pacific era that opera has to always be big and grand, and that’s very exciting and wonderful, and I love getting to work on productions like that, but that’s not the only thing it can be.
I think that one of the reasons we have a future going forward is not because we are attracting the audiences that have always come to opera, but because we are getting younger crowds to come experience it for the first time and to realize that it’s not always such a formalized event. The goal is to move people and to make them think, and you can do that whether they’re sitting in a gown and a suit in a giant beautiful hall or if they're sitting in their jeans and a hoodie in a small, intimate space.
It’s really about where can you connect. So, you have to pick the right pieces of theater to share if you have a small space – you don’t want try and do “Aida” in a closet – but there’s more and more that’s being written for opera houses that are not in grand halls. They’re so effective because they were intended to be produced on a small scale.
There’s nothing that says opera isn't as good if you don't spend half a million dollars on a production, and so going to something that is done modestly but with high caliber talent in all areas is, to me … I would much rather see something that is passionately shared, small, intimate and memorable than something that is just trying to recreate the magic that has already been happening for the last 100 years plus.
The folks who are coming are excited that there is something more financially attainable for young audiences and that there is no expectation of them but to come and have the experience.
We want to program works that we, as an organization, are passionate about and proud of and that we believe in the messages that are being shared. But we also want to make sure that it’s beautiful and entertaining, because at the end of the day, people are coming out to see a show, and we have tried a little bit of everything .… We’re trying to understand where our audience falls and what they want to see. Sometimes they want to see the big titles, but they don’t want to see them minimized. Programming a title that people have never heard of in opera can be a challenge in and of itself.
Culture OC: We understand LOOC is doing “Suor Angelica” soon. Tell us more about the production. How is this story about nuns in the Italian Renaissance relevant today?
Farrell: “Suor Angelica” is a story about, essentially, a young woman who was shipped to a convent by her very wealthy family when she got pregnant out of wedlock. After being in the convent for three or four years, she finds out her child has passed away .… It’s one of those stories that no matter what the situation, we can see a personalized version of what motherhood means to somebody; even when a mother is taken from their child or their child is taken from them, it doesn’t mean that she’s not still a mother .
Any story about a mother and a child is almost always going to be relevant, from now until the end of time, but this one in particular is a perfect example of how opera humanizes people. It’s easy to label somebody as a nun, a princess, and especially in this story, because everybody is a nun except for the princess, but they are all very different people with very different backgrounds. They have come to be where they are for different reasons.
It allows us to remember that everybody has their own story, their own situation and everyone’s feelings are valid. Angelica’s part of this big, theoretically identical-looking group, right, they’re all in their nun habits, but her story is just as important, and her experience is just as important as the princess’s, who is a public figure in the name of society. Underneath the wimple, they’re both just women.
Culture OC: Congratulations on your new work “The Yellow Wallpaper” premiering at Carnegie Hall this January! Tell us more.
Farrell: We’re very excited because our musical director for “Suor Angelica,” Carl Pantle, and the director for “Suor Angelica,” Michael O’Halloran, are joining myself, the librettist and the composer, Brooke DeRosa, at Carnegie Hall the week following “Suor” for the world premiere.
The three of us are singing the three roles for the premier, and we are going to be bringing the first-ever staged version of the show to Orange County next October. It’s really very exciting because for the Carnegie Hall production, we have a lot of people who are very important to us as an organization making the trip out to New York to support this big effort, and it’s something we hope to do many times in the future – be a vehicle for composers to share their new works, whether it’s here or someplace else.
It’s really exciting for us to be able to not just commission but actually produce the work of a female composer on an international stage like that.
Lyric Opera of Orange County presents contemporary and classic operas in Orange County designed for the modern audience and was named Emerging Arts Organization of the Year for 2022 by Arts Orange County.
Lyric Opera's Upcoming Season
“Suor Angelica” is Giacomo Puccini’s classic story of a wealthy young woman who has had a child out of wedlock and been forced to enter a convent. One day, an important family member delivers devastating news. How will this change Suor Angelica’s life?
When: 8 p.m. Jan. 24-25, 2025
Where: Orange County Music and Dance, 17620 Fitch Ave. #160, Irvine
Cost: $18
“The Yellow Wallpaper” is based on the haunting 1876 short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, this new opera explores the impact of societal influences on the individual in the Victorian Gilded Age. Lyric Opera debuts its world premiere in January at Carnegie Hall in New York City and Orange County premiere in October.
CARNEGIE HALL
When: 8 p.m. Jan. 31, 2025
Where: Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, 154 West 57th St., New York, New York
Cost: Tickets start at $80
ORANGE COUNTY
When: Currently scheduled for October 2025
“The Mighty Casey” is William Schuman’s musical adaptation of the 19th century poem, “Casey at the Bat,” the famous mock-heroic baseball narrative made popular during the era of Vaudeville when it was performed by DeWolf Hopper. LOOC presents this family friendly story with an updated twist for International Women’s Month.
When: 8 p.m. March 28-29, 2025. 4 p.m. March 30.
Where: Orange County Music and Dance, 17620 Fitch Ave. #160, Irvine
Cost: $45 general admission, $35 children 15 and under, $40 senior/student/military
L’Opera Petit, LOOC’s namesake Young Artist Program, is undertaking its first full-length opera production this season. The artist training program begins on June 9, and culminates in performances on June 20 and 21. Audition information will be made available on their website.
When: June 20-21, 2025
Where: Orange County Music and Dance, 17620 Fitch Ave. #160, Irvine
Ticket Cost: TBA
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