Another casualty of tough times in Southern California's Orange County appears to be opera. The recent staging of "The Barber of Seville" may have been the swan song for
Opera Pacific, the area's professional opera company. The company was founded in 1986 and has been going strong for years but currently a limited circle of patrons has been unable to swing the $4 million to $5 million in donations needed to fund a season's budget of about $7 million to $8 million.
The LA Times reports that the company has canceled its two remaining operas "The Grapes of Wrath" and "Salome" and has put its its office, set-storage and rehearsal building in Santa Ana up for sale and laid off all but two members of the staff. Donations to the arts are often first hit when people scale back their philanthropy in tough times.
