Opera America, a nonprofit that supports opera in the United States, recently announced the 2025 recipients of two of its prestigious distinctions: the 2025 Robert L.B. Tobin Director-Designer Prize and the Discovery Grants from its Opera Grants for Women Composers program. Among the awardees are CalArts alumni, recognized for their contributions to contemporary opera and musical theater.
For the Tobin Prize, CalArtians were represented across two of the four winning teams. Awarded to “promising stage directors and designers” who reimagine operatic works for today’s audiences, the biennial prize is designed to connect recipients with producers and support their career advancement.
Héctor Alvarez (MFA 23), Claire Chrzan (MFA 23), Ashley Kae Snyder (MFA 24), and Salmah Beydoun (MFA 20) made up one winning team, and Tanya Orellana (MFA 17) is among the members of another. Though both teams selected the same opera—La hija de Rappaccini by Daniel Catán and Juan Tovar—they approached the work with unique production concepts.
The all-CalArtian team of Alvarez, Chrzan, Synder, and Beydoun conjured up a “chilling parable for the 21st century,” in which Dr. Rappaccini is reimagined as a Frankenstein-like figure supervising a twisted bioengineered version of the garden of Eden. More about the production from Opera America:
In his quest to develop a race of superhumans, Rappaccini creates Beatriz, a genetically modified woman infused with the poison of venomous flowers. Her very touch brings death, rendering her a prisoner inside her father’s garden. Her tragic love story with the student Giovanni culminates in a visceral spectacle of societal self-destruction, as the production confronts the precarious balance between scientific progress and ethical responsibility in a world teetering on the brink.
As a scenic designer, Orellana worked alongside director Estefanía Fadul, costume designer Christopher Vergara, and lighting designer Carolina Ortiz Herrera to bring their vision of La hija to life, leaning into the opera’s “surrealist and Latiné gothic horror” to create an otherworldly experience. The work depicts the dissolution of boundaries—between the worlds of the “scientific and organic, dream and reality, old and new”—to underscore a narrative paradigm shift:
The garden will evoke a magical realism, full of seductive, otherworldly beauty, contrasting sharply with the external world. The design will reflect the tension between the sterile, scientific realm and the lush, seductive surrealism of the garden. Drawing subtly from Mexican mythology and the hermetic tradition, we reject moralistic dualism, framing the garden and its “poison” as symbols of alienation and the fractured self, rather than evil. As the opera unfolds, the visual and thematic barriers between these realms will crack, leaving audiences questioning reality and the nature of unity. This haunting yet ambiguous post-colonial vision of Catán/Tovar’s reinterpretation will challenge traditional narratives and frameworks, making it both visually captivating and philosophically thought-provoking.
Through their monetary prizes, the winning teams will present their works at the Opera Conference 2025, happening May 20-23 in Memphis, Tennessee. Learn more about the four winning teams and their production concepts at Opera America.
Molly Pease (Music MFA 17) is one of eight recipients of the Discovery Grant for her compositional work on HYSTERIA (Divya Maus, librettist). Totaling $100,000, the grants support the recipients’ development of new operatic works by women composers. Drawing from historical medical journals, early feminist fiction, and reality television, HYSTERIA interrogates gendered narratives of mental health through a score straddling rock and experimental sounds:
In 1909, the Neuroticist—a world-renowned psychoanalyst—welcomes an audience of young progressive minds to his Symposium on Hysteria. He presents four female patients: Cherie, an unwed mother eager for marriage to a noncommittal partner; Kate, a young wife suffering from hallucinations; Ameeta, a mother anxious to find a match for her adult son; and Mona, an architect striving to create a life-changing work while appeasing her commissioners. Each is trapped in a scene designed to push her past her breaking point into what the Neuroticist calls “hysteria,” a syndrome he aims to cure. However, his demonstrations are haunted by the Woman in the Wallpaper, a specter determined to stoke the women’s fury. The Neuroticist and the Woman in the Wallpaper battle in increasingly surrealist scenarios, leading to a final confrontation—a contest of the gods, and the birthplace of our fury.
Pease is a GRAMMY-winning LA-based vocal artist and composer who uses improvisation and extended vocal techniques to achieve an ethereal sound. A member and assistant director of the experimental vocal sextet HEX, Pease also regularly performs with LA Master Chorale, LA Choral Lab, and Tonality.
Read more about the grantees at the official announcement.
