Scenic Design

EL RELICARIO DE LOS ANIMALES & The Thirteen Changes

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by Pauline Oliveros

Directed by James Darrah

Music Director Christopher Rountree

Heritage Square Museum, Los Angeles

Produced by Long Beach Opera, 2025

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El Relicario De Los Animales (1979) unfolds through a series of evocations, each channeling a different animal with sonic textures and musical motifs. As one of Oliveros’ scores with specific instructions for instrumentation, it incorporates a broad ensemble ranging from violin and percussion to unconventional surprises–including her signature conch shell. The result is an immersive, layered soundscape that explores the complex relationship between humans, nature, and animals–ultimately aiming to promote healing and harmony with the natural world.

 

Oliveros’ Otherworldly Opera Illuminated As Improv Tour De Force

The afternoon’s second half, El Relicario des Animales (The Reliquary of the Animals, 1979), brought performers and audience inside the park’s 1897 Methodist church, which production designer Prairie Trivuth, lighting designer Kaitlin Trimble, and installation artist Juan Renteria had transformed into a kind of forest primeval. Filing into the church, the LBO musicians arranged themselves into a four-pointed (North, East, South, West) mandala, with audience members seated up close in the interstitial space.  [...] With much less room to work with, LBO achieved in intensity and intimacy what it lost in sound reverberation.  — Classical Voice North America

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Scenic Design by Prairie T. Trivuth

Costume Design by Chrisi Karvonides

Lighting Design by Kaitlin Trimble​

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Photographs:  JJ Geiger, Prairie T. Trivuth