LA Opera Stages 'Hercules vs. Vampires' for Halloween

LA Opera will perform "Hercules vs Vampires" on Oct. 30 and 31 at the United Theater on Broadway in downtown Los Angeles, staging the work as a Halloween event complete with an afterparty and costume contest on the second night.

The production pairs singers and musicians performing an original operatic score live to a screening of Mario Bava's 1961 film "Hercules in the Haunted World." Patrick Morganelli composed the score and adapted the film's dialogue for live singers. Opera Theater Oregon commissioned the work, which premiered there in 2010; North Carolina Opera, Arizona Opera and Nashville Opera have since presented it.

The Halloween performance forms part of LA Opera's Off Grand initiative, which presents works in venues across Los Angeles rather than at the company's mainstage home.

Who conducts and who sings?

Blair Salter, LA Opera's Head of Music, makes her company conducting debut, leading members of the LA Opera Orchestra. The cast spans seven principal singers:

• Baritone Joel Balzun sings Hercules
• Soprano Alexis Seminario sings Dianara
• Baritone Gabriel Manro sings Lycos
• Tenor Roy Hage sings Theseus
• Soprano Gabrielle Turgeon sings Medea and additional roles
• Mezzo-soprano Gretchen Krupp sings Persephone
• Bass James Hayden appears as the God of Evil and Procrustes

Tenors Orson Van Gay II and Robert Norman round out the cast as Kyros and Telemachus, respectively, along with additional roles.

What does the Halloween performance include?

The Oct. 31 performance is followed by a Halloween afterparty and costume contest, both included with admission — a programming choice that aligns the cult-film format with the holiday audience.

The engagement marks the work's arrival at one of the largest opera companies in the United States, 14 years after its 2010 premiere in Oregon, and extends a production history that now spans four companies across the country.