At around the same time San Fran’s famed North Beach was birthing the beat generation, Little Italy’s cabarets were hosting pianist Donald Pippin’s weekly series of Sunday night concerts. By the time the hippies started burning their bras, Pippin was producing popular one-act operas. Finding the available English adaptations of operatic libretti (text) to be “archaic, artificial and opaque,” Pippin decided to try translating the works himself. He’s been heralded for his writing wit ever since. With an ever-growing repertory, the ’70s saw the incorporation of Pocket Opera as a nonprofit organization to continue Pippen’s mission: to make opera accessible. Sunday, the Maui Pops Orchestra hosts the Pocket Opera—performing The Elixir of Love (L’elisir d’amore) by Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti with lead singers from SF joined by local performers from Olinda Chorale and Musical Voices Maui. If that leaves you hungry for more, a gala dinner with the performers will follow the show (tickets sold separately, $75) and features a Chinese buffet catered by UH Maui College’s Culinary Academy, plus entertainment. 242-7469; mauiarts.org /pocketopera.org
Sunday (March 13), 3:30pm, Castle Theater, MACC, $15/$35/$45/$55
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