OperAloha brings opera and hula to St. Michael’s in Līhuʻe March 7

St. Michael and All Angels Church in Līhuʻe will present OperAloha at 7:00 p.m. Saturday, March 7, a concert that pairs opera repertoire with Hawaiian music and hula; advance tickets are $20 and seating is limited to a maximum of 150. The performance is presented locally by Chamber Music Kaua‘i and will feature hula dancer Jelacia Peralta, billed as one of the night’s special highlights and Kauai’s Miss Aloha Hula contestant at the Merrie Monarch Festival this April.

OperAloha is billed as a cross-cultural program that blends traditional operatic arias, duets and trios by composers such as Verdi, Puccini and Gounod with Native Hawaiian and Pacific song traditions. The tour’s promotional copy describes signature sets including “Taste of Hawaiʻi,” a musical tribute to each island, and “The Hawaiian Plate,” which celebrates Hawaiʻi’s multicultural heritage through song and hula, and notes repertoire sung in languages ranging from Native Hawaiian and Māori to Tagalog, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish and the classical operatic languages.

Greg Shepherd of Chamber Music Kaua‘i, who is handling local ticket sales, said of the program, “This is going to be a one-of-a-kind event for a lot of people who would love that kind of event that runs the gambit from opera lovers to classical music to Hawaiian music and hula.” Shepherd is listed as the phone contact for tickets at 808-482-1455, and the event organizer provided the booking email broadwaypacificproductions@gmail.com.

Tour materials list principal vocal soloists including Aivale/Alvale Cole, a Samoan soprano who performs in Europe and whose voice Shepherd said “many in the audience will recognize ... from ‘The Lord of the Rings,’” as well as Morgan Andrew King, described as a Māori-Chinese bass currently based at the Frankfurt Opera, and Christopher Oglesby, a San Francisco–based tenor who performs regularly with San Francisco Opera and Opera San José. Those names appear in Opera Aloha tour rosters; the only performer explicitly tied to the St. Michael’s night in advance materials is Jelacia Peralta.

Advance tickets can be secured online or by calling Greg Shepherd at 808-482-1455; any tickets remaining at the time of the concert will be $30 at the door. The Garden Island notes door payments will accept cash, Hawaii check, Zelle or Venmo. The production is produced and performed by pianist Ronny Michael Greenberg and is described in promotional listings as the fourth annual Opera Aloha tour, which has showcased music in more than a dozen languages over the past four years.

With limited seating, modest advance pricing and a local hula performer headed to Merrie Monarch sharing the stage with international opera talent, the March 7 presentation at St. Michael and All Angels offers a tightly capped, community-focused opportunity to hear a program that explicitly aims to unite “opera, Hawaiian music, and hula.”