Josheff Fest 2025 #2
BERKELEY CHAMBER OPERA PRESENTS
Europa & The Bull
A tale of Europa and Zeus, inspired by the paintings of Mary Holmes
Music by Peter Josheff
Libretto by Eliza O’Malley & Peter Josheff
$32 general ($30 in advance plus ticket fees)
$22 students/seniors ($20 in advance plus ticket fees)
Cash discount $2
TICKETS
Eliza O’Malley, soprano
Jonathan Smucker, tenor
Matilda Hofman, conductor
Dan Flanagan, violin
Peter Josheff, clarinet
Victoria Ehrlich, cello
Richard Worn, bass
Sunday, April 27, 8:00pm – First Church of Christ, Scientist
2619 Dwight Way, Berkeley
A beautiful Maybeck designed building near the UC campus. If you haven’t yet seen this national landmark you will have a perfect opportunity to revel in its quirky majestic splendor.
Europa & The Bull is a ‘chamber oratorio’ created by Peter Josheff in
collaboration with soprano Eliza O’Malley. It was commissioned
in 2014 for the first annual Mary Holmes Festival at Cowell College
on the UC Santa Cruz campus.
Mary Holmes, O’Malley’s grandmother, was a founder of Cowell College. She taught art history
there (and at UCLA) for many years. She was a prolific painter and
thinker about art, and her home in the Santa Cruz mountains—an
idyllic retreat populated by goats, horses, peacocks, found objects
and rustic home-made structures—is an ideal setting for her artwork.
She was an avid scholar of Greek, Roman, and Christian mythology,
and did many paintings on the theme of Europa and the Bull. She writes –
“Europa and her friends were dancing and picnicking on the Asian
shore of the Mediterranean. Zeus saw her and fell in love with her.
He took the form of a bull and came and stood nice and sweet
around all the people. They were so delighted by him that they
made garlands of flowers for him and petted him. Finally they
started to get on him and try to ride. When Europa got on him, he
ran to the beach and dashed away across the water …”
Intriguing and sweet/magical