“Oh, ’tis a glorious life of adventure, the life of a bandit, careless and free!”
That is the mood and mindset that Fra Diavolo instantly transports you to in this, the second production in Pacific Opera Project‘s fifteenth season. No heavy stakes or morality plays, simply a fun and delightful excursion where you don’t have to take the world so seriously. And boy does it succeed.
I saw Fra Diavolo on a particularly rainy evening (11/14/2025) up at the Highland Park Ebell Club. Ebell clubs are Southern California institutions named after Dr. Adrian Ebell, and are historic women-led, women-centric organizations dedicated to philanthropy, the arts, and civic engagement. In this case, it was a very fine performance event space.
The Space
As usual, I arrived early to check out the location and fully enjoy the ambience. After the ticketing booth in the small lobby, I got my program and went inside the main space.
Quick sidenote: Pacific Opera Project regularly has the best printed programs out of any company’s productions I see. Whoever is in charge of making these does a spectacular job. I know it’s not exactly a critical deciding factor on the show itself, but really, these are the nicest regular programs across the whole Los Angeles performance world.
Anyway. It was a historic building, and I noticed a lot of fun old details, from the lobby into the main hall, including these old floor grates.
There was a booth for wine and the food that you’d get if you had bought a table seat. I picked up a couple glasses of wine, so I wouldn’t have to get up later when I finished my first one.
Of course, I also took a photo in front of the backdrop.
About the seating layout: most of the audience floorspace is covered with tables and chairs, which are more expensive and allow you to be closer, and come with other patron benefits as well. Behind this area is a chair section, with rows of folding chairs on a slightly elevated platform. I was in the front row of the folding chair section, center – seat A5.
I would argue that this was the best seat in the house, and that the front row of the folding chair section was the prime space. You could easily see over the heads of people in the tables, and you were not really that far from the stage–it’s not a big space–so you can still perfectly see everyone’s expressions and all the action. The benefit of not sitting closer is that you can also see the supertitles projected above without craning your neck constantly, and you’re also seated a healthy distance from the orchestra, so the instruments don’t overpower the singers. To be clear, I don’t think there was a bad seat, except maybe the very back row of folding chairs (maybe), but I would still call my seat the best.
The orchestra pit was on the side of the stage.
The Ebell Club didn’t have a lot of lobby space, which normally wouldn’t be a big deal–easy enough to line up down the steps outside–except tonight was the rare LA night of pouring rain. So it felt pretty crowded up front.
The one major flaw in this space, though, is the restroom situation. This was downright awful. The men’s room had a urinal and then a toilet facing the urinal with no stalls or even dividers. This is very weird and makes it incredibly awkward for two people to use the restroom at the same time, except when the line is so long because it’s the only restroom option, what else can you do? Already, even having only two relief points is not enough for an event venue, but to have them be almost unusable at the same time is inexcusable. It would be so simple for the Ebell Club to simply install some sort of partition or divider here, it doesn’t have to be fancy, it can’t cost that much. I don’t know what the women’s restroom situation was like but I can say they had an even longer line, so it probably wasn’t very good either.
But let’s get back to the event. The lights flashed and we all took our seats, and Fra Diavolo began.
The Show
Fra Diavolo is a wickedly funny three-act bandit comedy (or opéra comique) about a bold and daring thief calling himself “Fra Diavolo,” which means “Brother Devil” in Italian. Written by composer Daniel Auber and premiering in 1830 in Paris, it’s loosely inspired by a southern Italian guerrilla leader named Michele Pezza, who used the nickname himself. (There is also a spicy Italian-American tomato sauce named after him.)
Auber later wrote an Italian version which contained new arias and dialogue and expanded roles. POP’s program notes say that tonight’s English production uses “multiple sources, with some original lyrics and dialogue” after being adapted by Josh Shaw and Sarah Sturdevant.
When the story begins, the exceedingly charming highwayman Fra Diavolo and his henchmen have been robbing nobles in Southern Italy for some time, and the hunt is on to find him. At a local inn, soldiers and villagers in chorus discuss how they want to catch the crooks.
The innkeeper’s daughter, Zerlina (Sabrina Langlois), wants to marry one of the soldiers Lorenzo (James Stevens), but he’s too poor on a soldier’s salary. The innkeeper Matteo (Errol Wesley Shaw) wants her to marry someone rich instead.
Meanwhile, rich English couple Pamela (Meagan Martin) and James George Hardcash (Matthew Ian Welch) arrive and check in, after being Fra Diavolo’s latest victims of theft on their way here. However, the bandits didn’t find the real jewels that the Hardcashes were carrying, as they were too well hidden.
Fra Diavolo (Randall Bills) arrives disguised as the wealthy and sociable Marquis of San Marco. He flirts and flatters everyone around him, all in an effort to uncover where the Hardcash jewels are really hidden. It turns out they were sewn up into her clothing.
Fra Diavolo’s two comedically-goofy henchmen, Giacomo and Beppo (E. Scott Levin and Krishna Raman), arrive at the inn following their leader. In disguise as the Marquis, Fra Diavolo oh-so-generously offers to put them up for the night, but once they’re alone, the mask drops–the plan is to sneak into the room the Hardcashes are staying in and steal the jewels.
Bills as Fra Diavolo is disguised as the Marquis for the entire first half of the work, and he works his magic not only on the characters around him, but on the audience as well. I can’t imagine a more perfect actor than Bills to play this exact role. Fra Diavolo needs to be charming, funny, a little physical, without being too real or gritty or taking himself too seriously. Bills hits the sweet spot in every way. He’s handsome without being too pretty-boy-model-esque, and he’s charming and lovable while still retaining a touch of awkwardness that saves him from coming across as too polished. He can constantly share a smirk and a wink with the audience and naturally draws us into the mood of the work. It is a constant pleasure to see him stand in front of his own “wanted” posters. And, of course, he has the vocal chops to handle the role very well, as well as strum a guitar and perform musically. Such a perfect casting.
Levin and Raman are also a perfect duo as the earnest but incompetent henchmen, who bounce off of each other with ease. They drew big laughs from the audience consistently and were great with both physical humor and vocal performance.
The English couple was also wonderfully cast. Welch and Martin play the enormously fun snooty couple very well, and both delivered strong performances.
I enjoyed Shaw’s performance as the innkeeper Matteo, too, and thought his acting added a maturity that helped anchor just enough of the reality of the opera to make it work. While I also enjoyed Langlois as Zerlina, I felt like her performance strengthened over the night. She felt a little light or unsteady to me in the first act, but came out much stronger in acts two and three.
The opera continues with a hilarious scene of Fra Diavolo, Giacomo, and Beppo sneaking into Zerlina’s bedroom, since the Hardcash room is only accessible through her room. They are forced to hide as Zerlina enters, and it was absolutely hilarious watching them dart around and hide, badly, around the oblivious, love-blinded Zerlina as she sings.
Hearing them loudly sing about how quietly they’re sneaking was also a delight.
Lorenzo and Lord Hardcash both discover only “the Marquis” sneaking around, and both misinterpret the situation as him wanting to seduce their women. Duels are arranged. Intermission follows.
In the final act, Fra Diavolo (now fully out of Marquis-mode, in full bandit costume) plans to ambush Lorenzo, but the troops intercept his bumbling henchmen and discover an incriminating note. Lorenzo sets a counter-trap, and when Fra Diavolo strides into the village expecting it to be deserted, the soldiers surround him and capture him, tying him up with his henchmen.
As the play ends, Fra Diavolo sneakily slips from the ties, and the curtains fall as he’s vanished once again–that sneaky, devilish rogue!
This was such a hilarious work. It reminded me of the fun of watching The Scarlett Pimpernel or Pirates of the Caribbean, getting swept away in the harmless fun of thievery and mischief. I should also note that the set design was very impressive too, with the exterior of the inn opening up and displaying the second story across multiple rooms, with different options for what was shown and hidden, and even a couple disguised trick doors. This worked very well for what must have been a complicated story to stage.
In the end, I was thoroughly satisfied at every level with Fra Diavolo.
Full Cast & Context
The main cast of Fra Diavolo was:
- Randall Bills: Fra Diavolo
- Sabrina Langlois: Zerlina
- James Stevens: Lorenzo
- Meagan Martin: Pamela
- Matthew Ian Welch: James George Hardcash (name changed from “Cockburn” in the original work)
- Errol Wesley Shaw: Matteo
- E. Scott Levin: Giacomo
- Krishna Raman: Beppo
The chorus:
- Jaime Reza (Fra Diavolo cover)
- Talar Arslanian (Zerlina cover)
- Christopher Walters (Hardcash cover)
- Frank Watnick (Lorenzo cover)
- Billy Malone (Matteo cover)
- Jamie Sanderson (Giacomo cover)
- Madeline Braun
- John Nguyen
- Mariah Schaumberg
- Sarah Sturdevant (who also helped adapt the libretto)
The orchestra:
- Boryana Popova: Violin I
- Kimberly Hain: Violin II
- Alison Perrine: Viola
- Oliver Walton: Cello
- Eve Bañuelos: Flute
- Phil Popham: Oboe
- Virginia Figueiredo: Clarinet
- Sumner Arano: Bassoon
- Cameron Wilkins: Trumpet
The opera was written by Daniel Auber. The creative team:
- Josh Shaw: Director/Designer
- Kyle Naig: Conductor
- Benjamin Beckman: Chorus Master/Rehearsal Pianist
- Hailey Springer: Costumer
- David Handler: Master Carpenter
- Juliet Prieto: Scenic Painter
- Maria Oliveira: Stage Manager
- Boryana Popova: Orchestra Manager
- Anthony Moresi: Technical Supervisor
- Janie Dusenberry & Charlotte Osborn: Front of House
The Pacific Opera Project company was founded in 2011. Their mission in and around Los Angeles is to reimagine opera as an affordable adventure, by making unforgettable performances available to all. They seem to be invested in returning good opera to the masses, and in my opinion, are doing quite a fine job.
Fra Diavolo premiered in Paris in 1830, and features spoken dialogue between music numbers. It was a huge 19th-century hit across Europe and the US, but fell out of popularity as opera styles and tastes changed. In modern times it is performed relatively rarely, usually as a stylish revival piece.
The Highland Park Ebell Club was founded in 1903. Women’s clubs of this era were critically important for the women’s suffrage movement, leading to the 19th amendment in 1920. The historic space still functions as a cultural gathering place today.
