The San Diego Opera is hosting “An Evening of Pride” for their striking new opera The Pearl Fishers Friday, Feb. 20. The event includes a pre-opera reception followed by the show, and is hosted by both the Human Dignity Foundation and the Greater San Diego Business Association. A portion of the ticket price from the evening’s performance will benefit both.

“It’s a loose collaboration of things to make it a memorable evening for folks and to try to get some of the members of our community, if they’re not already season ticket holders to the opera, to consider [the opera] as just one other thing that they can do here in San Diego that is kind of cultural, kind of neat and should be a fun event,” said Steve Zucal, a GSDBA board member and member of the event’s steering committee.

Sung in French with English translations displayed above the stage, The Pearl Fishers is about the burning love triangle between two best friends, tribal chieftain Zurga and pearl fisher Nadir, and Leila, a priestess forbidden to both of them. Music by composer Georges Bizet (Carmen) provides a musical backdrop for soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian (Leila) – whose ethereal voice was featured in The Lord of the Rings – and real-life best friends, baritone Russell Braun (Zurga) and tenor Michael Schade (Nadir).

Fashion designer Zandra Rhodes designed lavish, shimmering costumes and a Nirvana-like set – a pearl landscape overlooking an ocean made of iridescent silk – to complement Bizet’s piece.

“It’s going to be a visual spectacle,” said Jennifer Gamez, San Diego Opera’s associate director of marketing and audience development, and a member of the steering committee for “An Evening of Pride.” “It’s very vibrant and pastel – purples and pinks and blues. [Rhodes] was influenced by traveling to India. She knew that she was going to design this opera, so last year or the year before, she traveled to India and got ideas from there. She makes all of this in her factory in London and then brings it here, so it’s all from scratch. She also has her own screen press in London that she uses to make the designs. She puts fabrics on top of fabrics, so she meshes together things that you would never think of together.”

Guests at “An Evening of Pride” will have the opportunity to meet the vivacious Rhodes, who runs the International Fashion Museum in London. “Zandra [designed sets and costumes] for us a few years ago for another opera, The Magic Flute,” Gamez said. “She has designed for Elton John and the late Princess Diana and she’s always in vogue. She’s incredibly creative – this older woman with bright pink hair. She’s great. She is bringing about 50 of her friends down from L.A., including some celebrity friends. It’ll be just a party beforehand.”

Local photographer Stan Lawrence will also attend the event, and offer guests the opportunity to have their pictures taken as a memento. Gamez said the steering committee was initially planning to do some backstage tours for guests, but decided against it because it would mean that some tour groups would miss the meet-and-greet with Rhodes.

Zucal said the evening is a win for all participants.

“A lot of operas around the country have a night like this every year and there are a lot of industry groups that have a night like this at the opera,” Zucal said. “It’s a way for the opera to develop a new audience. I think sometimes people will come with people who are like-minded when they maybe wouldn’t try it on their own. It’s a win for GSDBA because a lot of our folks are business owners and they don’t always get a chance to try new things like the opera with a group of people. It is also a little benefit, but more than anything else it’s kind of an appreciation event. We know that a lot of our members already support arts and culture in San Diego.”

“We knew that we wanted to do ‘An Evening of Pride’ with the gay and lesbian, bisexual and transgender community because so much of our audience is gay, so many of our performers are, so many in the front office staff are, costume people, make-up people – the gay community just naturally flocks to opera,” said Gamez. “So we knew that we wanted to do something like this.”

Gamez said the San Diego Opera tries to attract new audiences that are already naturally a comfortable fit. “An Evening of Pride” is the latest addition to a series of group-specific evenings that already include life sciences night, high-tech night, downtown night and a night for young professionals. They also recently hosted an evening during Chinese New Year for the Asian community in conjunction with a performance of Puccini’s Turandot, an Italian opera that tells the Chinese legend of cruel Turandot, Princess of Peking.

“We knew that we wanted to get the gay community engaged as a group just because it’s more fun to come as a party and hopefully we can build a new audience that way as well,” Gamez said. “The best way to get people to come to the opera is when you have friends of friends. It’s better than placing an ad, because opera can be kind of an intimidating art form, so if you come with a friend, it’s better that way.”

When Gamez expressed her interest in starting “An Evening of Pride,” a part-time employee at the San Diego Opera recommended Gamez contact the GSDBA. When Gamez called about six months ago, Zucal immediately jumped on the idea, as did fellow board member David Knepp.

“Initially, we thought, ‘How can we make this event fit into the calendar that we do at GSDBA?’” Zucal said. “Typically we do the business after-hour mixers, which usually is just a little cocktail networking hour. And we thought we could try something else to give our members the opportunity to try something a little different. It doesn’t really fit in with our traditional mixer fare, but we thought why not try it and see what happens and see if we can develop a turnout for it and see if it can become an event that draws our members and draws other folks from the community together.”

Zucal thought a partnership with another organization in the community would help draw more people. He called David Pierce, executive director of the Human Dignity Foundation, who also signed on.

A six-member steering committee soon formed, including Pierce, Gamez, Zucal, Knepp, GSDBA board member Roman Janos Anderegg and Keith Fisher, director of administration at the San Diego Opera. Because Fisher also has an ownership interest in Crush, a Hillcrest restaurant and wine bar, Crush has hosted some of the steering committee’s meetings, and is sponsoring the event. Other sponsors are Stan Lawrence Portrait Art and Photography and Rene Van Rems for Flowers.

“It’s amazing how a lot of things in the community can come together at once to try to launch a new event,” Zucal said.

“The San Diego Human Dignity Foundation is pleased to be a part of this great collaboration,” said Pierce. “Community partnerships help to strengthen organizations by bringing together people with common interests. We hope that this partnership will showcase one of the many things San Diegans have in common – a love of opera.”

Food and wine will be served at the reception, but the steering committee is looking for further sponsorship to cover the costs. “We’re still trying to raise the sponsorship dollars, so that at least part of [the food and drink] can be complimentary,” Gamez said. “This being the first year, it’s hard to get sponsors… it just takes a while to build and for an event to gain momentum.”

Though it is the first year, Gamez anticipates 100-150 people will attend. She cautioned that tickets to the February 20 performance of The Pearl Fishers are selling out fast. She will hold onto a portion of the tickets until February 16 for people interested in attending “An Evening of Pride” but then must release them to the general public; there are four performances of The Pearl Fishers total, and only 800 tickets left between them.

“An Evening of Pride” begins at Friday, Feb. 20, at 6:00 p.m. in the Civic Theater’s Beverly Sills Salon. Tickets are $70-135. Call Jennifer Gamez at the San Diego Opera, (619) 232-7636, for tickets and information. If you are interested in sponsoring the event, call Steve Zucal at (858) 618-7238.