About Opera Box
We’re here to close distances, bridge gaps and support communities through music.
Opera Box (OB) provides a platform for artists and theatre makers to collaborate on Classical music productions. We emphasize honesty and sensitivity, qualities often overshadowed in the grandiosity of a typical opera production.
We develop personal, compelling presentations that connect to the human experience. Opera Box aims to keep opera current and resonant, inviting listeners to experience operatic storytelling in new and meaningful ways. We incubate homegrown ideas and ensure our productions and collaborators are diverse, different and relatively accessible.
We are passionate about supporting local emerging artists and providing them with exciting performance opportunities.
We believe that there is no need to “dumb” works down, that quality speaks for itself.
Our Team
Jessica Ng (Artistic Director)
Jessica founded Opera Box as a vibrant enterprise aiming to change the landscape of Hong Kong opera. Dedicated to connecting audiences and artists via music, she hopes to cultivate a creative environment that emphasizes opera as a theatrical experience rather than a performance. She promotes a "meeting of minds" in opera, allowing seasoned artists to cooperate and explore, and inviting the audience to interrogate what it means to enjoy the art form in a personal manner.
An experienced soprano, Jessica performs regularly with MusicaViva; roles include Vitellia in Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito (upcoming, 2024), Donna Elvira in Mozart’s Don Giovanni (2022), the Countess in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro (2019), Adina in Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore (2017), Frasquita in Carmen (2016), the Queen of the Night in Mozart’s Zauberflöte (2019), and Clotilde in Bellini’s Norma (2021). She also created the role of First Geisha in the world premiere of Elena Langer's Beauty and Sadness--a chamber opera directed by Carolyn Choa—in which she also covered the leading role of Otoko.
Over the years, Jessica has written and directed the critically acclaimed puppet play/opera Tallard and the Ladderbird, which was performed to music by Pieter Bezuidenhout and produced in Pretoria, South Africa by artist Nina Torr. She also wrote and directed In/Between, a semi-staged song cycle for soprano and harp, which was featured in both the Aardklop Festival in South Africa and the World Harp Congress in Hong Kong. Jessica co-directed the highly regarded production of Humperdinck’s opera Hansel und Gretel at the HKU Black Box Theatre in 2017, in which she also sang the role of Hansel.
Isaac Droscha (Music Director)
Isaac Droscha, operatic bass-baritone, holds a Doctorate in Vocal Performance from the University of Michigan and is currently a faculty in the Division of Humanities at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). Isaac is also the Artistic Director and vocal coach of the “HKUST Musical!”, which he also helps coordinate. He is also the Co-Artistic Director of the HKUST Cosmopolis Festival and the Artistic Director of Shaw Auditorium at HKUST.
He has performed roles with various companies in the United States, including the Des Moines Metro Opera, Michigan Opera Theatre, Opera New Jersey and Arbor Opera Theater. His performances have received numerous positive reviews, including: “Isaac Droscha is ingenious in his portraying of Falstaff;” and “Isaac Droscha, in the same role, was blessed with an extremely robust and agile voice, and behaved onstage like a true commedia dell’arte clown” and “Droscha really hit his stride when revealing his character's true identity near the end of the opera in a riveting performance.”
Some of his notable roles performed include roles in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Le Nozze di Figaro, The Rake’s Progress, Madama Butterfly, L’Elisir d’Amore, Die Zauberflöte, Die Fledermaus, Falstaff and Airadne auf Naxos. He was also recently featured in two films produced by RTHK based on the operas La Serva Padrona and Rita. He is frequently performer with Hong Kong MusicaViva.
Isaac is a prolific concert performer of oratorio and art song and frequently lends his voiceover talents to radio and television at RTHK.
Board of Directors
Sally Lo (Founder and CEO of the Hong Kong Cancer Fund)
Cecilia Sze (President of K.S. Sze and Sons Jewellery)
Katy Yung (Managing Partner, SFi)
Rajat Panikkar (Director, Silvernous Advisors)
Debra Mao (Independent communications consultant)
Marie McLaughlin (soprano, vocal consultant of Glyndebourne and the National Opera Studio)
Magdalene Minnaar (soprano, Artistic Director of Cape Town Opera)
Making it new.
We are an artist-run organization with a purpose.
What else is in the box? Stay tuned and find out.
