Opera Santa Barbara is starting an opera book club. The club will meet every 6-8 weeks in the new “lounge” at our downtown offices. Each meeting will include wine and cheese, to discuss a book which coordinates with one of the operas in our season or an operatic theme. The first book will be “Butterfly’s Child” a new novel by Angela Davis-Garner.
The novel follows the life of Benji (Trouble) after he is plucked from the security of his home in Nagasaki to live with his American father, Lt. Pinkerton, and stepmother, Kate, on their farm in Illinois. The family conceals his true identity as a child born from a liaison between his father and a geisha—and tells everyone that he is an orphan. When the truth surfaces, it will splinter this family’s fragile dynamic and send Benji on the journey of a lifetime ending up in Nagasaki, where he will uncover the truth about his mother’s tragic death.
The book is available at Chaucer’s Bookstore or at the Kindle Store.
The first meeting of the Opera Book Club will be Tuesday, October 9 at 5:30 pm, and future meetings will be decided at the first meeting. Please RSVP if you will join the group by calling 805.898.3890.