(c) Noorah Bawazir for Minnesota Opera
Red Wing Residency
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Welcome
wo years ago this month, Minnesota Opera premiered Silent Night. I hope you were here at Ordway Center for those sold-out performances. It was an experience that I won’t soon forget. For those of you who weren’t here, or if you just would like to experience Silent Night again, our performance was recorded and will be broadcast on pbs on December 13. It is a great opportunity to have this incredible opera seen by a much larger audience. Silent Night is the only opera that has won the Pulitzer Prize in Music to have its original production recorded for later broadcast. The creation and recording of our commissions is made possible by generous donors to Minnesota Opera’s New Works Initiative. We’ve created a page full of photos, videos, a digital program and more at mnop.co/silent-night. We continue to expand our audience and make opera accessible to the broader community. Following last summer’s Opera under the Stars concerts of La bohème, we looked for ways to provide more free opera in the Twin Cities. We were pleased to recently announce that Knight Foundation awarded Minnesota Opera a grant to simulcast a free, big-screen, live video of our season-opening performance of the next two seasons. Thanks to this generous gift, we will be able to share our season opening in a way we have never been able to before. Minnesota Opera is active throughout the state with Education Programs and Community Residencies. We recently completed
Silent Night
Kevin Puts (2011)
a three-week intergenerational community residency in Red Wing, Minnesota, which will be featured in our Macbeth program. The work with students, community choruses and orchestras culminated in Opera’s Greatest Hits performances in late October. We are grateful to Xcel Energy for their support of this and other programs. Minnesota Opera also recently received a grant from the William Randolph Hearst Foundation to help fund our education and community residency programs. “The members of our Board of Directors are pleased to support Minnesota Opera’s comprehensive education and outreach programs that serve young and older opera lovers alike in highly innovative ways,” said Executive Director of the Hearst Foundations Paul “Dino” Dinovitz. We want to continue to make Minnesota Opera a vital part of our community and promote opera to a broader audience. Thank you for your support in making all of this possible. Please enjoy tonight’s performance. President and General Director
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Kevin Ramach
© Michal Daniel for Minnesota Opera
(2013)
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