From the
PRESIDENT Greetings to all and welcome back to live theatre! After a year of virtual productions, the entire DMMO family is thrilled to be together in person. This year we offer our 49th season – an inspired blend of past and present. We open with Sondheim’s masterful Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Tchaikovsky’s hauntingly beautiful The Queen of Spades offers the sumptuous magnificence of grand opera and features beloved artist Joyce Castle as the Countess. Rounding out our mainstage is Rameau’s comic farce Platée. This operatic gem is an absolute delight and holds a special place of fondness for me as the first opera I performed. The grand finale of the season is a memorial concert in honor of our founder Robert L. Larsen, who passed away this past March. All of our mainstage productions are entirely new this year. This means that the beautiful sets and costumes you see on stage will need a safe place to be stored for future use. As DMMO has grown, so has our need for storage. We are currently in the process of adding a new climate controlled building to our production campus. One more thing to cheer about! Preparations are already underway for the 50th anniversary in 2022. We begin the celebrations at the Des Moines Civic Center with the acclaimed Barrie Kosky production of The Magic Flute in March of 2022, and then comes the world premiere of A Thousand Acres in July! We have also launched an endowment campaign which is off to an impressive start. Special thanks to Linda and Tom Koehn and Frank Brownell for their transformative leadership gifts. Please consider adding your name to our impressive list of supporters. With so much excitement planned for the summer, it is easy to forget the significant work DMMO does all year long. This past year we had to react quickly to the ever changing requirements of a global pandemic. Thanks to Michael Egel and the entire DMMO staff, we were able to overcome the greatest of challenges and pivot to a Virtual Festival. In partnership with Iowa PBS and Iowa Public Radio, streamed performances reached over 275,000 viewers worldwide. In short, we have much to be thankful for: a vibrant company, brilliant leadership, an energetic and talented staff, a spectacular creative team, and supremely gifted artists. Most importantly, an enthusiastic audience - nothing would be possible without YOU! On behalf of the entire Board of Directors, please accept my thanks for your unflagging and continual support of Des Moines Metro Opera. This artistic jewel is no longer our secret, but one of the world’s most highly respected summer opera festivals. I hope you enjoy this marvelous 49th season. Sincerely,
Virginia Croskery Lauridsen President of the Board
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