Minnesota Opera's Turandot Program

CELEBRATING 50 YEARS

PUCCINI

2012 2013 SEASON

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welcome

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elcome and thank you for joining us for the final production of our 50th anniversary season.

In a crowded quarter nestled near the Forbidden City, a man pronounces an edict, saying that any prince wanting to marry Princess Turandot will first need to answer three riddles.

If he answers all three correctly, he will marry Turandot.

If he fails, he will die.

That’s not an everyday occurrence, but for 50 years Minnesota Opera has transported you to different worlds, in a way only live theatrical performances can.

Minnesota Opera has been a vibrant part of the Twin Cities cultural landscape over that time. We have a proven commitment to producing new works, innovative productions and great music.

Minnesota Opera is pleased to reveal plans to celebrate the company’s 50th anniversary season with the entire community … a season encore under the stars on June 14, 15 and 16. These free, family-friendly, outdoor events will feature the Minnesota Opera Orchestra and Chorus and a cast of opera’s most beloved characters performing La bohème against the beautiful backdrops of the very communities that have supported the company throughout its first five decades. Bring a picnic, family and friends and enjoy a relaxed summer night to remember – Minnesota Opera’s anniversary gift to you.

While it’s been wonderful to reflect on our past, I’m eager to look ahead into the future. Minnesota Opera will continue our commitment to the development of new works. We will expand into new repertoire, and continue to explore the cutting edge of theatrical technology to bring you innovative productions. Beyond this stage, we plan to reach out into our community and throughout Minnesota with new and entertaining programs. We will continue to reach children all over the region with engaging education programs that inspire and instill self-confidence. Importantly, we are committed to our core values of fiscal responsibility and stewardship. But most of all, we will always be committed to quality in everything we do.

I know I speak for the entire staff and Board of Directors when I say how grateful we are to you, the patrons of Minnesota Opera. Without your attendance and support none of this would be possible. So together we move forward into a bright and exciting future.

Sincerely, Kevin Ramach President and General Director

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Synopsis

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Opera under the Stars

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Turandot

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The 2013–2014 Season

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Background Notes

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Education at Minnesota Opera

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Giacomo Puccini

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New Works Initiative

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The Artists

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Minnesota Opera at 50: The Fifth Decade

Minnesota Opera Board of Directors, Staff and Volunteers

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Minnesota Opera Annual Fund

Large-print and Braille programs are available at the Patron Services Office.

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contents

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synopsis

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Turandot, daughter of Emperor Altoum, has decreed that she will only marry if a suitor of noble blood can answer three riddles. If he cannot, the price will be his head. The most recent failed candidate, the Prince of Persia, is to be executed at the moon’s rising.

In the commotion outside the palace a blind man falls to the ground, and his companion, Liù, asks for help. They are aided by a disguised Calaf, who recognizes the man as his long-lost father, Timur, the banished ruler of his land. Calaf, like his father, is running from enemies and concealing his identity, known only as the Unknown Prince. Liù continues to aid Timur even in exile because years before, as she explains, Calaf bestowed a smile upon her.

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Act II

Act III

Ping, Pang and Pong prepare for the eventuality of a wedding or a funeral. They discuss their misery since Turandot reached a marriageable age, numbering the many noble suitors who have met a deadly fate while reminiscing about life in their native provinces.

Is there truly a man whose passion can melt Turandot’s icy heart? Their hopes are guarded.

It is decreed that none shall sleep, under penalty of death, until the name of the Unknown Prince is discovered. Calaf expresses his conviction that he alone will reveal the secret. Ping, Pang and Pong offer any prize, including his safe escape, if he tells them his name. Timur and Liù are captured, and at Turdanot’s request, are about to be tortured. Liù steps forward and says that she knows the prince’s name but will keep it as her eternal secret. She grabs the executioner’s sword and kills herself. Calaf reproaches the princess for her cruelty and then takes hold of her and boldly kisses her. Turandot’s strength and desire for revenge leave her, and she weeps for the first time. Calaf reveals his true identity, thereby putting his life in Turandot’s hands. Trumpets announce the arrival of dawn and the assembly of the court. Turandot addresses the emperor and the people: “I have discovered the stranger’s name – it is Love!”

The people impatiently await the beheading. As the Prince of Persia enters, the crowd is suddenly moved and pleads with the princess to pardon him.

Turandot appears and dispassionately confirms the prince’s sentence with a silent gesture. Calaf is immediately entranced by her beauty. Timur and Liù try to convince him to leave with them, but he breaks away and attempts to announce himself as a suitor. The three ministers of the Imperial Household, Ping, Pang and Pong, warn him of his folly, but to no avail. In one final attempt Liù begs him to listen, but Calaf ignores her entreaties and ceremoniously rings the gong, signifying his challenge for Turandot’s hand.

A crowd assembles for the trial of the Three Enigmas. Turandot devised this manner of courtship to avenge her ancestress, Lou-o-Ling, who was captured, raped, then put to death by marauding invaders. She offers Calaf one last chance to withdraw, but he stands firm in his resolve. The first question is offered: “What is born each night and dies each dawn?” Calaf correctly answers, “Hope.” Slightly taken aback, Turandot poses the next riddle: “What flares warm like a flame, yet it is no flame?” Calaf hesitates, then answers perfectly, “Blood.”

Visibly shaken, Turandot asks the final question: “The ice that gives you fire, what can it be?” Calaf hesitates, then triumphantly cries: “Turandot!” The people celebrate his victory, but Turandot pleads with the Emperor not to be given to this unknown entity. Seeing her distress Calaf decides to play her game and offers a riddle of his own: “If before morning you can discover the name I bear, I shall forfeit my life.”

• intermission •

• intermission • Turandot 2012 © Elise Bakketun for Seattle Opera

Act I

Music by Giacomo Puccini Libretto by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni after Carlo Gozzi’s dramatic fairy tale (1762) World premiere at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan, April 25, 1926 April 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 and 21, 2013, Ordway, Saint Paul Sung in Italian with English captions

cast (in order of vocal appearance)

A mandarin Liù, a young slave girl Calaf, the unknown prince Timur, an exiled king, father of Calaf Ping, the grand chancellor Pang, the general purveyor Pong, the chief cook Turandot's handmaidens Emperor Altoum, father of Turandot Princess Turandot

John Allen Nelson Kelly Kaduce * Christie Hageman ** Adam Laurence Herskowitz * Scott Piper ** Richard Ollarsaba Matthew Opitz John Robert Lindsey Brad Benoit Allison Schardin, Maggie Lofboom Vern Sutton Irina Rindzuner * Helen Todd **

creative team

* performs April 13, 16, 18, 20

** performs April 14, 17, 19, 21

Michael Christie † Renaud Doucet André Barbe Guy Simard Jason Allen Daniel Ellis Aaron Breid †† Dale Kruse Eric McEnaney, Sheldon Miller Alexander Farino Renaud Doucet † conducts April 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20

The Minnesota Opera season is sponsored by

†† conducts April 21

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Conductor Stage Director and Choreographer Set and Costume Designer Lighting Designer Wig and Makeup Designer Assistant Director Assistant Conductor Children's Chorusmaster Répétiteurs Stage Manager English Captions

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Background Notes by David Sander

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hough written in the early 1920s, Turandot is the last great opera in the tradition of ottocento Italian technique. In spite of its more progressive elements – biting tonalities, Impressionist textures and through-composed urgency – Giacomo Puccini’s final opus falls in the shadow of the 19th century, a testimony to all of the era’s best qualities.

Nothing in the genre produced since that second decade has surpassed this quintessential opera’s lasting popularity.

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Its genesis was not without its difficulties.

True to his usual routine, Puccini began searching for potential operatic subjects immediately after the Italian premiere of Il trittico in 1919. It must have been a laborious process when one considers the number of possibilities the composer pondered before making a commitment – his relatively small oeuvre testifies to a lasting insecurity over getting just the right text. Unlike Verdi, Puccini was not a literary man and frequently relied on others for suggestions only to thanklessly discard them later on. For this particular round he considered a dramatization of Oliver Twist (to be called Fanny), an adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew (the libretto, Christopher Sly, would be set by Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari in 1927) and The Son-Daughter, another play by David Belasco (whose Madame Butterfly and The Girl of the Golden West the composer already had adapted).

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Hoping to revive the successful team of Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa (authors of his most favored three operas), Puccini engaged two librettists, Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni. They functioned in a similar manner as their predecessors – Adami worked out the dialogue and drafted the scenario while Simoni put the text into verse. At first they proposed an original drama set in the suburbs of London during the 1830s, but Puccini wasn’t interested. Then Simoni, a Gozzi scholar and author of his own play, Carlo Gozzi (1903), put forth the 18th-century playwright’s Turandotte.

Puccini was familiar with the recent Max Reinhardt production of Gozzi’s play and had been impressed – “… above all accentuate the passion of Turandot, who has been buried for so long in the ashes of her deep pride.”

would breathe a little Italian local color into a fairy tale steeped in chinoiserie (the numbers 3, 6 and 8 figure prominently in this production).

He hoped they would inject a little comic relief to the serious, mostly barbaric plot.

The focus of the drama changed as well. For its day, Gozzi’s Turandot is a surprisingly feminist work: an individual living in the shadow of power, tired of the subsidiary role women had to play in the culture of ancient China, is determined to control her own destiny and devises a system of riddles to promote her superiority over men. In the opera, her motivation is mollified by avenging a ravaged ancestress, which thinly veils her own fears of sexual experience. The emperor very much regrets the pact he made with his daughter in good faith – Gozzi’s play indicates every beheading of a royal prince initiates another war with a foreign country.

Princess Turandot Costume sketches by André Barbe

Gozzi’s Turandot was cast as a lengthy fiveact drama, which the librettists had to condense considerably. Though the creators toiled over whether or not the opera would have two or three acts, they did agree on a concise dramatic flow that would take place in a narrow Aristotelian timeframe – from moonrise to sunrise. Gozzi’s fascination with the Italian commedia dell’arte required four of the traditional masks (Pantalone, Tartaglia, Brighella, Truffaldino) to serve in the royal household. Puccini was weary of this antiquated theatrical cliché but reconsidered later in the process – their inclusion, albeit redefined as the Chinese ministers Ping, Pang and Pong,

The tightening of the play’s denouement in the opera posed its own problems.

Finding out Calaf ’s unknown name is key to both works, but Gozzi’s plan proved to be too intricate and time-consuming, involving too many characters. His Turandot discovers the name by way of her servant, who turns on Calaf when her own amorous advances are repelled. Turandot intends to set him free but is moved when Calaf attempts to kill himself if she will not submit (the sentence of his execution having been commuted much earlier in the play).

Puccini invented the character of Liù in part to solve this problem, conflating three of Gozzi’s handmaids into one and transferring Calaf ’s aborted suicide to Liù’s fatal one. The design was intended to thaw Turandot’s icy demeanor with Liù’s self-sacrifice, but in the finished product, his efforts seemed to have backfired – the quick transition to Calaf ’s kiss and the ensuing love duet makes both characters appear quite callous in light of Liù’s recent demise.

Arturo Toscanini, slated to conduct the premiere, made it his mission to see the opera completed. Puccini had left behind a number of sketches for the final bars of music and had played some of the excerpts for the conductor before his death. Franco Alfano was engaged to bring these ideas to fruition.

Alfano was a composer of some merit but was chosen chiefly because it was believed he would not imprint too much of his style upon Puccini’s own. What may have appeared to be a great honor became a painful task, one that Alfano took on with some trepidation.

Throughout the process, he was bullied by his own publisher, the House of Ricordi, and was not allowed to review Puccini’s orchestration for the rest of the opera until very late in the process. The premiere was rescheduled for the first anniversary of Puccini’s death in November, but an eye ailment delayed Alfano’s completion of the opera. Upon finally hearing the finished ending, Toscanini discovered that Alfano had not used all of the musical fragments and felt there was too much of the younger composer’s original music. He was forced to revise his ending, shortening it by about 100 bars and incorporating more of Puccini’s ideas. It is this version that is generally performed, but at the belated

premiere on April 25, 1926, Toscanini refused to conduct the new finale, resting his baton after Liù’s death and stating to the audience, “At this point the Maestro died.”

Turandot occupies a unique point in the history of opera. It takes an about-face from the realism of Italian verismo style popular at the turn of the century (marked by the works of Ruggero Leoncavallo, Pietro Mascagni and Umberto Giordano, all but a few moribund by 1924), moving toward the vogue for fantasy-fable themes of the early 20th century (evidenced

by Igor Stravinsky’s Le Rossignol, Ferruccio Busoni’s Turandot, Richard Strauss’ Die Frau ohne Schatten and Sergei Prokofiev’s L’amour des trois oranges, among others). Arguably

Emperor Altoum seconded by Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier, Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes or Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress, Turandot remains the most frequently performed opera of those composed in the 20th century and beyond.

Gozzi and His Turandot His dramas are rarely performed today, but Carlo Gozzi’s works still live in operas by Puccini, Richard Wagner, Hans Werner

Henze and Prokofiev. Gozzi (1720–1806) was born to a proud Venetian noble family that had fallen on hard times – two thirds of their hereditary villa, which once included a small theater, had been sold brick by brick in order to raise more ill-spent capital. His first play, L’amore delle tre melarancie (The Love for Three Oranges), was intended to be his only drama, but its enormous popularity led to further works. This rather amateurish pursuit quickly put him into a theatrical imbroglio with fellow playwright Carlo Goldoni (1707–1793), a noted dramatist and librettist. Their point of contention was the 16th-century Italian commedia dell’arte, an improvised comedy with stock characters, predictable situations and plenty of slapstick and vulgarity. Commedia dell’arte was in decline by the 18th century, but Goldoni hoped to give it new life by eliminating much of the buffoonery and introducing a socially progressive, newly enlightened pragmatism, with the actors conforming to predetermined text instead of improvisation, and requiring the largely middle-class audience to face its own vices and virtues. Gozzi preferred a more traditional approach – while also forcing his actors to adhere to specific lines, he interwove the traditional masked characters into his own magical world of mysticism and allegory.

Gozzi believed he could attract large audiences with frivolously titled, unrealistic plots.

He was right – Gozzi’s plays were exceedingly popular, forcing Goldoni to leave Venice and seek his fortune elsewhere. Though the latter would achieve greater renown in literary history, Gozzi’s star continued to rise beyond the Italian border. With the transition to Romanticism, his dramas were of particular interest to the German precursors of the movement. Friedrich von Schiller would make a translation/adaptation of Turandot to be directed by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

(Schiller’s version would later be translated back into Italian by Andrea Maffei, Verdi’s good friend and sometimes collaborator.)

Gozzi’s dark-edged fantasy also fueled the imagination of e.t.a. Hoffmann, who

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By March 1924 the composer had completed the orchestration of the opera up to the chords following Liù’s funeral cortege. What remained was the final duet and conclusion. Puccini was anxious to obtain the remaining lines from his librettists, who were somewhat dilatory in their work as they pursued other projects.

In October, Puccini finally had received the ending of the opera, but by that time he was involved in a fight for his life. A persistent pain in his throat had been diagnosed as cancer, and after seeing several doctors, Puccini agreed to see a specialist in Brussels. There several radioactive needles were inserted into his throat in a painful operation that required the composer to be conscious for fear of the strain on his heart. At first the prognosis was good, but four days later he unexpectedly suffered a cardiac arrest and died.

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background notes continued

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was not only a writer but also a composer of some merit, as well as the similarly morose American poet Edgar Allan Poe, who referred to Gozzi’s Il corvo when he wrote The R aven. Wagner adapted La donna serpente to become his early opera Die Feen, and Puccini’s Le villi owes a debt Calaf of gratitude to the playwright as well. Turandot became the most frequently adapted of Gozzi’s narratives, set five times during the 19th century (including one opera

by Puccini’s teacher, Antonio Bazzini, then another by Busoni in 1917), before Puccini would get his hands on it.

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Naturally Gozzi’s Turandot is a far more complicated matter than Puccini’s opera, incorporating many more characters and subsidiary plots. The central themes remain – the idea of a life threatening challenge-byriddle and the overall “battle of the sexes” – and can trace their lineage back to Greek mythology. We recall Oedipus’ encounter with the Sphinx before the gates of Thebes and the victim-devouring monster’s seemingly unsolvable three-part riddle (“What walks on four feet in the morning, on two at midday and on three in the evening?”). Oedipus offers up the correct answer (“Man”), which gains him an easy victory and the rule of the surrounding lands. Man pitted against Woman goes back to the creation of the Amazon state by way of conquest by invading and ravaging marauders.

Queen Tanais is forced to marry the Ethiopian King Vexoris, but she manages to murder him on their wedding night. Her bold act incites a rebellion, and the victorious Amazons institute an all-female rule. Tanais’ second spouse can only be a man who bests her on the battlefield.

Gozzi knew of these precedents but more likely turned to the Far East for inspiration, as he often did. Turandot may be of Chinese lore, but the play draws its specifics from such titles as The Travels of Marco Polo, The Persian Tales and The Arabian Nights. Like the Amazons, Polo’s adventures include a princess committed

conundrums, outwitting 99 noble princes to date.

Liù

to marrying the unlikely suitor who could prove her equal in the arena. François Pétis de la Croix’s French translation of the tale L’histoire du Prince Calaf et de la Princesse de la Chine (1712) most directly inspires the action of Turandot, though among Scheherazade’s 1,001 stories there is one appropriately titled “Wisdom under the Severed Heads.” Here the poor prince must endure a daylong battery of riddles (which he aptly answers) and gains the advantage only when the princess takes a moment to rest her voice. His enigma-inreturn proves unsolvable, and she readily agrees to marry him.

This is hardly the case with Gozzi’s Turandot.

Instead of Puccini’s myth-like, ice-hearted “daughter of heaven” we find a very real person, proud of her intelligence, badly spoiled by her father and frustrated by the subservient role required of women. Her professorial brain is her only weapon. When Calaf answers her enigmas correctly, she pouts and whines, claiming that she had not had sufficient time to prepare really difficult ones since the unfortunate Prince of Samarkand has only just received his death sentence.

Exhausted by the external conflicts his savage pact has wrought (once made under duress as his daughter lay gravely ill), Emperor Altoum stands firm in the face of the princess’ tantrum. Even after Calaf ’s offer of his own riddle – that of his unknown name and his father’s – Altoum encourages her to accept his hand in lieu of another public humiliation.

The drama becomes very much about Turandot’s rigid pride rather than her fear of intimacy, and rightly so – she has been smart enough to author a large body of impossible

We see a very human side of Turandot as she uses deception and guile to wangle her way out of a desperate situation, while her slave Adelma becomes a useful pawn in getting to the ultimate truth.

Hardly a sensitive, caring L iù-t yp e, Timur Adelma has her own agenda. She herself had once been a princess but was captured after her father fought an ill-conceived war against Altoum – apparently her brother had been among those foolish enough to seek Turandot’s hand. Forced to serve Turandot and pretend she is a friend, Adelma is naturally embittered, but the situation is complicated further when she recognizes Calaf as a man from the past – he had been employed as her gardener during his own princely exile (he and his parents had been nomadically traveling incognito, perilously pursued by the conqueror of their native Astrakhan).

Now that Adelma knows he is of royal blood she regrets not having followed her earlier attraction and bothering to learn his name.

Adelma tries to convince Calaf that running away with her is his best option, but he remains smitten with Turandot and blatantly uninterested in Adelma. She becomes irate and manages to trick Calaf ’s name out of him, which she then reveals to Turandot.

At the moment of reckoning, Turandot at first pretends that she has lost the battle, but without warning, throws her hollow victory in Calaf ’s face. When he desperately tries to stab himself, her emotions turn completely – moved by his noble act, she suddenly agrees to the marriage. Adelma’s hopes are now vanquished, and she takes a turn with the dagger but is stopped by Calaf, who requests that his new father-in-law restore her kingdom. The ending is a tidy one – in contrast to the operatic Turandot’s bold proclamation of newly found love, Gozzi’s heroine delivers a curtain speech implicitly intended for the audience, sheepishly begging the pardon of all men.

Giacomo Puccini b Lucca, December 22, 1858; d Brussels, November 29, 1924 iacomo Puccini was born into a family was rewarded with Manon Lescaut (1893), of court composers and organists in the Puccini’s first true success. historic city of Lucca, Italy. With a strong feeling During the 1890s Puccini began working of tradition in the Puccini with Luigi Illica, family, it was expected that who worked out the Giacomo would assume scheme and drafted the his deceased father’s dialogue, and with the position as maestro di poet and playwright cappella when he came of Giuseppe Giacosa, age – by 14 he already was who put Illica’s lines playing organ in a number into verse. Although of the town’s churches. But they had participated at age 18 a performance of in Manon Lescaut Verdi’s Aida inspired him (as part of a string of to devote his life to opera. several librettists), their In 1880 Puccini began first real collaboration composition studies with was La bohème (1896), Giacomo Puccini. Italian composer.

Amilcare Ponchielli at followed by Tosca Arturo Rietti (1863–1942) the Milan Conservatory (1900) and then Madame Museo Teatrale alla Scala (Milan, Italy) Scala /Art Resource, NY of Music. There he was Butterfly (1904). Giacosa introduced into the professional artists’ circle, died in 1906, putting an end to the successful to which he would belong for the rest of his life. team that produced three of Puccini’s most Puccini was not a prolific composer. enduring works.

Unlike most of his contemporaries, there were Puccini’s later operas were quite varied in long intervals between his operas, partly because their styles and subjects. La fanciulla del West of his fastidiousness in choosing subjects, (1910), set in the American West, is notable for several of which he took up only to abandon its advanced impressionistic orchestration and after several months, and partly because of composition. La rondine (1917) was designed his constant demands for modifications of to be a sentimental musical comedy in the the texts. Much of his time, too, was spent in Viennese style. Il trittico (1918) was a mixed bag hunting in the marshes around his home and in of one-act operas: Il tabarro, a tip-of-the-hat to trips abroad to supervise revivals of his works.

Italian verismo; Suor Angelica, a nun embroiled The composer’s first work for the stage, Le in a battle for the future of her illegitimate villi (1884), originally was submitted to a contest child; and, most popular of the three, Gianni sponsored by the music publisher Edoardo Schicchi, a comic masterpiece that features Sonzogno. The one-act opera received not even Puccini at his most exuberant. honorable mention, but Puccini was certain of Turandot (1926) was Puccini’s last (and its merit. He and librettist Ferdinando Fontana arguably his greatest) opera. He died before began to canvass the opera to the broader completing it, and although another composer circle of the Italian intelligentsia. One of these finished the job, at the premiere Arturo individuals was the highly influential Arrigo Toscanini set down his baton and refused to Boito (at that time in correspondence with Verdi continue past Puccini’s last note. about the preparation of the libretto for Otello), Puccini has been much maligned for his who was instrumental in getting Le villi staged. flirtation with popular music, but he had an The reception to the new work was mixed, uncanny feel for a good story and a talent for but the revised two-act version was staged in a composing enthralling yet economical music. number of cities outside of Italy (a remarkable Like many of his contemporaries, Puccini was feat for a virtually unknown composer). constantly tinkering with form and tonality, but Puccini’s next opera, Edgar (1889), however, his experiments were always subtle and without was a resounding critical failure, yet the astute controversy. Having produced only 12 operas, publisher, Giulio Ricordi, found fault in the the composer’s personal life was plagued with libretto only and promise in the music. He self doubt and laborious perfectionism, yet pitted himself against the shareholders of his he profoundly influenced the world of opera publishing house who demanded that Puccini with a deep understanding of music, drama be released from retainer. Ricordi’s confidence and humanity.

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the artists André Barbe set and costume designer After separate beginnings in dance, theater, television and opera, Renaud Doucet and André Barbe, joined forces in 2000. Since then they have created together more than 30 new opera productions.

André Barbe has designed more than 300 productions for theater, television and opera.

He received the Irish Times Irish Theatre Award 2005 for best set designer for the production of Pénélope at Wexford Festival Opera as well as the 2011 Rolf-Mares Prize for best sets and costumes for a production of La Cenerentola at the Hamburgische Staatsoper.

A trained musician, actor and dancer, Renaud Doucet was introduced to the opera world as a Baroque choreographer and gesture specialist, coaching singers such as Alfredo Kraus, Jaime Aragall, Raina Kabaivanska and Mirella Freni.

Their work as a team gained recognition with their new productions of Cendrillon at L’Opéra National du Rhin in Strasbourg, L’Opéra de Marseille, New York City Opera, Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe and L’Opéra de Montréal; the Viennese premiere of The Sound of Music, Turandot and Rusalka at

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Aaron Breid

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assistant conductor Aaron Breid is in his second season as a Minnesota Opera Resident Artist. In the 2012–2013 season, he has served as assistant/cover conductor and chorusmaster for productions of Nabucco, Anna Bolena, Doubt, Hamlet and Turandot.

Next season, he returns to conduct The Magic Flute. He also appears as a guest conductor with Ocala Symphony Orchestra.

Last season at Minnesota Opera, Mr. Breid served as assistant/cover conductor for Werther, conducted the first workshop for Doubt and was rehearsal pianist for Così fan tutte, Lucia di Lammermoor, Madame Butterfly and Silent Night. Additionally, he served as assistant conductor/coach and chorusmaster for Brevard Music Center’s productions of Il barbiere di Siviglia, h.m.s. Pinafore and La bohème.

Previously, Mr. Breid was assistant conductor in productions of La traviata and Die Fledermaus for Center Stage Opera (Los Angeles). He most recently made his European debut as a semifinalist in bdmi’s International Opera Conducting Competition in Bulgaria, conducting Don Giovanni, La traviata and Madame Butterfly.

For more biographical information about these artists, visit our website at mnopera.org/season or go to get.neoreader.com on your smartphone and then snap this tag.

Renaud Doucet stage director and choreographer the Volksoper Wien; Thaïs at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, L’Opéra de Montréal, Palm Beach Opera and Boston Lyric Opera; Fauré’s Pénélope and Adam’s Si j’étais roi at the Wexford Festival Opera; Benvenuto Cellini and Iphigénie en Aulide at L’Opéra National du Rhin; Pelléas et Mélisande and The Rape of Lucretia at L’Opéra de Montréal; Les contes d’Hoffmann at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Boston Lyric Opera, Opera Colorado and Florida Grand Opera; Samson et Dalila at the Kungliga Operan in Stockholm; Manon at the Scottish Opera; Lucia di Lammermoor, Pagliacci, Suor Angelica, Il barbiere di Siviglia and Carmen at Florida Grand Opera; and most recently, La Cenerentola at the Hamburgische Staatsoper, Turandot at Seattle Opera and Die Feen at Oper Leipzig in coproduction with Bayreuther Festspiele.

Future productions include Turandot at Cincinnati Opera, Thérèse and La Navarraise at Wexford, Manon at Malmö Opera, Don Pasquale at Scottish Opera, The Wizard of Oz at the Volksoper Wien and La belle Hélène at the Hamburgische Staatsoper.

Michael Christie conductor Michael Christie became Music Director of the Minnesota Opera in September 2012 after eight years as the Virginia G. Piper Music Director of the Phoenix Symphony. Michael opens his 13th season as music director of the Colorado Music Festival in Boulder, Colorado this year and has been music director of the Brooklyn Philharmonic and chief conductor of the Queensland Orchestra (Brisbane, Australia).

Recent opera engagements have included acclaimed productions with Opera Theatre of St. Louis (Alice in Wonderland, The Ghosts of Versailles and The Death of Klinghoffer), Wexford Festival Opera, Minnesota Opera (La traviata, Wuthering Heights, Silent Night, Madame Butterfly, Nabucco and Anna Bolena) and Aspen Opera Theatre (The Ghosts of Versailles and West Side Story).

In 2013, Michael helped inaugurate Opera Philadelphia’s ten-year New American Opera Project with the East Coast premiere of Silent Night.

Upcoming engagements include his San Francisco Opera debut conducting the world premiere of The Gospel of Mary Magdalene.

Brad Benoit pong In the three years he spent in the Resident Artist Program, tenor Brad Benoit sang many roles with the Minnesota Opera including Ruiz in Il trovatore, Arlecchino and Lampwick in The Adventures of Pinocchio, Count Almaviva in The Barber of Seville, Gabriele in Casanova’s Homecoming, Lord Cecil in Roberto Devereux, Parpingol in La bohème, the Third Jew in Salome and Gastone in La traviata. He also covered the roles of Don Ramiro in Cinderella, Leicester in Mary Stuart and Edgar in Wuthering Heights.

Last fall, Brad was a featured soldier in the world premiere of Kevin Puts’ Silent Night and covered Nikolaus Sprink, a role he sang at the last minute on opening night from the side of the stage to rave reviews.

Mr. Benoit has participated in several prestigious training programs at Santa Fe Opera, Chicago Opera Theater and the Staunton Music Festival. He has also performed the roles of Rinuccio in Gianni Schicchi for Opera in the Ozarks, and Roméo in Roméo et Juliette and Hadji in Lakmé at his alma mater, Loyola University. Mr. Benoit currently heads the vocal program at Shattuck St. Mary’s School.

Christie Hageman liù Soprano Christie Hageman joined the Minnesota Opera Resident Artist Program last fall, singing Anna in Nabucco, and returns next year as Pamina in The Magic Flute. During the 2011–2012 season, she was heard as Abigail Williams in The Crucible with Rimrock Opera, Juliette in Roméo et Juliette with Livermore Valley Opera, Micaëla in Carmen with Opera Fort Collins and Clorinda in La Cenerentola with Opera Colorado. Christie graduated with her master’s degree from the University of Colorado. Roles there include the title role in The Cunning Little Vixen, Emily in Our Town, Musetta in La bohème, Zerlina in Don Giovanni, Flora in La traviata and Paquette in Candide. Ms. Hageman has performed with the cu Symphonic Orchestra, the Billings Symphony Orchestra, Amalfi Coast Music Festival in Italy, Songfest Young Artist Program in Washington and on the Miss America stage in Las Vegas. She won first place in the prestigious Denver Lyric Opera Guild Competition in 2010 and was a regional finalist of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 2012.

The appearances of Kelly Kaduce, winner; Richard Ollarsaba, national finalist; Christie Hageman, Adam Laurence Herskowitz, John Robert Lindsey and Helen Todd, regional finalists; and Matthew Opitz, district finalist of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, are made possible through a Minnesota Opera Endowment Fund established for Artist Enhancement by Barbara White Bemis.

The appearances of the Resident Artists are made possible, in part, by the Virginia L. Stringer Endowment Fund for the Minnesota Opera Resident Artist Program.

the artists Adam Laurence Herskowitz

Kelly Kaduce

calaf Wagnerian tenor Adam Laurence Herskowitz has returned this year to the Metropolitan Opera for his fourth consecutive season in this year’s production of Aida. In past seasons, Adam has been seen at the Metropolitan Opera singing the roles of the Captain in Simon Boccanegra starring Plácido Domingo, the Messenger in Aida, Harry in La fanciulla del West, Don Riccardo in Ernani and the First Armed Man in The Magic Flute. He has also covered the roles of Froh in Das Rheingold and the Officer in Ariadne auf Naxos. His performances in Simon Boccanegra, Aida, La fanciulla del West and Ernani have all been broadcasted with the Metropolitan Opera’s Live in hd Series. In 2011, Mr. Herskowitz partook in the Metropolitan Opera’s Japan tour as the Herald in Don Carlo.

This past spring, Adam sang the role of Calaf in Turandot with the Toledo Opera. He has been seen in concert as a featured soloist with the Vermont Philharmonic, Plainfield Symphony and Bergen Philharmonic.

liù Kelly Kaduce is a soprano with a warm and rich voice, stunning beauty and superb acting ability. For her creation of the title role in Anna Karenina, Opera News proclaimed her “an exceptional actress whose performance was as finely modulated dramatically as it was musically … and her dark, focused sound was lusty and lyrical one moment, tender and floating the next.”

Ms. Kaduce’s 2012–2013 season engagements include singing Cio-Cio-San in Madama Butterfly with West Australian Opera, Anna Sørensen in Silent Night with Opera Philadelphia and Nedda in Pagliacci with Opera Theatre of St. Louis. Her 2011–2012 season included Nedda with Arizona Opera and Cincinnati Opera; the title role in Rusalka with L’Opéra de Montréal; Pat Nixon in Nixon in China with Eugene Opera; and Cio-Cio-San with Minnesota Opera. Recent successes include Rusalka with Opera Colorado and Minnesota Opera; Mimì in La bohème for Michigan Opera Theatre; Violetta in La traviata with Opera Tulsa; and Mimì with Portland Opera.

Mr. Herskowitz’s appearance is generously sponsored by a dedicated friend of Minnesota Opera.

Ms. Kaduce’s appearance is generously sponsored by Dr. Luis Pagan-Carlo.

John Allen Nelson

Richard Ollarsaba timur Bass-baritone Richard Ollarsaba recently completed his studies for a Master of Music degree and a Post Graduate Certificate from the University of North Carolina. His credits include Cecil in Maria Stuarda, Don Alfonso in Così fan tutte and Sir John Falstaff in Nicolai’s The Merry Wives of Windsor. He made his Piedmont Opera debut in its 2010 production of Il trovatore as Ferrando and returned for productions of Don Giovanni as Masetto and The Crucible as Reverend Hale. He then reprised Ferrando for North Carolina Opera in 2012. This season he sang the High Priest in Nabucco and Rochefort in Anna Bolena for Minnesota Opera. Mr. Ollarsaba was a fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center and a two-time fellow at the Music Academy of the West. He was a national finalist for the 2013 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and a first place winner of the Charles A. Lynam Competition, which earned him featured performances of select arias with the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra, where he was praised for his “wonderful artistry and beautiful and moving voice” – cvnc.

pang Colorado native tenor John Robert Lindsey is a recent graduate of the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he earned his Master of Music in vocal performance under the tutelage of Julie Simson. Past engagements include the Tenor Soloist in Handel’s Messiah, Sam Polk in Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah, the Stage Manager in Ned Rorem’s Our Town and Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni. Mr. Lindsey was met with numerous successes in competitions recently.

He was a regional finalist in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions for the past two years, as well as taking third place in 2010 and first place in 2011 at the prestigious Denver Lyric Opera Guild competition.

For Minnesota Opera’s 2011–2012 season, Mr. Lindsey appeared as Jonathan Dale in Silent Night, Schmidt in Werther, Normanno in Lucia di Lammermoor and Goro in Madame Butterfly. He also sang a concert of Carmen highlights with the Mankato Symphony. This season he sings Ismaele in Nabucco, Hervey in Anna Bolena and Pang in Turandot, and next season he returns as Edmondo in Manon Lescaut, Elemer in Arabella and Marvin Heeno in Valentino.

Matthew Opitz ping A native of Arizona, baritone Matthew Opitz recently graduated from the Indiana University School of Music with a master’s degree in voice, where he later sang Eddie Carbone as a guest artist in A View from the Bridge. Other iu Opera credits include Professor Bhaer in Little Women, Mercutio in Roméo et Juliette, the Priest in The Light in the Piazza and Farfarello in The Love for Three Oranges. He also appeared as a soloist in Szymanowski’s Stabat mater, Britten’s Cantata Misericordium and Don Freund’s Passion with Tropes.

Mr. Opitz completed his undergraduate degree at Northern Arizona University, where his roles included Guglielmo in Così fan tutte, Count Carl-Magnus Malcom in A Little Night Music, Bob in The Old Maid and the Thief and Dr. Falke in Die Fledermaus. Most recently, he appeared as the Imperial Commissioner in Madame Butterfly for Arizona Opera and will be a Central City Young Artist this summer. In his first season as a Minnesota Opera Resident Artist, Mr. Opitz sings the First Gravedigger in Hamlet and Ping in Turandot. Next season, he returns as Lescaut in Manon Lescaut.

Minnesota Opera is a member of OPERA America.

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mandarin Baritone John Allen Nelson is a graduate of umkc Conservatory of Music with a master’s degree in vocal performance, and a bachelor’s degree from St. John’s University in Minnesota. He is a 2010 winner of the Society of Singers’ annual Graduate Scholarship competition. While at umkc, he performed the title role in Don Giovanni and Belcore in L’elisir d’amore.

Mr. Nelson spent two seasons at the Brevard Music Festival, where he performed Count Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro and Belcore in L’elisir d’amore. He has sung locally with Skylark Opera as Bogdanovitch in The Merry Widow and with Minnesota Opera as a Fantasy Rich Person in the American premiere of The Adventures of Pinocchio. He was a 2011– 2012 young artist at Opera Colorado, where he performed Count Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro (student matinee), the Trio in Trouble in Tahiti (Sideshow production), the Father in Hansel and Gretel and Zuniga in Carmen (both Opera on Tour). Recently, Mr. Nelson was a Des Moines Metro Opera apprentice artist, where he covered the title role in Don Giovanni.

John Robert Lindsey

Scenery and costumes for this production are jointly owned by Minnesota Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, Opera Philadelphia, Seattle Opera, Cincinnati Opera and Utah Opera.

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By arrangement with Hendon Music, Inc., a Boosey & Hawkes company, Sole Agent in the U.S., Canada and Mexico for Casa Ricordi/Universal Music Publishing Ricordi S.R.L., publisher and copyright owner.

the artists Scott Piper calaf Spinto tenor Scott Piper’s rich, resonant voice and charismatic stage presence have established him as a sought-after interpreter of opera’s romantic leading men, in such roles as Cavaradossi in Tosca, Don José in Carmen, Pinkerton in Madame Butterfly and Turiddu in Cavalleria rusticana. The Salt Lake Tribune wrote of his Utah Opera performance, “His voice was rich and natural, with baritone heft in the lower range; his heart-tugging third-act aria, ‘E lucevan le stelle’“ was one of the evening’s highlights.” In addition to these successes, Scott recently joined the illustrious faculty of the University of Michigan. Last season as he transitioned into the spinto repertoire, Scott sang Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor for Seattle Opera, Pinkerton for Opera New Jersey, Calaf for Pensacola Opera, Don José for Nashville Opera and Alfredo in La traviata for Indianapolis Opera. Last summer, he returned to Israel to sing Verdi’s Jerusalem.

This season he returns to Utah Opera as Manrico in Il trovatore and Luigi in Il tabarro with Cologne Opera in Germany. Future engagements include his debut at Austin Lyric Opera.

| MINNESOTA OPERA facebook.com/minnesotaopera

Vern Sutton

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emperor altoum Tenor Vern Sutton has been involved with music and theater in the Twin Cities for 52 years. For 35 of those years, he directed the opera program at the University of Minnesota, where he also taught classes in musicology.

Dr. Sutton eventually became the director of the school, and though he has been retired for ten years, continues his affiliation with the University’s Showboat.

Sutton sang his professional operatic debut in the first production of the Center Opera Company 50 years ago: the role of John in The Masque of Angels. He sang in eight productions of Center Opera, studied abroad on a Fulbright Fellowship and returned to sing with the newly named Minnesota Opera – in 32 different productions between 1970–1985.

He performed frequently for St. Paul Opera before it merged with Minnesota Opera.

Sutton was also a regular guest on A Prairie Home Companion and has been featured on eight phc recordings and the Disney video tape of the “Final” Broadcast. In 2002, Sutton directed Keillor’s parody opera Mr. and Mrs. Olson for the spco. He continues to be a featured performer aboard the phc cruises.

Irina Rindzuner turandot Metropolitan Opera soprano Irina Rindzuner was born in Russia. In the 2012–2013 season, Irina sings Aida and Salome at Staatstheater Braunschweig, and Turandot in Erfurt Summer Festival “Domstufen Erfurt.”

In 2011–2012, Ms. Rindzuner sang Turandot at the Saarlaendisches Staatstheater (Saarbruecken and Heilbronn), Abigaille in Nabucco in Erfurt, Leonora in Il trovatore at the Landestheater Linz and the Russian Seasons with the New York City Ballet, an engagement previously performed in the cities of London and Copenhagen. She also participated in a Turandot Live Stream, a role she has sung more than 40 times including for Teatro Municipal (Santiago, Chile) and National Lyric Opera.

Irina joined the Met roster in the 2008–2009 season. She also sang Minnie with the L’Opéra de Montréal, called a “stunning success” by the Montreal press. She has sung Manon Lescaut with the Utah Opera, Desdemona in Otello with the Vero Beach Opera and Santuzza in Cavalleria rusticana for her debut with New York City Opera.

Guy Simard lighting designer Born and raised in Montreal and graduate of the National Theatre School of Canada, Guy Simard has been teaching lighting design at the school for more than 25 years. He has also taught at the different schools in Belgium and France. With Renaud Doucet and André Barbe he has designed productions for numerous companies such as L’Opéra National du Rhin (France), L’Opéra de Marseille (France), Volksoper in Vienna (Austria), Royal Swedish Opera (Sweden), Hamburg State Opera (Germany), New York City Opera, Florida Grand Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Arizona Opera, Palm Beach Opera and Kentucky Opera. Throughout the years he has been lighting designer for more than 500 productions. He has received several awards for his achievements in lighting, including in 2000 Prize of the Public at the first International Symposium of Light in Canada.

Ms. Rindzuner’s appearance is generously sponsored

by Barbara and David Meline.

Helen Todd turandot Career highlights for soprano Helen Todd have included the Queen of the Night in Die Zauberflöte with New York City Opera, Arizona Opera, Tulsa Opera, Cleveland Opera, Nevada Opera, the Colorado Opera Festival and Minnesota Opera; Madame Mao in Nixon in China and Violetta in La traviata (Minnesota Opera); Aunt Lydia in the North American premiere of Poul Ruders’ The Handmaid’s Tale (Minnesota Opera and Canadian Opera Co.); the title role in Lucia di Lammermoor with Opera Illinois and Gold Coast Opera; Gilda in Rigoletto with Calgary Opera, Annapolis Opera and Cedar Rapids Opera; Fiorilla in Il turco in Italia with Cleveland Opera; Mimì in La bohème and Violetta with Asheville Lyric Opera; the title role in Susannah with Opera North; Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte with Arizona Opera; Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro with Connecticut Opera; Nedda in Pagliacci, Violetta and Mimì with Sugar Creek Symphony & Song; Curley’s Wife in Of Mice and Men with Cleveland Opera and Arizona Opera; and Juliette in Roméo et Juliette with Shreveport Opera and Sugar Creek Symphony & Song.

For more biographical information about these artists, visit our website at mnopera.org/season or go to get.neoreader.com on your smartphone and then snap this tag.

WANT TO SING WITH MINNESOTA OPERA? Chorus auditions for Minnesota Opera’s 2013–2014 season will be held

May 1, 2, 3 and 4, 2013 at Minnesota Opera Center, 620 North First Street in Minneapolis.

mnopera.org/OperaChorus

MINNESOTA OPERA ORCHESTRA VIOLIN I

VIOLA (continued)

OBOE

TRUMPET

Allison Ostrander Concertmaster Julia Persitz David Mickens Judy Thon-Jones Angela Hanson Andrea Een Conor O’Brien Natalia Moiseeva Giselle Hillyer

Jenny Lind Nilsson Susan Janda James Bartsch Valerie Little

Michael Dayton Jeffrey Marshak

John G. Koopmann Christopher Volpe Martin Hodel

VIOLIN II Laurie Petruconis Elizabeth Decker Stephan Orsak Melinda Marshall Maisie Block Lydia Miller Huldah Niles Heidi Amundson

VIOLA Emily Hagen Laurel Browne

CELLO Jim Jacobson Sally Dorer Rebecca Arons Thomas Austin Teresa Richardson Kirsten Whitson

ENGLISH HORN Mark Seerup

CLARINET Karrin MeffertNelson Nina Olsen

BASS CLARINET Paul Schulz

BASS

BASSOON

John Michael Smith Constance Martin Jason C. Hagelie Michael Watson

Coreen Nordling Laurie Hatcher Merz Cheryl Kelley

FLUTE

Matthew Wilson Charles Hodgson Timothy Bradley Lawrence Barnhart

Michele Frisch Amy Morris Eun Cho, double piccolo

HORN

TROMBONE Phillip Ostrander John Tranter David Stevens

TUBA Ralph Hepola

TIMPANI Kory Andry

PERCUSSION Matthew Barber Steve Kimball Paul Hill

HARP Min J. Kim

CELESTE Eric McEnany

CHORUS Matthew Abbas Carolyn Cavadini Joseph Clegg Cecile Crozat-Zawisa Steve Dahlberg Jennifer Eckes Carole Finneran Peter Frenz Thomas Glass Daniel Greco April Hanson Jeffrey Hill Ben Hills Erin Hodgson

Joe Holmers Stephen Houtz Cresta Hubert John Humphrey Ben Johnson Ryan Kantor Christine Killian Andy Kirk Erin Klenovitch Elizabeth Kohl Gary Kubert Jake LaSota Corissa Leonard Michelle Liebl

Maggie Lofboom Eric Mellum Chandler Molbert Jessica Nesbit Phong Nguyen Jon Thomas Olson Ilah Raleigh Alex Ritchie Steve Sandberg Allison Schardin Grant Scherzer Bob Schmidt Cathryn Schmidt Lauren Stepka

Mark Thomas Derrick Tilus Lara Trujillo Eryn Tvete Rachel Vickers Lola Watson Tom Westbrook Hye Won Kim Dominique Wooten Natalie Young Tracey Zavadil

Cassie Klinga Luisa Kuah Roni Petersen Isabel Rousmaniere

Emma Shine Jennah Slayton David Timm Claire Walsh

Gabi Gray Stephen Hage Ellie Hahn Zach Hodgkins Joseph Johnson Kevin Klein Meredith Larson

Thomas Lorendo Stephen McIntyre Sebastian Miezianko Andrew Northrop Quinn Ocheltree Anthony Rohr Charlie Schirvar

Ronald Schulz Shelby Scott Jonathan Slayton Jay Soulen Michael Walker Fletcher Zavadil

Alyssa Mann Megan McClellan

Colleen McClellan Ueland

Leslie O’Neill

CHILDREN’S CHORUS Eva Clelland Mackenzie Cross Ellen Ferry John Gisselquist

Maggie Hayes Emma Hutson Tessa Johansen Miranda Kettlewell

SUPERNUMERARIES Joe Allen Maddie Anderson Lilian Burrows Mackenzie Clymer Alex Cotant Joseph Crook Chari Eckmann

Mary Ann Bradley Natalie Braun

PRODUCTION MULTIMEDIA

MINNESOTA PUBLIC RADIO®

A & C Publishing, Inc. – Wendy Wagner, Director of Operations

Classical MPR – Broadcast Recording

Aleutian Calabay – Publicity Photographer

QuarterTon Productions – Publicity Video

Michal Daniel – Production Photographer

Mike Reed – Production Sketch Artist

| TURANDOT

DANCERS

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2003–2004 Rigoletto Lucrezia Borgia Passion The Magic Flute the annual fund goal of $2.2 million is surpassed by $400,000. season features william burden, bruce ford, vivica genaux, jason howard and patricia racette.

2004–2005 Madame Butterfly Maria Padilla Carmen Nixon in China

10 the opera at the ordway initiative has its official launch.

2005–2006 Tosca Don Giovanni Orazi e Curiazi Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man the opera presents the american premiere of orazi e curiazi, a bel canto rarity. kevin ramach becomes production director.

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project opera, a component of minnesota opera’s education program, is formed and presents a fully staged version of hansel and gretel. a warehouse on stinson boulevard is purchased for scenery storage.

2006–2007 La donna del lago The Tales of Hoffmann The Grapes of Wrath Lakmé The Marriage of Figaro

minnesota opera presents the world premiere of the grapes of wrath, a critical and popular success. plans for renovating the mcknight theater into a concert hall are unveiled, impacting the opera’s rehearsal time at the ordway.

2007–2008 A Masked Ball The Italian Girl in Algiers Romeo and Juliet The Fortunes of King Croesus Rusalka the opera presents the american premiere of the fortunes of king croesus, a baroque rarity. imagineopera.org, the opera’s education website, is launched. the arts partnership signs its master agreement.

2008–2009 Il trovatore The Abduction from the Seraglio Faust The Adventures of Pinocchio The Barber of Seville the new works initiative is established with the american premiere of the adventures of pinocchio.

2009–2010 The Pearl Fishers Casanova’s Homecoming Roberto Devereux La bohème Salome the opera presents the first installment of donizetti’s tudor trilogy, roberto devereux.

2010–2011 Orpheus and Eurydice Cinderella Mary Stuart La traviata Wuthering Heights minnesota opera revives bernard herrmann’s wuthering heights, which had seen only one other production in 1982.

2011–2012 Così fan tutte Silent Night Werther Lucia di Lammermoor Madame Butterfly the world premiere of silent night receives the pulitzer prize for music. kevin ramach becomes president and general director. an internet broadcast of werther reaches more than 77,000 people in 18 countries. project opera presents its co-commission the giver, which is later streamed on the internet. ticket revenue reaches an all-time high.

2012–2013 Nabucco Anna Bolena Doubt Hamlet Turandot michael christie is appointed music director. silent night is broadcast on public television. the opera presents the world premiere of doubt as the centerpiece of its 50th anniversary season. with a budget of $10 million, minnesota opera is the 15th largest opera company in north america.

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The Fifth Decade

2003-2013 Interview with Dale Johnson

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Artistic Director

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became friends with [recently retired president] Kevin Smith in New York while coaching at the Met in the 1980s. I had always heard what a great, adventurous company Minnesota Opera was, and in the spring of 1984 when I was on tour with the Met, Kevin hired me as a principal coach, chorusmaster and music administrator. In 1994 after several other roles at the company, I was named Artistic Director.

A real turnaround period for Minnesota Opera started in 1995. Prior to that time, there was always a philosophical tug – is it opera? Is it musical theater? Kevin and the Board launched an ambitious artistic development campaign, and when we announced a major new coproduction of Turandot, there was a lot of skepticism, but its success took everyone by surprise. We were making enough money to produce in a large venue, and so we were able to move our whole mainstage season, including our commission, Bok Choy Variations, back to the Ordway.

Kevin wanted to work on strategically building the institution, and he trusted me with the artistic product, which allowed us to do things that we had never thought of doing, like Transatlantic (1998). The audience truly began to take notice of the company, and we attracted a whole new rank of singers like Greer Grimsley, Brenda Harris, Vivica Genaux and James Morris.

As our casts were getting better and our chorus became among the best in the country, we wanted to make sure the secondary roles were of the highest quality possible, so we put together a training program in 1998.

With our Resident Artist Program, we try to develop singers that we can hire back in major roles: James Valenti, Andrew Wilkowske, Karin Wolverton and Adriana Zabala, among the many.

At the same time, the company adopted a Bel Canto philosophy (at the center of every production is the singer and their ability to make magic out of the words and music) and began its commitment to Bel Canto repertoire. Starting with a controversial production of Semiramide in 2000, probably one of the best sung operas at this company, the Bel Canto focus became very exciting because nobody else was doing it.

I think one of our biggest successes was Maria Padilla in 2004, a totally undiscovered piece by Donizetti, for which the audience went crazy.

PHOTOS: (1) Maria Padilla (2005) (2) Roberto Devereux (2010) (3) The Pearl Fishers (2009) (4) Casanova's Homecoming (2009) (5) Silent Night (2011) (6) Rusalka (2008) (7) The Adventures of Pinocchio (2009) (8) Nabucco (2012) (9) The Grapes of Wrath (2007) (10) Hamlet (2013) (11) Rigoletto (2003) All photos on these two pages: Michal Daniel

As our confidence as a producer grew and we saw the success of Transatlantic, we started looking at these newer pieces in a more vigorous way. For me, it was the production of Ruders’ The Handmaid’s Tale (2003) that started us on the current journey of reconnecting with our history as a producer of new works. It led to Passion (2004), Nixon in China (2005) and Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man (2006), but most importantly, it also revived our desire to create a Minnesota Opera commission, The Grapes of Wrath (2007). You hope that pieces like this can enter into peoples’ daily lives, and this one did. The community embraced Grapes, and it became one of the great American operas of that decade. Afterwards, we knew that we had to get back into the business of creating new work, and to make it a centerpiece of our season as opposed to ghettoizing it in a smaller space. This is what led to the New Works Initiative, of which we’re now in the fifth successful season.

We also spent a lot of time trying to improve on various artistic aspects of Minnesota Opera over the years. We began a search for a Music Director for our orchestra and auditioned a lot of people over a sevenyear period. When Michael Christie conducted La traviata, I suddenly saw the players sitting up straighter, their eyes glowing and smiles on their faces. It is really important to have someone take the orchestra to the next level, to make sure they are capable of playing every kind of music we throw at them, and Michael was the guy to take them there.

My predictions for the future of Minnesota Opera?

We will be one of the largest arts organizations in the Twin Cities; we will become even more of an industry leader; the growth of our budget will be pretty aggressive over the next decade; and we will see a lot of people coming to Minnesota to experience our productions.

We will continue to be a leader in the creation of new works and in the exploration of pieces that fly under the radar. Our audience is very smart and adventurous. As great as La bohème and Carmen are, they don’t want to see them every five years; they want to experience new things. I think you’ll see a big expansion of repertoire as we create interesting places for opera in and around the Twin Cities in addition to remaining faithful to our home at the Ordway.

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| MINNESOTA OPERA mnopera.org

spencer stuart is proud to support minnesota opera

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We are pleased to present conductor Maestro Michael Christie in Minnesota Opera’s production of Turandot.

education at the opera

Project OPERA In February, Project Opera performed Shoes for the Santo Niño by Stephen Paulus, Down in the Valley by Kurt Weill, and Noye’s Fludde by Benjamin Britten, to sold-out houses. All three operas were entirely student performed.

Project Opera is a vocal training program for students ages 10–18 and is directed by Dale Kruse.

| MINNESOTA OPERA mnopera.org

Jarret Kliez as Noah looks upon Sophia McCoy as the Dove in Noye’s Fludde. Photo by Sigrid Redpath.

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Two Summer Camps for Kids Summer Opera Camp June 9–14

Children’s Chorus Summer Camp June 4–6 and 13–16

Campers, grades 9–12, will focus on staging operatic scenes with daily sessions in vocal coaching and stage movement. Participants gain valuable experience working in a professional and nurturing environment, and will be considered to perform in the chorus of La bohème at Opera under the Stars.

For singers in grades 3–8, this summer camp is an incredible opportunity to learn the children’s chorus music from La bohème and perform with the Minnesota Opera Children’s Chorus at Opera under the Stars.

The residential camp is held on the beautiful campus of ShattuckSt. Mary’s School in Faribault, Minnesota.

A scene from The Magic Flute.

Photo by Sigrid Redpath.

Auditions for both camps – Monday, April 15 and Saturday, April 20 Check out imagineopera.org/summercamp for more information.

Minnesota Opera’s New Works Initiative has gone global!

Minnesota Opera’s world premiere production of Silent Night has been nominated for the International Opera Awards.

Join Minnesota Opera, one of only three American companies to be nominated, in celebrating this great honor.

Support the New Works Initiative in its final stage by contacting Kelly Kuczkowski at 612-342-9565 or kkuczkowski@mnopera.org.

Support locally, win globally.

For more information, visit mnopera.org/nwi.

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| MINNESOTA OPERA mnopera.org

minnesota opera staff

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

President and General Director | Kevin Ramach Artistic Director | Dale Johnson Music Director | Michael Christie

OFFICERS

ARTISTIC

PRODUCTION

Artistic Administrator | Roxanne Stouffer Artist Relations and Planning Director | Floyd Anderson Dramaturg | David Sander Artistic Associate | Bill Murray Resident Artists | Aaron Breid, Daniel Ellis, Christie Hageman, John Robert Lindsey, Eric McEnaney, Sheldon Miller, Richard Ollarsaba, Matthew Opitz, Mary-Lacey Rogers, Victoria Vargas Master Coaches | Lara Bolton, Mary Jo Gothmann Resident Artist Program Instructors | Cecile Crozat Zawisza, Ana d’Archuleta, Barbara Kierig, George Smith, Ryan Taylor

Production Stage Manager | Alexander Farino Assistant Stage Managers | Shayna j. Houp, Andrew Landis Production Assistant | Mallory Lammer Production Administrative Assistant | Katherine Cattrysse Stage Management Intern | Monica DeRee

COSTUMES

DEVELOPMENT

Assistant Costume Shop Manager | Beth Sanders Wardrobe Supervisor | Emily Rosenmeier Workroom Assistant | Sarah Bahr Drapers | Chris Bur, Yancey Thrift First Hands | Helen Ammann, Kelsey Glasener, Allison Guglielmi Stitchers | Rebecca Ballas, Ann Habermann, Rachel Skudlarek Wig/Makeup Supervisors | Priscilla Bruce, Ashley Joyce, Dominick Veldman

Director of the Annual Fund | Dawn Loven Institutional Gifts Manager | Beth Comeaux Advancement Manager | Kelly Kuczkowski Donor Events and Gala Manager | Emily Skoblik Individual Gifts Officer | Jenna Wolf

Technical Director | Mike McQuiston Properties Master | Jenn Maatman Properties Assistant | Michael C. Long Lighting Coordinator | Ray Steveson Assistant Lighting Coordinator | Tom Rost Production Carpenter | JC Amel Scene Shop Foreman | Rod Aird Master Carpenters | Steven Rovie, Eric Veldey Carpenters | Nate Kulenkamp, Steve Dalglish Charge Painter | Jeffery Murphey

Finance Director | Jeff Couture Operations/Systems Manager | Steve Mittelholtz HR/Accounting Manager | Jennifer Thill Director of Board Relations | Theresa Murray Finance Assistant | Michelle Gould Data Specialist | Rosalee McCready

EDUCATION Community Education Director | Jamie Andrews Teaching Artist | Bergen Baker Project Opera Music Director | Dale Kruse Project Opera Accompanist | Kathy Kraulik Project Opera Program Assistant | Anna Schmidt

MARKETING/COMMUNICATIONS Marketing & Communications Director | Lani Willis Marketing Manager | Katherine Castille Communications Manager | Daniel R. Zillmann Marketing Associate | Kristin Matejcek Online Content Specialist | Adam Holisky Ticket Office Manager | Julie Behr Assistant Ticket Office Manager | Kevin Beckey Ticket Office Associate | Sarah Fowler Ticket Office Assistants | Carol Corich, Kärsten Jensen, Emma Lynn, Carrie Walker Communications Interns | Sabrina Crews, Ted Schaller, Corinne Standish, Luke Thompson

The following volunteers contribute their time and talent to support the key activities of Minnesota Opera. If you would like to learn more about volunteering please visit mnopera.org/volunteer, email volunteering@mnopera.org or call Jenna Wolf at 612-342-9569.

Kärsten Jensen Jeanie Johnston Robin Keck David Lightstone Jenny Lightstone Jerry Lillquist Joyce Lillquist

Mary McDiarmid Verne Melberg Barbara Moore Douglas Myhra Candyce Osterkamp Dan Panshin Pat Panshin

Patricia Beithon Wendy Bennett Shari Boehnen Rachelle D. Chase Jane M. Confer Jodi Dehli Sara Donaldson Chip Emery Bianca Fine Sharon Hawkins Ruth S. Huss Heinz F. Hutter James Johnson Patricia Johnson James Langdon Christine Larsen Robert Lee

Lynne E. Looney Steven Mahon David Meline Leni Moore Albin “Jim” Nelson Luis Pagan-Carlo Jose Peris Elizabeth Redleaf Connie Remele Don Romanaggi Christopher Romans Mark Schwarzmann Nadege Souvenir Simon Stevens Virginia Stringer H. Bernt von Ohlen Margaret Wurtele

EMERITI Karen Bachman John A. Blanchard, III Burton Cohen

Julia W. Dayton Mary W. Vaughan

HONORARY DIRECTORS Dominick Argento Philip Brunelle Dolly Fiterman

Norton M. Hintz Liz Kochiras Patricia H. Sheppard

LEGAL COUNSEL James A. Rubenstein, Moss & Barnett

TEMPO BOARD AND VOLUNTEERS

minnesota opera volunteers Gerald Benson Debra Brooks Jerry Cassidy Judith Duncan Jane Fuller Joan Gacki Merle Hanson

DIRECTORS

Eric Peterson Sydney Phillips Wendi Sott Barbara Willis

Minnesota Opera is a proud member of The Arts Partnership with Ordway Center for the Performing Arts, The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and The Schubert Club.

Ryan Alberg Thomas Bakken Leslie Carey Melissa Daul Jennifer Engel Laura Green Benjamin Jones (Board Chair)

Carolina Lamas Susan M Leppke Kristin Matejcek (Staff Liaison) Megan Mehl Jamie Nieman Polina Saprygina Rhonda Skoby Lauren Viner

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SCENERY

ADMINISTRATION

Rachelle D. Chase, Chair Kevin Ramach, President and General Director James Johnson, Vice Chair Robert Lee, Secretary Patricia Johnson, Treasurer

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annual fund | individual giving It is with deep appreciation that Minnesota Opera recognizes and thanks all of the individual donors whose annual support helps bring great opera to life. It is our pleasure to give special recognition to the following individuals whose leadership support provides the financial foundation which makes the Opera’s artistic excellence possible.

For information on making a contribution to Minnesota Opera, please call Dawn Loven, Director of the Annual Fund at 612-342-9567, or email her at dloven@mnopera.org.

bel canto circle Platinum $25,000 and above Anonymous (1) Tracy and Eric Aanenson Mary and Gus Blanchard Jane M. and Ogden W. Confer Julia W. Dayton Vicki and Chip Emery Mr. and Mrs. William Frels Ruth and John Huss Heinz Hutter Mr. and Mrs. Philip Isaacson James E. Johnson

Lucy Rosenberry Jones The Art and Martha Kaemmer Fund of HRK Foundation Elizabeth Redleaf Mrs. Mary W. Vaughan C. Angus and Margaret Wurtele

Gold $15,000–$24,999 Anonymous (1) Ellie and Tom Crosby, Jr. Sara and Jock Donaldson

William I. and Bianca M. Fine Charitable Trust N. Bud and Beverly Grossman Foundation Robert L. Lee and Mary E. Schaffner Barbara and David Meline Moore Family Fund for the Arts Judy Mortrude and Steven Mahon Albin and Susan Nelson Ronning Family Foundation Joseph Sammartino Bernt von Ohlen and Tom Nichol

Silver $10,000–$14,999

Ken and Peggy Bonneville Dr. Lee Borah, Jr. Margee and Will Bracken Conley Brooks Family Juliet Bryan and Jack Timm Christopher J. Burns Mr. and Mrs. Richard A. Carlson Darlene J. and Richard P. Carroll Nicky B. Carpenter Rusty and Burt Cohen Gisela Corbett Page and Jay Cowles Thomas and Mary Lou Detwiler Mona and Patrick Dewane Ralph D. Ebbott Nancy and Rolf Engh Rondi Erickson and Sandy Lewis Gail Fiskewold Patricia R. Freeburg Meg and Wayne Gisslen Mrs. Myrtle Grette Michele Harris and Peter Tanghe Dorothy Horns and James Richardson Dr. and Mrs. Arthur Horowitz Bill and Hella Mears Hueg Dale A. Johnson Robert and Susan Josselson Warren and Patricia Kelly Lyndel and Blaine King Robert Kriel and Linda Krach

David MacMillan and Judy Krow Helen L. Kuehn James and Kate Langdon Dr. Caliann Lum Roy and Dorothy Mayeske Mary Bigelow McMillan Karla Miller Dr. and Mrs. Alfred Moore Sandy and Bob Morris Nancy and Richard Nicholson Mr. and Mrs. Rolf Peters Marge and Dwight Peterson Mrs. William Phillips Sara and Kevin Ramach Rhoda and Paul Redleaf Mary and Paul Reyelts Thomas D. and Nancy J. Rohde Nina and Ken Rothchild James A. Rubenstein, Moss & Barnett Kay Savik and Joe Tashjian Mary H. and Christian G. Schrock Drs. Joseph and Kristina Shaffer Lynda and Frank Sharbrough Stephanie Simon and Craig Bentdahl Stephanie C. Van D'Elden William Voedisch and Laurie Carlson Dr. Craig and Stephanie Walvatne Nancy and Ted Weyerhaeuser Woessner Freeman Family Foundation

Mr. and Mrs. R. James Gesell Heidi and Howard Gilbert Stanley and Luella Goldberg Dr. Richard Gregory Sima and Clark Griffith Bruce and Jean Grussing Ms. Susanne Haas and Mr. Ross Formell Mr. and Mrs. Roger Hale Elizabeth and Jule Hannaford Hackensack Fund of The Saint Paul Foundation Don Helgeson and Sue Shepard Karen and John Himle Andrew Holly and Svea Forsberg-Holly Jean McGough Holten Thomas Hunt and John Wheelihan Ekdahl Hutchinson Family Fund of The Minneapolis Foundation Teresa and Chuck Jakway Barbara Jenkins Margaret and Philip Johnson Wadad Kadi Stan and Jeanne Kagin Nancy and Donald Kapps Thomas A. Keller, iii

E. Robert and Margaret V. Kinney Fund of The Minneapolis Foundation Hugh Klein and Judy Lebedoff Gerard Knight Mrs. James S. Kochiras Kyle Kossol and Tom Becker Constance and Daniel Kunin Mark and Elaine Landergan Christl and Andrew Larson Stefanie Lenway and Tom Murtha Mr. and Mrs. Seymour Levy Joyce and Jerry Lillquist Diane and David Lilly, Jr. Bill Long Helen and Ben Liu Dawn M. Loven Margery Martin and Dan Feidt Barbara McBurney Laura McCarten Helen and Charles McCrossan Sheila McNally Deb and Jon McTaggart Judith and James Mellinger Velia R. Melrose David and LaVonne Middleton

Anonymous (2) Karen Bachman Donald E. Benson Susan Boren Sharon and Bill Hawkins Kathleen and John Junek Harvey T. McLain Mary Ingebrand Pohlad Kay Ness and Chris Wolohan Connie and Lew Remele Robert and Barbara Struyk Maggie Thurer and Simon Stevens

camerata circle Platinum $7,500–$9,999 Allegro Fund of The Saint Paul Foundation Patricia and John Beithon Shari and David Boehnen Rachelle Dockman Chase Patricia Johnson and Kai Bjerkness Erwin and Miriam Kelen Jose Peris and Diana Gulden Lois and John Rogers Patricia and Don Romanaggi Jennifer and Chris Romans Chris and Mark Schwarzmann Carolyn, Sharon and Clark Winslow

Gold $5,000–$7,499 Anonymous (2) Martha and Bruce Atwater Fund of The Minneapolis Foundation William Biermaier and David Hanson Kathleen Callahan Alexis and Michael Christie Mary Lee Dayton Cy and Paula Decosse Fund of The Minneapolis Foundation Jodi Dehli Dolly J. Fiterman

Alfred and Ingrid Lenz Harrison Andrew Houlton Cynthia and Jay Ihlenfeld Patricia Johnson and Kai Bjerkness Debra and James Lakin Chris Larsen and Scott Peterson Mary and Barry Lazarus Ilo and Peggy Leppik Lynne Looney Mr. and Mrs. Donald Lucker Mr. and Mrs. Reid MacDonald Kendrick B. Melrose Family Foundation Diana and Joe Murphy Bill and Barbara Pearce Shawn and Brad Pleimann Stephanie Prem and Tom Owens Sergio Rial Susan and Barry Snyder Nadege Souvenir Virginia L. and Edward C. Stringer Dr. and Mrs. Andrew J. Thomas Lori and Herbert Ward

Silver $2,500–$4,999 Anonymous (4) Nina and John Archabal Martha Goldberg Aronson and Daniel Aronson Annette Atkins and Tom Joyce Alexandra O. Bjorklund

$1,000–$2,499 Anonymous (4) Mary and Charles Anderson Kim A. Anderson Lowell Anderson and Kathy Welte Jamie Andrews and Jane Kolp-Andrews Ruth and Dale Bachman In memory of Kent Bales Ann and Thomas Bagnoli Mr. and Mrs. Judson Bemis, Jr. Patricia and Martin Blumenreich Mrs. Paul G. Boening Allan Bradley Ellen and Jan Breyer Rita and Kenneth Britton Juliet Bryan and Jack Timm Ann and Glen Butterman Scott Cabalka Elwood and Florence Caldwell Joan and George Carlson Mr. and Mrs. Richard A. Carlson Wanda and David Cline In Memory of Kathy Coleman Barb and Jeff Couture Susan and Richard Crockett

Helen and John Crosson Jeff and Wendy Dankey Mary and Kevin Date Fran Davis Judson Dayton Ruth and Bruce Dayton The Denny Fund of The Minneapolis Foundation Rebecca and Jay Debertin Margaret DiBlasio Elise Donohue Joe Dowling and Siobhan Cleary Joan Duddingston Joyce and Hugh Edmondson Ann Fankhanel Ester and John Fesler Joyce and Hal Field Melanie and Bruce Flessner Salvatore Silvestri Franco Emil and Robert Fredericksen Kris and Kristina Fredrick Bradley Fuller and Elizabeth Lincoln Christine and Jon Galloway Christine and Michael Garner Katy Gaynor

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artist circle

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annual fund | individual giving artist circle (continued) Barbara and Edward Mills Judy and David Myers Elizabeth B. Myers Kaye and Terry Myhre Louis Newell Joan and Richard Newmark Pat and Dan Panshin Derrill M. Pankow Paula Patineau Sally and Tom Patterson Suzanne and William Payne Suzanne and Rick Pepin

Susan and David Plimpton Mary and Robert Price Kari and Dan Rasmus Tom Rassieur and Chichi Steiner Mr. and Mrs. Winthrop Rockwell John and Sandra Roe Foundation Chris and Jeff Rotsch Kim and Peter Rue Kristine and Roger Ruckert Terry Saario and Lee Lynch Anne and Lee Salisbury Sampson Family Charitable Foundation

Dr. and Mrs. Richard J. Schindler Gloria and Fred Sewell Peter and Bonnie Sipkins Kevin and Lynn Smith Ardath and Glenn Solsrud Matthew Spanjers Julie and Bruce Steiner Donna Stephenson Kendall and Mitchell Stover Dana and Stephen Strand Michael Symeonides and Mary Pierce Dr. Norrie Thomas

Schelly and Bryn Vaaler Cindy and Steven Vilks Mr. and Mrs. Philip Von Blon Bryan Walker and Christine Kunewa-Walker James and Sharon Weinel Sonja and Jerry Wenger Frances and Frank Wilkinson Lani Willis and Joel Spoonheim Julie and Charlie Zelle

Dianne Brooke Allen Brookins-Brown Dr. Hannelore Brucker Thomas and Joyce Bruckner Joann Cierniak J.P. Collins Norma Danielson Eileen Dauer Amos and Sue Deinard Mary Elise Dennis Joshua A. Dorothy Holli Egerstrom Steven Engle C.D.F. Foundation Terence Fruth and Mary McEvoy Family Fund of The Minneapolis Foundation Jane Fuller Joan and William Gacki David and Terry Gilberstadt Roger L. Hale and Nor Hall David and Chris Hansen Bonita Hanson Ernest Harper Blanche and Thane Hawkins Sharon and Cliff Hill Norton and Mary Hintz Henry and Jean Hoover Worth L. Hudspeth Diane and Paul Jacobson Barbara Jenkins

Bryce and Paula Johnson Drs. Charles and Sally Jorgensen Markle Karlen Carole and Joseph Killpatrick Scott and Karla Lalim Chris and Marion Levy Ruth W. Lyons Mahley Family Foundation Dusty Mairs Tom and Marsha Mann Carolyn and Charles Mayo Mrs. Walter Meyers Ellen Michelson Anne W. Miller Steven J. Mittelholtz Jack and Jane Moran Jill Mortensen and S. Kay Phillips Lucia Newell Ann and John O’Leary Dennis R. Olson Ruth and Ahmad Orandi Jim Pagliarini and Elizabeth Raymond Kathleen and Donald Park James A. Payne Lana K. Pemberton Eric Peterson and Jenna Wolf Dwight and Christina Porter Carroll and Barbara Rasch Dennis M. Ready Debra Rectenwald

Lawrence M. Redmond George Reid Bryn Roberts and Marcy Jefferson Richard G. and Liane A. Rosel Enrique and Clara Rotstein Kathleen and Mike Ruhland John and Jan Sargent Doris Jean Seely Cherie and Robert Shreck Stanislaw Skrowaczewski Dr. Leslie W. Smith Clifford C. and Virginia G. Sorensen Charitable Trust of The Saint Paul Foundation Mark and Kristi Specker Jon Spoerri and Debra Christgau Chichi Steiner Judith Stone Roxanne Stouffer Dr. Anthony Thein Jill and John Thompson Jean Thomson and John Sandbo Emily Anne and Gedney Tuttle David L. Ward Mary Weinberger Howard and Jo Weiner Barbara and Carl White Barbara and James Willis

John Krenzke and Michelle Davis Dale Kruse and Tim Sneer Kelly and Adam Kuczkowski Robert and Venetia Kudrle Alexandra Kulijewicz Beatrice H. Langford Kenyon S. Latham Bryan Lechner William Lough and Barbara Pinaire Dr. Joan E. Madden Donald and Rhoda Mains Kristin and Jim Matejcek David Mayo Rosalee McCready Patricia N. and Samuel D. McCullough Barbara McGraw Fund of The Minneapolis Foundation Malcolm and Wendy McLean Laurie and David Mech Robert Messner Virginia Miller Michael J. and Judith Mollerus Anne Mollerus Brad Momsen and Rick Buchholz Theresa and Jim Murray William Murray Virginia Dudley and William Myers Sarah Nagle Merritt C. Nequette Lowell and Sonja Noteboom Dr. Dorothy Novak Kathleen Nye-Reiling Patricia A. O’Gorman Donna and Marvin Ortquist Scott J. Pakudaitis Julia and Brian Palmer

John and Margaret Perry Carol Peterson Walter Pickhardt and Sandra Resnick Joan M. Prairie Nicole and Charles Prescott Robert E. Rocknem Bob and Donna Rose Dr. Hanan J. Rosenstein Daniel Roth Trish and Steve Rowley David M. Sandoz Mary Savina Jon L. Schasker Deborah and Allan Schneider Paul L. Schroeder Mrs. Donald Sell Mr. and Mrs. Morris Sherman Debra Sit and Peter Berge Emily Skoblik Daniel J. Spiegel Family Foundation Thomas and Sharon Stoffel Delroy and Doris Thomas Katharine E. Thomas Ryan Traversari Mark Traynor and Jennifer Peterson Susan Truman Arnold Walker Elaine B. Walker Mark Warnken and Rebecca Peason David Wendt John and Sandra White Wendy Wildung David and Rachelle Willey John M. Williams Daniel Richard Zillmann

patron circle Gold $750–$999 Barbara S. Belk Gerald and Phyllis Benson Debra Brooks and James Meunier Peter Davis and Pamela Webster Jennifer Gross and Jerry LeFevre Charles Hample A.M. Rock, M.D. David E. Sander Warren Stortroen John W. Windhorst Jr.

Silver $500–$749 Anonymous (3) Arlene and Tom Alm Alvaro Alonso August J. Aquila and Emily Haliziw Dr. and Mrs. Orn Arnar Suzanne Asher Dan Avchen and David Johnson Jo and Gordon Bailey Family Fund of the Catholic Community Foundation Rebecca Arons and Thomas Basting, Jr. Donald and Naren Bauer Carl and Joan Behr Brian Benjamin Estelle T. Bennett

associate circle

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$250–$499

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Anonymous (2) Thomas O. Allen Quentin and Mary Anderson Katherine Anderson Linda Z. Andrews Jerry Artz Marcia J. Aubineau Eric S. Anderson and Janalee R. Aurelia Thomas Bailey James and Gail Bakkom Bishu and Irina Bandyopadhyay Laird Barber Kevin Beckey Bill Bertram Judith and Arnold Brier Philip and Carolyn Brunelle Stephen Bubul Emilie and Henry Buchwald Dan Buivid Keith Campbell Renee Campion and David Walsh Jerome and Linda Carlson Katherine L. Castille Sandy and Doug Coleman In Memory of Kathy Coleman Brenda Colwill Kay Constantine Jeanne E. Corwin Barb Davis Barry Divine Katherine and Douglas Donaldson Neal Doughty and Darya Gemmel Tracy Elftmann Herbert and Betty Fantle Charles and Anne Ferrell

Brian M. Finstad Christine Fleming Susan E. Flint and Michael Leirdahl David and Margene Fox Judith Garcia Galiana and Alberto Galiana Greta and Paul Garmers Lois and Larry Gibson Father Joseph P. Gillespie Earl and Mary Gloeckner Richard and Marsha Gould Hunt Greene and Jane Piccard William and Aimee Guidera Margaret Gunther Russell and Priscilla Hankins Bonita Hanson Douglas and Doris Happe Peter and Rebecca Hawthorne Jill A. Heath Wendy Heck Stefan and Lonnie Helgeson Frederick J. Hey, Jr. Andrew Holey and Gary Whitford Burton and Sandra Hoverson Margaret F. Humphrey Ray Jacobsen Christina and Nicholas Jermihov Sharon and Fredrik Johnson Kurt Johnston Dr. and Mrs. Eric Jolly Erika and Herb Kahler Jim and Kathleen Karges Kathryn Keefer Janice Kimes Steve Knudson Kathleen Kraulik

annual fund | individual giving friend circle $100–$249 Anonymous (9) Brigetta Abel and Scott Burglechner Paul and Val Ackerman John and Michelle Alberg Meredith B. Alden Nancy Alexis Richard Allendorf Elaine S. Alper Roland C. Amundson Tony Anastasia and Jim Miller Beverly Anderson Maynard Anderson Dr. Howard J. Ansel M.D. Dr. and Mrs. Peter Areson Fran Babbitt Kay and Ronald Bach Randolph Baier Rev. Trevor A. Bailey and Rev. Pari R. Bailey Susanne and Johan Bakken Beverly Balos and Mary Louise Fellows Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Barland Carolyn Beatty Longine Beck Barbara Bencini Bender Vocal Studio Bonnie Benson Kenneth J. Berglund Dennis and Judy Berkowitz Scott Berry and Kate Johnson Keith and Jamie Beveridge Robert F. Bishaw Diane and David Blake Karen M. Boberg Joann Boeyink Edward Bohrer Christine and John Bonnes Elizabeth Borg and David Stevens Shirley O. Bosch Lynn Bowe and Charles Kuivinen Judith and Paul Brandon Becky J. Brass William and Barbara Brauer Jane S. Brodie Joan Broughton Matthew Brummer Philip and Ellen Bruner Kelsey Bruso Robert and Gerry Bullard C.T. Bundy II Ruth H. Busta Donna Carlson Bob and Nancy Carlson In Memory of Jane S. Angrist Dr. Alan E. and Ruth Carp Paul Chase James and Mary Chastek E. Cho John Chrisney Beverly Christenson Mary-Louise and Bradley Clary John G. Clemedtson Louise and George Clitty Gary B. Cohen Bobby and Elliot Cohen Susan Colby Patrick Coleman Ken Collier and Nancy Scherer Elisabeth Comeaux

Marc and Virginia Conterato Catherine Coult and Robert Benjamin Clinton Cowan Dr. and Mrs. Jim Craig Denise Cronin Michael and Stacy Crosby Bill and Kate Cullen David Cuthill Barbara J. Dacy Mark and Maude Dahlberg Melissa Daul Mary Davidson Stephen Davis and Murray Thomas Rhonda Davis Mary DeMaine Richard and Lois Demers Pamela and Steve Desnick Kay Dewane Mark Dickey Mel Dickstein and Linda Foreman Willem and Ann Dieperink Eugene DiMagno Eugenia and Joseph Dixon Linda S. Donaldson Linda and Keith Donaldson Dale Dramstad Maureen and John Drewitz John M. Duff y James and Shirley Dunn Pierre C. Dussol Andrea Een George Ehrenberg Candace and Dan Ellis Ron Erhardt Sarah Erickson James and Dawn Erlandson Leah and Ian Evison Marvin and Margaret Fabyanske Craig Feathers and Amy Kolan Steven and Julie Feit Catherine Finch and Sarah Goullaud Mimi and Steven Fisher Steven and Mimi Fisher Gerald Foley Ruth K. Fothergill Charlotte and Gene Frampton Janette Frantes Margot K. Galt Dr. and Mrs. Paul Gannon Inez L. Gantz Carol and Mike Garbisch Howard and Ann Garton Cecilie and Emanuel Gaziano Heather Kirby Gehring Patsy Gerde Raeanna and Walter Gislason Marcia Glick Randy Goetz John C. Goetz Sharon Goligowski Laura Green Carol and Walter Griffin Gerald and Corrine Grochowski Michael Grouws Thomas Guglielmi Jerold and Kathleen Hahn Ramona Hall William and Marilyn Halloran Charles Hample Anne and George Hanley

Laurie Hansen Lowell Hanson Ms. Kathryn C. Harper Virginia R. Harris Stephen and Patricia Haynes Bobbie Heller Vincent and Marcia Henry Ms. Anne E. Hesselroth Holly C. Hickman Mary K. Hicks Rochelle Hoffman Julie and Harry Hoffman Stuart Holland J. Michael Homan Revocable Trust of Charles J. Hudgins Kathleen and Robert Humphrey Michael Hutson Diane L. Marti and Guglielmo Izzi Jeanne and Mark Jacobson Deborah and Ronald Jans Edward Jasienski Yin Jiang Margaret and Allan Johnson Paul Johnson and Joan Eckberg Clark Johnson Joel and Karen Johnson Ruth E. Jones Benjamin Jones Lois A. Joseph Mr. and Mrs. Clint Jurgens Stephen Kanee Tina and John Karelson Naomi C. Karstad Meghan Keating Michael and Sheue Keenan Kim Keeton Ethel Lynn Keeton Angela and Seth Keeton Holly J. Kellar Mr. and Mrs. Vernon Kenney Andrea M. Kircher Cecelia and Terry Kirihara Arthur C. and Milly D. Klassen Lynn R. Koenig Kartra and Glenn Kohl Marek Kokoszka Wojciech and Mary Komornicka Ms. Janis I. Konke Lavaun Krause James and Gail LaFave Sarah Langford Louise Larsen G.Paul and Barbara Larson Dr. and Mrs. Richard E. Larson Donald and Joann Leavenworth Susan Leppke Frank Lerman Sid and Diane Levin Jack and Rachel Levitt Jonathan and Lisa Lewis Robert P. Libera John and Marilyn Lieske Janet Lindquist Tom and Hinda Litman Michael and Keli Litman Melanie Locke Elizabeth Longhurst and Kim Chapman Juanita B. Luis Judy Lund Holly MacDonald

Marsha Macey Thomas Kleinschmit and Liana Magee Frank and Regina Maguire William Mahlum and Donna Allan Diane Malfeld Emily Maltz Ray Manders Jeffrey Masco Julie and John Mathews Frank Mayers Tracy McCauley Drs. Polly McCormack and Keith Engel Orpha McDiarmid Family Fund Robert and Catherine McGeachie Iris McGinnis Beth McGuire Anne McInerney Ellen McInnis Mary McLaurin Harry McNeely Sam Meals Roberta and Robert Megard Adele Mehta Eric Mellum Rita Meyer John and Lillian Meyer Dina and Igor Mikhailenko Laurie Miller Karen Moline Sidney Monroe In Memory of Dave Moore Linda Morey Monica Morin Holly Morris Imelda and William Muggli Sally Mullen Richard and Janet Myers Ronald and Marlene Nauman Imogene and Allan Nelson Sigrid Nelson Mina Fisher and Fritz Nelson Jane E. Nelson James and Carolyn Nestingen Robert Netzer Jay and Helen Newlin William and Sharon Nichols Jamie Nieman David Noland Kermeth W. Northwick Charlotte and Irving Nudell Virgil Nylander Andrew Odlyzko Scott and Judith Olsen Lila Olson Stephanie and Dennis Ondik Reverend and Mrs. Robert A. Onkka Vivian Orey Kay Smith and Arnold Ostebee Mia and John Palmer Bill and Anne Parker Robert L. Parks and Lori Wiese-Parks Mr. and Mrs. J. Thomas Parry Rev. and Mrs. Daniel Pearson Nancy Peck Craig Peifer and Lawrence Lozano Mischa and Barbara Penn Sandra Penning Mary Helen Pennington M.D. Pamela Perri (continued on next page)

Each year, Minnesota Opera depends on the generosity of many wonderful donors who provide a sold foundation of financial support for the company.

Visit mnopera.org/SustainingGiving to sign up for monthly giving today.

Thank you for your generosity. Your support brings innovative opera to Minnesota!

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become a sustaining donor

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annual fund | individual giving friend circle (continued) $100–$249 Margaret and John Perry Jane M. Persoon Barbara and Gary Petersen Dorothy L. Peterson Barbara and Douglas Peterson Joan and John Petroff Joseph Petronio Judith Pettit Kathleen M. Philipp Ann and Felix Phillips John and Norma Pierson Jeffrey Pilcher Dale Pillsbury Wayne and Ona Pinsonneault Marcos and Barbara Pinto Ann Piotrowski Louise Benz Plank Fred and Barbara Pollman Anne and John Polta Mr. and Mrs. Michael Porcaro Bertrand and Nancy Poritsky Lawrence Poston Lorraine Potuzak Stephen and Julianne Prager Walter and Harriet Pratt Margaret and Daniel Preska Ronald and Phyllis Price Joel and Sarah Quie Sigrid and Dave Redpath Charles O. Regal Herbert and Jane Reiman Steve Richter Ann Richter

Genevieve and John Ries Kathleen Riley Ronald Roed Sheren and Jim Rogne Susan and Ron Roiger Roger R. Roloff and Barbara A. Petersen Tamara and Michael Root Ruth Rose Dr. and Mrs. David A. Rothenberger Mrs. John C. Rowland Matt Ruby Berneen Rudolph Dagmar Runyon Mitra and Mark Sadeghpour Irene and Melville Sahyun James Salutz and Margaret Brandl Sylvia and Richard Salvati Beth Sanders Karen and Stephen Sanger Paula Santrach M.D. Georgie Saumweber Gaynell Schandel Mary Schertler Sue and Charles Schiess Jack and Pamela Schwandt Mr. and Mrs. A. Truman Schwartz Martin and Susan Segal Miriam Seim Jay and Kathryn Severance Wendy Shaler Alan Shapiro Bob and Joan Shearer John W. Shigeoka

Marianne and Gordon Shumaker Dale and Marilyn Simmons Patricia Simmons and Lester Wold Roy and Lana Sjoberg Rhonda Skoby Jacqueline Smith Linda Soranno and Howard Bolter Possibilitree George and Margaret Sparks Lorraine C. Spies Biruta and Andris Spruds Phyllis Stapp Barbara Stoll Joanne Strakosch and William Umscheid Joseph and Pamela Strauss Mark Stutrud Susan and Oakley Surine Craig and Janet Swan Eric and Curt Swanson Charles O. and Marlys R. Tafl in Erika and Dan Tallman Mr. and Mrs. Allan Taylor John J. and Mary M. Taylor Charlott Taylor Marya Teutsch-Dwyer and Michael Connaughton Joyce Thielen David and Jennifer Thomas Valerie Thompson Rick Treece Kenneth and Kathryn Valentas Reverend Robert Valit Catherine and Donald Vesley

Vilis and Aija Vikmanis John Vilandre Emily Wadsworth Steven Walker Harry Walsh David and Renee Walsh Lola Watson John and Verba Weaver Suzanne S. Weil Rae Weimer Lily and Richard Weinshilboum Edward and Elizabeth Weir Richard and Kathleen Welander Ellen M. Wells Evelyn Welsh Deborah Wheeler Paul and Carolynn Wiggin Leslie Wilcox Peter and Anne Wildenborg Barb Wildes Wayne and Sharon Wilkes Anthony Winer RADM & Mrs. Ray C. Witter Robert Wojcicki Sharon Woods Cathy Wright Mary Zimmer George Zirnhelt Paul Zorn and Janet Petri Philip Oxman and Harvey Zuckman

These lists are current as of March 12, 2013, and include donors who gave a gift of $100 or more during Minnesota Opera’s Annual Fund Campaign.

If your name is not listed appropriately, please accept our apologies and contact Jenna Wolf, Individual Gifts Officer, at 612-342-9569.

legacy circle Minnesota Opera thanks the following donors who, through their foresight and generosity, have included the Opera in their wills or estate plans. We invite you to join other opera-lovers by leaving a legacy gift to Minnesota Opera. If you have already

| MINNESOTA OPERA mnopera.org

made such a provision, we encourage you to notify us so that we may appropriately recognize your generosity.

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Anonymous (5) Valerie and Paul Ackerman Thomas O. Allen Mr. and Mrs. Rolf Andreassen Mary A. Andres Karen Bachman Randolph G. Baier* Mark and Pat Bauer Mrs. Harvey O. Beek * Barbara and Sandy Bemis * C. T. Bundy, II Joan and George Carlson Darlene J. and Richard P. Carroll Julia and Dan Cross Judy and Kenneth * Dayton Mrs. George Doty Rudolph Driscoll * Anne P. Ducharme Sally Economon *

Ester and John Fesler Paul Froeschl Katy Gaynor Robert and Ellen Green Ieva Grundmanis * Julia Hanna* Ruth Hanold * Fredrick J. Hey, Jr. Norton M. Hintz Jean McGough Holten Charles Hudgins * Dale and Pat Johnson Drs. Sally and Charles Jorgensen Robert and Susan Josselson Charlotte * and Markle Karlen Mary Keithahn Patty and Warren Kelly Margaret Kilroe Trust * Blaine and Lyndel King

Gretchen Klein * Bill and Sally Kling Gisela Knoblauch * Mr. and Mrs. James Krezowski Robert Kriel and Linda Krach Venetia and Robert Kudrle Robert Lawser, Jr. Jean Lemberg * Gerald and Joyce Lillquist David Mayo Barbara and Thomas * McBurney Mildred McGonagle * Beth McGuire Mary Bigelow McMillan Margaret L. and Walter S. * Meyers John L. Michel and H. Berit Midelfort Susan Molder * Edith Mueller * Kay Ness

Joan and Richard Newark Philip Oxman and Harvey Zuckman Scott Pakudaitis Sydney and William* Phillips Richard G. * and Liane A. Rosel Mrs. Berneen Rudolph Mary Savina Frank and Lynda Sharbrough Drew Stewart James and Susan Sullivan Gregory C. Swinehart Stephanie Van D’Elden Mary Vaughan Dale and Sandra Wick

* In Remembrance

For more information on gift arrangements, please contact Dawn Loven, Director of the Annual Fund at 612-342-9567.

Your attorney or financial advisor can then help determine which methods are most appropriate for you.

annual fund | institutional giving minnesota opera sponsors Season Sponsor

Gala Sponsors

Ascent Private Capital Management of U.S. Bank

Target, Premier Sponsor 3M Ascent Private Capital Management of U.S. Bank Medtronic Spencer Stuart

Production Sponsors Nabucco Ascent Private Capital Management of U.S. Bank Doubt National Endowment for the Arts The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Inc. Hamlet Target

Minnesota Opera gratefully acknowledges its major institutional supporters: $100,000+

Production Innovation System General Mills

Resident Artist Program Wenger Foundation

Conductor Appearances Spencer Stuart

Tempo After Parties Sakura

Camerata Dinners Abbot Downing

Opera Insights Comcast

Media Sponsor

This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a Minnesota State Arts Board Operating Support grant, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.

Minnesota Public Radio

$50,000–$99,999

corporations, foundations and government 3M Foundation Ameriprise Financial, Inc. General Mills Foundation The McKnight Foundation The Medtronic Foundation The Michelson Family Foundation Minnesota State Arts Board National Endowment for the Arts Target U.S. Bancorp Foundation U.S. Bank UnitedHealth Group The Wallace Foundation

Harlan Boss Foundation for the Arts R. C. Lilly Foundation Mayo Clinic Pentair Foundation The Carl and Eloise Pohlad Family Foundation PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP Rahr Foundation RBC Wealth Management Schwegman, Lundberg & Woessner, p.a.

Securian Foundation Thomson Reuters Twin Cities Opera Guild

Platinum $10,000–$24,999

Silver $2,500–$4,999

The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Inc. Abbot Downing Fred C. and Katherine B. Andersen Foundation Best Buy Children’s Foundation Cargill Foundation Comcast Dorsey & Whitney Foundation Ecolab Foundation Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation Anna M. Heilmaier Charitable Foundation MAHADH Fund of HRK Foundation Spencer Stuart Travelers Foundation Valspar Foundation Wells Fargo Foundation Minnesota Wenger Foundation Xcel Energy Foundation

Cleveland Foundation Dellwood Foundation Faegre Baker Daniels Hutter Family Foundation Le Jeune Family Foundation Maslon Edelman Borman & Brand, LLP The Elizabeth C. Quinlan Foundation Margaret Rivers Fund Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi Summit Brewing Company Tennant Foundation

Gold $5,000–$9,999 Accenture Boss Foundation Briggs & Morgan, P.A. Edward R. Bazinet Foundation

$25,000–$49,999

$10,000–$24,999

Bronze $250–$2,499 Bobby & Steve’s Auto World Youth Foundation The Curtis L. Carlson Family Foundation Enterprise Holdings Foundation Hammel, Green and Abrahamson, Inc. McVay Foundation Onan Family Foundation Peravid Foundation Sewell Family Foundation Sit Investment Foundation Wells Fargo Insurance Services

For information on making a corporate or foundation contribution to Minnesota Opera, please contact the Institutional Gifts Manager Beth Comeaux at 612-342-9566 or email her at bcomeaux@mnopera.org.

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Sponsors $25,000+

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