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Tickets start as low as $19:! https://www.operaomaha.org/season-tickets/current-season/2018-2019-season/the-elixir-of-love The Basics: The Elixir of Love (L’elisir d’amore) is an opera with music by Gaetano Donizetti and text by Felice Romani. It’s a story that we all know well enough: the boy likes the girl, but circumstances conspire to keep them apart. In this case, the boy, Nemorino, is kept apart from Adina because they don’t fit together socially. She's popular and talented, he's a nerd pining after her. He hopes that the puzzle can be altered when he’s tempted by a magical potion to change the fate of their love affair. In...

In the interview link below: https://soundcloud.com/user-836840458/not-just-an-aria-machine-chabrelle-williams-interview I talked to Chabrelle Williams a few weeks back about her experience at the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and the fact that she won her district of Philadelphia, which is really exciting! I also learned more about Chabrelle’s operatic craft. This is a part of the Making Magic podcast series that’s supported by Opera Omaha. Chabrelle had a powerful homecoming as she teared up during her audition. Her friends, family, and supporters were able to see her hard work and dreaming come to fruition. The experience brought her full circle as she sang an aria about a girl...

Opera Omaha’s Healing Arts Concerts are always a treat, however, the holiday set was delightful in its respect to both rich operatic craft and the festive season. I’m accustomed to earwormy pop renditions during the month of December and, to my dismay, the premature launch of cheer in November after the turkeys have been eaten. My habit is to bob my head but pay them no more mind than that. I’ve never felt captured by musical Christmas staples. The Holland Community Opera Fellows, José Maldonado, Jessica Johnson Brock, Kate Pomrenke, and Chabrelle Williams, sang classics that are often made plastic by repetition for high grossing albums such as Whit...

It should come as no surprise that Opera Omaha is supported in part by the community and in part by a particular subset of the community that has invested in the connoisseurship of opera called the Opera Omaha Guild. I’ve met members at various events and engagement opportunities over the last few months, but there were many new faces at the cheerful gathering of Opera Omaha Guild’s Annual Victorian Tea in the home of Melissa Marvin. Within the bright yellow walls, members, friends, and family came together for reasons that we can all relate to: the consumption both of food and of beautiful art. I counted myself lucky to n...

Don't miss this iconic production at Opera Omaha, Oct 19th and 21st! Tickets start at $19: https://ticketomaha.com/Productions/pagliacci A big thank you to all who attended or spoke at the third Opera In Conversation of Pagliacci! In case you missed it, here are some takeaways from “Art for Community Connection and Resiliency": Our third Opera in Conversation for the production of Pagliacci brought together three local artists, Courtney Cairncross, Rita Paskowitz, and Paula Wallace, to speak on how communities use art and shared experiences to build connection, community resiliency, and overcome trauma. While the relationship with Pagliacci might not at first be obvious, the production actually served as...

Don't miss this iconic production at Opera Omaha, Oct 19th and 21st! Tickets start at $19: https://ticketomaha.com/Productions/pagliacci A big thank you to all who attended or spoke at the second Opera In Conversation! In case you missed it, here are some takeaways from “Verismo Opera”: Head of Music Sean Kelly explored the verismo opera movement, including famous works and composers like Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci, and the elements of this musical style. The stylistic changes of the time were apparent in the music both orchestrally and vocally. Verismo was drawn from the naturalism literary movement in France; it was thought that literature should approach life as a scientist would ...

Don't miss this iconic production at Opera Omaha, Oct 19th and 21st! Tickets start at $19: https://ticketomaha.com/Productions/pagliacci A big thank you to all who attended or spoke at the first Opera In Conversation! In case you missed it, here are some takeaways from “Opera and Film: Fellini and Italian Neorealist Cinema”: Both verismo style opera (such as Pagliacci by Ruggero Leoncavallo) and Italian neorealist cinema (such as La Strada by Frederico Fellini) sought to bring to light marginalized lifestyles and people of society rather than those of kings, nobles, and the wealthy. This trend can also be traced in visual art and literature from Édouard Manet, Gustave Flaub...

Don't miss this iconic production, Pagliacci, at Opera Omaha, Oct 19th and 21st! Tickets start at $19: https://ticketomaha.com/Productions/pagliacci Clown-inspired characters have appeared many times onstage but also onscreen. Why are we so fascinated with them? Is it the iconic face paint, the goosebump-inspiring kit of creepy props… or is it the blatant contradiction displayed by many clowns in popular culture? In the case of Stephen King’s It, Pennywise the Clown is a combination of innocence and terror. Batman’s iconic Joker is gleeful and sociopathically violent. As for Leoncavallo’s Canio in Pagliacci, he is a combination of buffoonery and hot jealousy. Fellini, in his film I Clowns...

Don't miss this iconic production, Pagliacci, at Opera Omaha, Oct 19th and 21st! Tickets start at $19: https://ticketomaha.com/Productions/pagliacci Pagliacci, a work of the 2018-19 Opera Omaha season telling the tale of street performers Canio and Nedda and a love triangle, has been cited in seemingly distinct platforms for many years. The work is referenced by a line in the jazz song The Masquerade is Over , first recorded by Larry Clinton and His Orchestra in 1939, and carried on by many other jazz singers, including the well-respected songstress Billie Holiday, which incorporates the lyrics "I guess I'll have to play Pagliacci and get myself a clown's disguise / And ...

We are pleased to announce that two additional resident Fellows have been selected for the Holland Community Opera Fellowship for the 2018-2019 Season: Kate Pomrenke and José Maldonado. Pomrenke and Maldonado will join first-year Fellows Jessica Johnson Brock and Chabrelle Williams, bringing the program to its full capacity of four resident Fellows for the second year of the program. All four artists will participate in the season-long residency, which has vastly expanded Opera Omaha’s ability to serve the community with professional opera programs, while honoring long-time Opera Omaha benefactor Richard D. Holland. Kate Pomrenke Soprano Kate Pomrenke recently completed her Master of Music in Vocal Performance at Bowling Green Sta...