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Open your mind to opera this spring! ONE Festival 2020 runs March 20 – April 5. Learn more at onefestivalomaha.org Tuesday, March 3 was the first Opera in Conversation in advance of ONE Festival 2020. We discussed the intricacies of Stradella’s St. John the Baptist with its conductor, the GRAMMY Award-winning early music specialist Stephen Stubbs, in conversation with Opera Omaha Producing Director Kurt Howard. This provocative and contemporary new production from acclaimed director Christopher Alden is being performed in an exciting warehouse space on North 11th Street in Omaha for 5 performances, March 25 – April 5. If you were not able to attend the conversation on Tuesday, read ahead to find out what you missed. Stradella consid...

Here are the upcoming community events through Sunday, April 7th! PLAYGROUND and RUN continue, Joslyn Art Museum An interactive sound sculpture installation, curated by Ellen Reid. REID + CONCERT: Thursday, April 4th at 7pm, Joslyn Art Museum A chamber concert featuring the works of Ellen Reid and her contemporaries with performances by the Holland Community Opera Fellows, Creighton University Chamber Choir and members of the International Contemporary Ensemble. MIDDAY MUSIC: FAUST: Friday, April 5th at 12:15pm, Opera Omaha Rehearsal Studio Midday Music is a lunchtime preview of the opera and features a short performance it provides a quick taste of the story and music, along with some personal behind-the-scenes insight into ...

The definition of opera might be fluid, however, the richness of artistry is undeniable. What makes opera so special is a feeling of grandeur, the expression and evocation of emotion, and a reverence for music. To limit that experience to a prescribed formula of “soprano + large stage + orchestra” also limits experimentation. Opera Omaha hopes to combat staleness by thoroughly exploring processes of interdisciplinary collaboration through its ONE Festival. The company is attempting to deconstruct opera in order to provide a space for truly diverse performances while still cultivating the craft. Opera should not be expected or derivative; the deconstruction of its components provides the impetus to question everything and seek answ...

You can see a dance-focused FREE preview at Midday Music on Friday, March 29th: https://www.operaomaha.org/community/upcoming-events/midday-music-les-enfants-terribles Tickets are still available for the ONE Festival! https://www.onefestivalomaha.org/performances-events Our third and final installment of the Opera in Conversation for the ONE Festival ended with guests James Darrah, the Director of Les Enfants Terribles and Artistic Director of the 2019 ONE Festival, and Gustavo Ramirez Sansano, the Choreographer of Les Enfants Terribles. The pair has worked together several times before, including on Semele, which Opera Omaha staged in 2016. The collaboration has been successful and prolific. Gustavo grew up in a small town of roughly two hundred ...

Tickets are still available for the ONE Festival! https://www.onefestivalomaha.org/performances-events Our second Opera in Conversation of the 2019 ONE Festival featured the costume designer of Les Enfants Terribles, Camille Assaf, and of Faust, Kaye Voyce. Producing Director Kurt Howard moderated the conversation. Both Camille and Kaye are artists in residence during the ONE Festival, so the numerous costumes will be made in Omaha. In a way, the costumes take on a sort of site specificity that is exciting to explore. Camille Assaf is based in Paris and worked in New York before that. She met James Darrah, the Artistic Director of the Festival, through Opera America, where they ...

Tickets are still available for the ONE Festival! https://www.onefestivalomaha.org/performances-events Adam Larsen Our first Opera in Conversation of the 2019 ONE Festival featured Adam Larsen, who has curated works, designed lighting, as well as exercised a special sort of creativity behind the lens as a photographer. He has worked in film, theatre, and performing arts. Those of the Omaha community might recognize him from his film work from the 2018 ONE Festival, Dharma at Big Sur, of which he was curator and filmmaker. Dharma at Big Sur premiered at the Cincinnati Symphony as a triptych last year. He has worked in multiple capacities for Opera Omaha for 6 seasons, and ...

*some spoilers Buy tickets here: https://ticketomaha.com/Productions/enfants-terribles Les Enfants Terribles by Philip Glass , based upon the novel of the same name, explores the psychological isolation enforced by two children and the ways in which they challenge one another in boredom. They seek to further their reality together, often at the expense of others. Although the relationship between main characters Paul and Elisabeth in Les Enfants Terribles seems particularly unsavory given its borderline incestuous nature, there is an abundance of obsessive and codependent narratives between main characters of the past, and current times, still proposed in literature and film today, such as the play Macbeth, the film Cruel ...

Here are all of the exciting events happening during the first week of ONE Festival, April 2-8! Friday, April 6th The Dharma at Big Sur First Friday Gallery Hours 11a-8p | Gallery 1516 Saturday, April 7th The Dharma at Big Sur Gallery Hours 11a-5p | Gallery 1516 Gallery Talk: The Nature of Big Sur 11:30a | Gallery 1516 Where art meets science. Students from University of Nebraska Omaha’s Conservation Biology course will host gallery talks exploring conservation and environmental issues of Big Sur. ONEmore: Archetype After Hours 10p-Midnight | Archetype Coffee A more personal and casual exploration of the musical worlds and artistic pulse of the festival. Unscripted, unplanned and spontaneous. Sunday, April 8th Th...

In addition to the performances of ONE, we invite you to experience even more of what the 2018 artists in residence have to offer with ONEmore: a new series of theatrical events, musical pairings, concerts, and late-night evenings full of creativity and unexpected possibility designed to give you unprecedented further access to the creative process of ONE. Go further into the sounds, ideas and compositions that make up ONE Festival 2018, commune with designers, singers and the artists creating work as part of the festival, and experience some spur-of-the-moment creativity. ARCHETYPE AFTER HOURS Saturday, April 7, 10:30p - 11:30p and Saturday, April 14, 10:30p - 11:30p Archetype Coffee ONEmore partners with local coffee roaster ...

As Omaha prepares for the launch of Opera Omaha’s first-ever ONE Festival, we wanted to offer a deeper look into three of the performance series that will be offered throughout the city. From the Bemis Center of Contemporary Art, to Gallery 1516, to a unique on-site location at 1407/1409 Jackson Street, these performances expand opera beyond the doors of the conventional theater. Adam Larsen, curator and filmmaker of The Dharma at Big Sur, Annie Saunders, curator and director of The Wreck, and R.B. Schlather, curator and director of Ariodante, offer us insight into the creative process and inspiration behind these three different performance series. The Dharma at Big Sur For Ad...