When our circumstances become roadblocks and new boundaries threaten to determine our outcome, what do we do next?
This season, Opera Omaha examines figures that refuse to have their paths charted for them by the institutions, powers, and expectations around them.
Told through soul lifting scores, these characters move us to refuse to accept that any story is fully ended, it’s only another beginning.
X, The Life and Times of Malcolm X
NOVEMBER 4 & 6 2022
Composed by Anthony Davis
Libretto by Thulani Davis
In its Midwest premiere, Anthony Davis and Thulani Davis’s distinctly American opera X, The Life and Times of Malcolm X, will be directed by Robert O’Hara, 2020 Tony Award nominee for Slave Play on Broadway. This epic new production – created in partnership with Michigan Opera Theatre, The Metropolitan Opera in New York, and Seattle Opera – will perform for Omaha audiences first before traveling to The Met in 2023. Through a series of vignettes, X outlines the life of Malcolm X from boyhood to his assassination in 1965, discovering the past, present and future vision of “a prophet in search of a Black utopia, charting a course for the future” (O’Hara). Davis’s jazz infused, contemporary score traces the path of a figure that grasps the attention of America in biography and legacy.
Suor Angelica
FEBRUARY 24 & 26, 2023
Composed by Giacomo Puccini
Libretto by Giovacchino Forzano
Puccini’s heart wrenching one-act opera Suor Angelica tells the story of Sister Angelica, a woman forced by her aristocratic family to join a convent and give up the child she birthed out of wedlock. Puccini’s glorious music captures the profound emotion of a mother’s love and loss of that which is held most dear. Conductor Judith Yan, soprano Elaine Alvarez and mezzo-soprano Jill Grove will all make their Opera Omaha debuts in this poignant production directed by Keturah Stickann (2018 Opera Outdoors).
The Marriage of Figaro
MARCH 31 & APRIL 2, 2023
Composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte
Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro is beloved, one of the world’s most popular and frequently performed operas. Mix-ups, mistaken identities, and secrets fly fast through this iconic tale of love, seduction, and guile. Omaha favorites conductor Steven White (2022 Eugene Onegin, 2021 Opera Under the Stars, 2019 Faust) and director Dean Anthony (2021 Opera Under the Stars) will join forces once again to lead a stunning cast including Sidney Outlaw in his Opera Omaha debut as Figaro, with Vanessa Becerra (2019 Les Enfants Terribles, 2018 Medea) as Susanna, his betrothed.