The Opera Center is now open!

Update: Laura Spencer at KCUR released a piece on the opening, click to read or listen.

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Today we hosted friends and supporters for a special grand opening celebration of the new Lyric Opera Center.

With the opening of our new home, we saw an opportunity to honor select individuals whose support and commitment to the Company is unparalleled. Their unique contributions have helped not only to preserve our past, but will now ensure the future of the Company.

Through their lead gift to the capital campaign, Michael and Ginger Frost enabled us to leverage additional donor support, allowing us to receive the Mabee Foundation grant which led the way to complete the funding for the production arts building. Further, Michael is dedicated to continued and ongoing maintenance support for the Opera facilities with the Building Reserve Fund. Ginger’s support of the high school honors program in our educational and outreach programs has helped create the next generation of talented artists and new audiences. What a fitting tribute for the future program participants to train in the production arts building.  It is also fitting that the production building be named the Michael and Ginger Frost Production Arts Building.

Beth Ingram has been with the Company since the its inception.  She represents our beginning and our present and her abiding commitment to the Company is without question. Her long-term commitment through the founding of the Ingram Angels and the Ingram Room has created the opportunity and the environment for donor cultivation and allowed us to succeed in expanding the number and depth of major gifts to the Company. Her lead gift for the endowment helped to secure our artistic future. Beth believed in us then and believes in this Company now. Our newly-constructed administration building will be known as the Beth Ingram Administration Building.

Through Richard Stern’s support and foresight, we were able to purchase the Lyric Theatre in 1992, which allowed us to leverage that property to help us establish the Opera Center as our new home. Additionally, Richard Stern ensured his continued annual support of the Lyric when he established the Richard J. Stern Foundation for the Arts. To remember and honor his constant challenge for the company to strive for success, our new home will be known as The Lyric Opera of Kansas City Richard J. Stern Center. Representing the Richard J. Stern Foundation for the Arts was Michael Fields.

We honor and pay tribute to Michael and Ginger Frost, Beth Ingram and Richard J. Stern’s support, dedication and commitment with this naming.

After a formal ribbon cutting, General Director and CEO Deborah Sandler declared the building open, and the guests were invited for a tour.

Want to add your support to the Building for Success capital campaign? Learn more here.

Brush up on your Italian

This past week on Wednesday the Lyric Opera Guild held the second of four At Ease With Opera programs for Madama Butterfly.  These presentations provide a range of information about the operas and are a great way to get familiar with what will be seen on stage.  This week Debra Karr, an instructor in the Italian department at the University of Kansas, presented “Andiamo all’opera” (or “Let’s Go to the Opera”), which covered the use of Italian in opera librettos and highlighted some common phases to become familiar with.  Below you can view or download the presentation and brush up on your Italian in preparation for Madama Butterfly.

View this document on Scribd

The remaining At Ease programs for Madama Butterfly are next Monday, August 27th and Monday, September 10th.  To learn more about the Lyric Opera Guild’s upcoming At Ease With Opera presentations, click here.

Lyric Opera Hosts Fringe Festival

If you didn’t catch The Kansas City Star on Sunday, you probably didn’t read about the upcoming Fringe Festival, opening on Thursday, July 19th, in which the Lyric Opera of Kansas City is proud to be participating in this year as a host venue.  The Company’s rehearsal hall in the Production Arts Building will be host to a couple of different performances during the 10 day festival.  Click below to read the article. And for more information of the KC Fringe Festival visit kcfringe.org.

Robert Trussell in The Kansas City Star
Fringe Festival to feature unconventional shows in conventional homes

Congratulations to Honors Artists

2010-2011 Honor Artists and Benefactors. Pictured: Front Row: Caitlin Laird, Sicily Mathenia, Elizabeth Cozart Brett Cooper Back row: Dr. Michael Frost, Rasson Wofford, Mrs. Ginger Frost, Emma WitbolsFeugen, Kristen Alley, Anna Kain, Sarah Hennessey, Zachary Smith.

The Lyric Opera would like to congratulate the members of The Ginger Frost High School Honors Artists program, who recently performed their Spring Recital in Helzberg Auditorium at the Central Branch of the Kansas City Public Library.  The program culminated with the recital and a competition where select participants were awarded with scholarship funds.

This years members who received scholarship funds are: Emma WitbolsFeugen, Elizabeth Cozart, Sarah Hennessey and Sicily Mathenia.  Great Job!

The Ginger Frost High School Honors Artists program allows participants to receive training in diction, singing technique, acting, and audition and stage etiquette.  Schools are selected based upon strong relationships between the high school choral teacher and the Lyric Opera Education Department.

At Ease with Opera Presentations

W. A. Mozart wrote this classic opera

If you already have your tickets and are not too familiar with Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro or you want to learn a little more about this opera before you decide to attend, the Lyric Opera Guild presents At Ease with Opera presentations leading up to every Lyric Opera production.  The remaining At Ease presentations for The Marriage of Figaro are in the next two weeks, so now is your chance to learn a little more about this classic comic opera, that may be a little more modern (but you didn’t hear that here).

Upcoming At Ease with Opera Presentations:

Mozart From A to Z – March 28, 2011
Join us on Monday, March 28 at 7:00 p.m. at the Kauffman Foundation (4801 Rockhill Rd, Kansas City, MO). Bob Wise will be back on the podium to discuss “Mozart From A to Z,” containing lots of music and biographical material about the brilliant composer of The Marriage of Figaro which you might not have known.

Who Was Figaro? – April 4, 2011
Join us on Monday, April 4 at 7:00 p.m. at the Plaza Branch of the Kansas City Public Library (4801 Main St., Kansas City, MO). Morton Creditor, a frequent At Ease with Opera program presenter, will discuss “Who Was Figaro?,” and exploration of the writer, Beaumarchais, who created this intriguing character who appears in several different opera, including the Mozart classic. Paired with him this evening will be Don Dagenais, who will give a preview of The Marriage of Figaro.