What’s opera, doc?
Virginia Opera plans a 50th anniversary season full of romance and song.
It’s traditional to mark tenth anniversaries with diamonds. For a 25th, the answer is silver. This fall, it’s time to break out the gold for the Virginia Opera as it celebrates its 50th year in operation.
This season, the company will stage operatic warhorses “Don Giovanni,” Carmen” and “Così fan tutte” before mounting the world premiere of “Loving v. Virginia.”
“With our 50th anniversary season, we’re giving audiences operas they haven’t seen in a long time,” explains Adam Turner, now in his sixth year as artistic director of Virginia Opera. “We’re celebrating the fact that we’re still here and we’re still vibrant and the artistic quality is the highest it’s been in years.”
Organized in 1974, Virginia Opera got a considerable boost when its second show, 1975’s “La Traviata,” received a favorable review in The New Yorker, with music critic Andrew Porter writing that it was “a lively, arresting, considered performance … Virginia Opera has started well.” The review helped the fledgling company fundraise and convince skeptics that opera was viable in Norfolk.