Art Project Grant
Art Project Grant
Rigoletto
Janeen Carey: vocalist, retired Hibbing Community College librarian and information media specialist; Adam Guggemos: graphic designer, art events promoter; Michelle Ronning: jewelry designer and maker; Tara Makinen: Executive Director of Itasca Orchestra and Strings, musician; Moira Villiard: visual artist; Jeanne Doty: Retired Associate Professor of Music at University of Minnesota-Duluth, pianist; Amber Burns: choreographer, dancer, actor, middle school art teacher; Margaret Holmes: visual artist, poet, former Children's Theatre employee; Tammy Mattonen: visual artist, co-founder of Crescendo Youth Orchestra; Quentin Stille: student liaison, College Music Director at KUMD.
Janeen Carey: vocalist, retired Hibbing Community College librarian and information media specialist; Michelle Ronning: jewelry designer and maker; Tara Makinen: Executive Director of Itasca Orchestra and Strings, musician; Moira Villiard: visual artist; Jeanne Doty: Retired Associate Professor of music at University of Minnesota-Duluth, pianist; Amber Burns: choreographer, dancer, actor, middle school art teacher; Margaret Holmes: visual artist, poet, former Children's Theatre employee; Tammy Mattonen: visual artist, co-founder of Crescendo Youth Orchestra; Quentin Stille: student liaison, College Music Director at KUMD.
Arrowhead Regional Arts Council, Drew Digby (218) 722-0952
ACHF Arts Access ACHF Arts Education ACHF Cultural Heritage
With Rigoletto, as with every Lyric Opera of the North production, we strive to exceed our patrons' expectations, to challenge and support our artists, to welcome and excite new audience members, and to provide increased access to this unique shared experience for our greater community. We want to produce the highest possible quality art while building a healthy, sustainable organization. Enlivening the appetite for this glorious art form in our region is a goal we take very seriously. Beyond that, we are increasingly aware of the great privilege and responsibility - almost an urgency, now - to create opportunities for people to sit together in a room and experience something, together. Lyric Opera of the North seeks to make opera known and accessible to the entire Northern Great Lakes region. The artistic team at Lyric Opera of the North will assess the artistic merit of the project after its completion, with input from our board of directors. The board of directors will also evaluate the overall success of the project. We will solicit feedback from audience and artists. Ticket sales and other data is easy to quantify. We hope to find patrons traveling from farther away for this summer production, and an increase in local participation, as well.
The most dramatic measurable outcome for this project was that of the nearly 800 tickets sold, 150 of those were sold to people who were new to Lyric Opera of the North. This exceeded our expectations for appealing to first-time opera-goers. Additionally, this was our first performance at MPAC (at UMD) and it was an excellent experience for us on the technical level, as well as for our patrons. So, we learned about a viable venue option that had previously been considered not a good fit. While audience response is more difficult to measure, we did receive notes and calls from dozens of patrons who told us this production exceeded every expectation and was a profoundly moving and/or thoroughly enjoyable experience.
Other, local or private