Omaha Creative Week and the Opera

Opera productions are full of creative people from varied artistic and administrative backgrounds. Like other forms of live theatre, opera includes designers for lighting, stagecraft, costumes, props, and the list goes on. Talented, hard-working musicians perform in the orchestra pit and sing on stage. Long before these artists arrive, the opera is worked and worked again in the minds and on the papers of the stage director and administrative staff. With all these elements to choose from, Opera Omaha was a natural fit for an activity during Omaha Creative Week.

Omaha Creative Week provides this description for the week and the purpose behind it on their website:

Omaha Creative Week celebrates the greatest social and economic transformation of our time — when creative talent and fresh ideas transcend rigid organizations and hard assets. Omaha Creative Week celebrates local innovation in culture, businesses, education and social services and those who create new ideas, forms, methods and interpretations.

So, how exactly does Opera Omaha fit into the week's events? To begin, many of the planning meetings for the week were held at our new administrative offices at 1850 Farnam Street. The team of Caretakers (as termed on the website) met in our rehearsal space and put everything together. The week is filled with "Sparks". All participating organizations developed a plan to include the public in either a new or regularly scheduled event as part of the celebration of creativity. To further our involvement, Opera Omaha scheduled two Sparks.

Our Sparks are tonight, September, 6 beginning at 6:30pm and Saturday, September 8 beginning at 12:30pm. What will we be doing? Our talented Opera Omaha Chorus is in rehearsal for our October 5 and 7 production of Verdi's grand classic opera, La traviata and YOU are invited to join the rehearsal. We have an empty rehearsal room, all we need is you. Come, bring your friends, and release that inner diva!

Opera Omaha rehearsal room, photo credit Elmer Ellefson