Thank You Columbus!

If you missed Turandot (and shame on you if you did), you missed an amazing production! We had an awesome cast, chorus, stage crew, production team and audience. It was our best attended show since moving back to the Ohio Theatre. Over 4,000 people saw our production of Turandot (4,602 to be exact). All I can say is, "WOW!" Thank you so much for your support of Opera Columbus. We literally wouldn't be here without you.

Besides a great production, we also had an amazing party after the show (special thanks to Activities Coordinator, Jeryl). I think this proves how cool opera really is. Now, aren't you sad you weren't there?

And I'm thinking now would be a good time to buy your tickets to our next production, The Mikado. Get on it.

Happy Weekend!

OC Board Member Lori with her husband Bob who

made his Opera Columbus debut playing a great Prince of Persia

Getting some love from ASM, Alicia

Othalie's mom, funny-man Dean Anthony
and the fabulous Othalie Graham

Mark Andrew Baker and I share a slice of yummy pizza

Eric, who played an amazing Madarin and his friend Jay

The Ice Princess Cometh

Columbus is a buzz with excitement over everyone's favorite opera ice princess, Turandot!

This week we've been thrilled to have articles in papers like The Columbus Dispatch, This Week News and Suburban News Publications. We've visited Sunny 95's morning show and chatted about opera with Dino and Shawn:
And we've had fun visiting our friends at NBC 4 this morning (and Monday) and telling them about our exciting production. Here we are (feeling like the stars we are) waiting to go to the set:


It's been a blast chatting with folks and telling them about this great production! Know what would be even better? Seeing you there! Just in case you missed it, tickets are $10 - $102.50. Call CAPA at 614.469.0939 or click here to buy your tickets.

As my fabulous friend Othalie Graham says in the Dispatch article, "It's such an exciting story that is easy to follow. If you've never gone to the opera, this is the opera to go to."

There you go people, listen to the lady and get yourself to the opera!

Turandot - Day 1

Moooooooo - opera makes me so excited!

Here I am. Excited & waiting for rehearsal to start.

This is one of my favorite days during production time - the first day of rehearsal. This is the first time all the singers have come together to sing for this production. I was lucky enough to sit in on today's rehearsal. Let me tell you - these amazingly talented artists did not disappoint. Powerful and beautiful voices filled the rehearsal space (which is a church community room - ha, you thought opera was so fancy!).

Press greets the artists. From Left to Right: Gene Allen (Emperor Altoum),
Mark Andrew Baker (Ping), Dean Anthony (Pong), Eric Johnston (Pang),
Othalie Graham (Turandot), Randolph Locke (Calaf), Diana McVey (Liu),
Sun Yu (Timur) & Eric McKeever (Mandarin).

Day one is the only time where the artists sit and sing through their parts. Speaking of parts, they come with their part memorized so they can dive right into the rehearsal process. Which they do almost instantly. Can you believe we mount a full-scale grand opera in only three weeks? That's pretty incredible!

These are the incredible folks that help make the opera magic happen.
From back to front: Ed Bak (Pianist), Bill Boggs (Artistic Director/Conductor/Chorusmaster),
John Hoomes (Stage Director), Kevin Lohr (Director of Production/Stage Manager)
& Alicia Boggs (Assistant Stage Manager).