Here you can find information on some of Opera Grand Rapids’ past productions.
Night With The Opera
May 20, 2022
20 Monroe Live
Join us for an evening in ancient Egypt in anticipation of Opera Grand Rapids’ production of Aida next season.
Turandot
by Giacomo Puccini
April 22 & 23, 2022
DeVos Performance Hall
Puccini’s final opera takes us to mythical China. The princess Turandot has renounced love. She will only marry a prince who can answer her three riddles. Hundreds have tried – all have failed. Until an unknown Prince solves the mystery of Turandot’s riddles, and the secret to her heart. Featuring opera’s most iconic aria “Nessun dorma,” Turandot is a visual, dramatic and musical feast for the senses not to be missed.
VanderLaan Prize
April 2, 2022
Betty Van Andel Opera Center
Opera Grand Rapids is proud to announce the 2021/22 VanderLaan Prize, formerly known as the Collegiate Vocal Competition. The 18th annual VanderLaan Prize is an opportunity for college-level voice students to compete for cash prizes and receive feedback from adjudicators who themselves are acclaimed opera artists.
Opera is Lit
March 24, 2022
Sweet House
…literature, that is!
Musicologist Camellia Adams curates an event that aims to explore the connection between music and English-language text. From the early Baroque in England to contemporary African American poetry, Opera Grand Rapids artists will showcase pieces of literature superbly set to song.
Stinney: An American Execution
by Frances Pollock | Libretto by Tia Price
February 25, 26 & 27, 2022
Peter Martin Wege Theatre
In 1944, George Stinney Jr. was executed at the age of 14. Wrongfully accused of the rape and murder of two white girls, George became the youngest person legally executed in America. Stinney: An American Execution spotlights the agony of this injustice as it reminds us of our aspirations for an enlightened society.
New Year’s Eve Party
Coming back in 2022!
Betty Van Andel Opera Center
The only thing we at Opera Grand Rapids love as much as opera, is a great party. If you’ve been to our New Year’s Eve party before, you know. It. Is. Epic. We were looking forward to bringing you an awesome gothic circus this year, but we’ve been watching the news. COVID rates in West Michigan are at an all-time high and while we are confident that our safety protocols work, we don’t want to risk anyone’s health and safety. That’s why we’ve decided to postpone our Gothic Circus NYE to next year. We look forward to the big tent rolling back into town then!
Trick-or-Treat @ The Betty
October 29, 2021
Betty Van Andel Opera Center
Join Opera Grand Rapids, Grand Rapids Ballet, Grand Rapids Symphony, Kent District Library, Grand Rapids Fire Department, Grand Rapids Police Department—and more!—for activities and treats. Free and open to all kids.
Don Giovanni
by W.A. Mozart
October 22 & 24, 2021
DeVos Performance Hall
The final day in the life of Don Juan, the infamous murderer and callous seducer of women, performed in Opera Grand Rapid’s original production of Mozart’s Prague masterpiece.
2021/22 Season Kick Off
August 19, 2021
Fulton Street Farmers Market
Opera Grand Rapids is excited to announce our 2021/22 Season Kick-Off Party! Join us August 19 in the courtyard of the Fulton Street Farmers Market for an ice cream social, with musical performances including selections from both Don Giovanni and Turandot as well as songs from the golden age of musical theater.
Enjoy drinks at the cash bar and free ice cream from the Furniture City Creamery Vintage Ice Cream truck.
Stay tuned for more details!
Second Nature
by Matthew Aucoin
April 30 & May 2, 2021
The Pavilion at Millennium Park
Second Nature imagines our planet a hundred years from now. Climate change has wreaked havoc worldwide, and humans have had to seal themselves in an artificial habitat to escape. But two children’s curiosity leads them back out into nature in hopes of finding a world that is worth saving.
Penny
by Douglas Pew
March 19-April 2, 2021
Virtual Performance
Penny is a NEW opera about the power of music. In the course of this one-hour opera, we see the leading character Penny Rutherford, an autistic woman, literally and figuratively find her voice. As Penny learns to express herself through singing, she transforms before our eyes.
Così fan tutte
by W.A. Mozart
October 23 & 25, 2020
EGRHS Performing Arts Center
In Mozart’s comedy Così fan tutte or The School for Lovers, Ferrando and Guglielmo boast to their friend, the cynical bachelor Don Alfonso, that their fiancées, Dorabella and Fiordiligi, are unreproachable in their steadfastness and virtue. What happens next is a comedic masterpiece of disguises and deception gone wrong as Alfonso and the clever maid Despina take the two couples to the School for Lovers.
Scalia Ginsburg
by Derrick Wang
March 14, 2020 | 7:30 PM
& March 15, 2020 | 2:00 PM
Betty Van Andel Opera Center
This comic opera in one act is inspired by the opinions and unlikely friendship of Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Opera Grand Rapids will be one of the first opera companies in the world to produce this opera.
The Mikado
by Gilbert & Sullivan
November 1 & 2, 2019
St. Cecilia Music Center
G&S’s beloved satire on Imperial British politics and institutions comes to life on the intimate stage of St. Cecilia Music Center. The poor wandering minstrel Nanki-Poo is in love with the lovely Yum-Yum, the ward of the Lord High Executioner, who has designs on her himself. The town swirls with satirical chaos when the Emperor (The Mikado) reveals that if no one is executed in the town, it will be reduced in stature to a village. Heads will comically roll in this Topsy-Turvey world.
La Traviata
by Giuseppe Verdi
June 14 & 15, 2019
St. Cecilia Music Center
The heartbreaking true story of Parisian courtesan Marie Duplessis became the classic novella that inspired the films Camille, Pretty Woman and Moulin Rouge. The great Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi retells her story in one of the greatest operas of all time.
The Magic Flute
by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
October 26 & 27, 2018
DeVos Performance Hall
Performed in English, this magical allegorical tale of equality between all men and women has enchanted audiences since its premiere more than two hundred years ago. OGR’s production stars acclaimed artists John Viscardi as the comic Papageno and Jana McIntyre as the star-blazing Queen of the Night.