To all of our friends,

Greetings from Lyric Opera of the North. We hope you are safe and healthy, and we hope you have all that you need.

For everyone whose work puts you at higher risk – and what a lot of you there are -- we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for the jobs you are doing, and we wish you and your loved ones continued good health.

As you may already suspect, we won’t be able to gather for a June opera this year. But that doesn’t mean we won’t see Tosca! We just have to wait a while. The concept and the design are too beautiful, and the cast is too terrific, to cancel. So we will look forward to seeing this opera next June!

Here’s what’s in store:

Christina Baldwin dazzled us on stage at last summer’s Summer Sparkler, and as stage director for Don Giovanni. She’s back as director for Tosca.

Here’s what she has to say:

“Some of opera’s most gorgeous music plus Hitchcock-worthy suspense— Tosca is a wonder, and I can’t wait to share it with you!”

Work between Christina and Scenic Designer Ann Gumpper is already well under way.

Here’s a sneak peek at what Ann is creating for our production of Tosca:

We are thrilled that Kelly Kaduce will make her Lyric Opera of the North debut as Tosca - a role she has sung across the United States.

You’ve seen Kelly’s husband, Lee Gregory, as Belcore ( L’elisir d’amore ) and Leporello ( Don Giovanni ). We’re looking forward to having them both on our stage in 2021.

Of course, June 2021 is a long way off. What happens now? We are hard at work making plans for our Summer Sparkler and for a new season of opera, set to begin in Fall 2020.

This year’s Summer Sparkler is currently scheduled for August 11th at Northland Country Club. This year’s Sparkler features emerging stars (and Duluth natives) Sadie Cheslak and Georgia Jacobson. We’re guessing that none of us will be quite ready to gather indoors in August, so this will be an outdoor event with a built-in rain date. If it’s still not safe or legal to gather – even in an outdoor setting – we’ll make sure there’s another way for all of us to enjoy what promises to be a gorgeous summer concert from two of LOON’s favorite rising stars.

NEW SEASON!! There are too many uncertainties to put dates on calendars quite yet, but we can’t WAIT to tell you about the opera we’ll do in Fall 2020. Gorgeous music, hilarious storytelling, and (spoiler alert!) full of immune boosting nutrients, this is the opera we will NEED when we’re able to gather in the same room together again!

Keep checking your email, and LOON’s Facebook page, and of course www.loonopera.org, for a formal announcement about LOON’s 2020-21 Season.

Until then, we thank you so very much for your continued support. We’re working hard to make sure that when the time comes, we’ll be ready with big doses of gorgeousness.