ALL SEATS GENERAL ADMISSION
ADULTS $20.00. STUDENTS $10.00.
STUDENTS  UNDER 10 PAY THEIR AGE.
 
BANGSBERG FINE ARTS COMPLEX RECITAL HALL
 
 
After a successful inaugural season last summer with productions of “Carmen” and “Paul Bunyan”, the Lake Bemidji Summer Opera Festival (LBSOF) will present a new rendition of Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro”. The show, in English, will take place in a courtroom with the Countess filing for divorce over the alleged dalliances by her husband, Count Almaviva. Complete with contemporary costumes and sets the production will be conducted by Beverly Everett with members of the Bemidji Symphony Orchestra.
 
The performance will offer newly written dialogue by Andy Browers in collaboration with Fulton Gallagher, the general director. News reporters, sensational comments by the “rich and famous” cast of characters, judge, jury, and TV oriented lawyers bring freshness to this bold production.
 
Through sleek and judicious cuts, the audience will be entertained to an edited production featuring the great ensembles and the best known arias and duets of this eternally popular opera.
 
For information and tickets, please call 218-755-4253, or contact Fulton Gallagher, General Director at fgallagh@paulbunyan.net 

During the past few months the opera company has been active in supporting local members of the Company. On Valentine’s Day, five Company performers presented a Valentine’s Day dinner at the Hampton Inn on the shores of Lake Bemidji to a sold out audience. In addition to the more traditional fare of songs one would expect on Valentine’s Day, the performers also presented a rich mixture of operatic arias and duets. At the conclusion of the program of 16 songs interspersed with various entrees, the audience insisted on many encores – all of the requests were for additional arias and duets to which the performers gracefully acceded.
 
In the merry month of May three singers, with the support of the Lake Bemidji Summer Opera Festival company, performed in a fund raiser concert to send our collaborative pianist, Abe Hunter to a prestigious opera festival in the Tuscan region in Italy. Steve Carlson, Professor of Piano at Bemidji State University, participated in the fundraiser and received a warm ovation as a performer. Other performers were Mark Christensen (Zuniga-08), Matt Goins (Escamillo-08), and Karissa Korbel (Micaela-08). With this fund raiser concert being so successful, Abe Hunter is now in Italy working to be a better collaborative artist that will benefit him and the Company.