Spotlight: Feeling operatic

courtesy of Kent Miles

Courtesy of Kent Miles

Opera Gala

by Mimi Montgomery

The North Carolina Opera will host its 2015 Opera Gala October 3 with cocktails, dinner, dancing, live performances, and an auction at the North Carolina Museum of History. It’s a fitting venue for the company’s five-year-anniversary celebration, which will also toast 65 years of opera in the Triangle. The opera’s principal artists will perform pieces from Cold Mountain, a new opera the company will present September 2017 based on the book by Asheville native Charles Frazier. The story centers on a Confederate soldier who deserts the Civil War and attempts to make his way back home to his sweetheart in North Carolina. “There are so many new operas being written…to find one [set] in North Carolina that is so moving and beautiful is really special,” says Eric Mitchko, General Director. The gala also kicks off the 2015 – 2016 season, which will feature classics such as Madama Butterfly, Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, and The Barber of Seville. “It’s a really wonderful display of three operas with spectacular casts,” says conductor Timothy Myers of this season’s lineup. “I’m thrilled that as a young company we are able to bring such high power talent to stage.”

6:30 p.m. – 12 midnight; $300 per ticket; North Carolina Museum of History, 5 E. Edenton St.; ncopera.org