At its annual meeting today, Minnesota Opera announced the completion of the New Works Initiative fundraising campaign, one year ahead of schedule.
A pioneering movement in new opera when it was launched in 2008, the NWI was designed to invigorate the operatic art form with an infusion of contemporary works and formalized Minnesota Opera's commitment to artistic growth, leadership and innovation. Its first iteration - a seven-season commitment to producing premieres and revivals of new works - funded the commissions of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize-winning Silent Night(Kevin Puts and Mark Campbell), 2013's Doubt by Douglas J. Cuomo and librettist John Patrick Shanley, and the upcoming political thriller, The Manchurian Candidate (also by Puts and Campbell), which will have its premiere in March 2015."We are so grateful our New Works Initiative donors for their extraordinary support of our efforts to expand the art form," said Minnesota Opera President and General Director Kevin Ramach. "It is a great testament to power of these works and of the vitality of the operatic art form in the 21st century."Videos