Sarasota Opera receives $50,000 from the Gulf Coast Community Foundation

From Sarasota Opera:

SARASOTA, FL - Sarasota Opera has been awarded a $50,000 Arts Appreciation Grant from the Gulf Coast Community Foundation. The grant offers unrestricted funding to area arts organizations in support of their artistic mission. This year’s Arts Appreciation Grant will help support Sarasota Opera’s 2016/2017 Festival Season, which marks the company’s 58th year of presenting grand opera on the southwest Florida gulf coast.

“We are extremely grateful to the Gulf Coast Community Foundation for their continued support of Sarasota Opera,” says Executive Director Richard Russell. “This grant will help us to expand our education initiatives and maintain the artistic excellence Sarasota Opera has become known for around the world.”

“Sarasota Opera is one of the cornerstone cultural organizations that make our region so vibrant and enriching,” adds Mark Pritchett, president and CEO of Gulf Coast. “Through this flexible grant, our Board aims to enable our partners at Sarasota Opera to focus on what they do best.”

On March 20, 2016, Sarasota Opera completed its 28-year Verdi Cycle becoming the only company in the world to have performed every work, both operatic and non-operatic, of Giuseppe Verdi. This fall, Sarasota Opera inaugurated an exciting new venture entitled “Sarasota Firsts” in which the company will produce operas never before seen on the Sarasota Opera House stage. For the 2016/2017 season, Sarasota Opera will present three operas in association with this new series as well as re-mount operas that have been beloved by Sarasota Opera audiences for years.

Sarasota Opera opened its fall season on October 28, 2016 with a new production of Donizetti’s comedy Don Pasquale to critical acclaim which will be followed by the U.S. premiere of Dean Burry’s The Secret World of Og performed by the Sarasota Youth Opera. Sarasota Opera’s Winter Festival Season will open on February 11, 2017 with the return of Giacomo Puccini’s stunning Madama Butterfly followed by Gioachino Rossini’s The Italian Girl of Algiers, Francis Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites, and finally the return of Italo Montemezzi’s The Love of Three Kings. Don Pasquale, The Italian Girl in Algiers, and Dialogues of the Carmelites are all part of the “Sarasota Firsts” initiative.

Image via the Sarasota Opera.