TCMF Spotlight: Austin Lyric Opera’s “The Elixir Project”

Austin Lyric Opera performs a program at TCMF Sunday, April 13, at 5:00pm

Austin — The Texas Community Music Festival is proud to present a special performance by Austin Lyric Opera on Sunday, April 13 at 5:00pm. The 30-minute performance is part of ALO’s innovative program, The Elixir Project.  

The Elixir Project is a series of free “street opera” performances throughout the city. Everyone is invited! For the second year in a row,  Austin Lyric Opera  and theUT-Austin Butler Opera Center are proud to collaborate on this community-wide arts event.

Taking place in nine locations across the city,  The Elixir Project is an adaptation of the famous Italian opera The Elixir of Love. Each of these performances will be provided to the public free of charge and take place in a wide variety of locations and times.

The Elxir Project has been months in the making, devised and directed by Bruce Taylor, a visiting artist hosted by ALO. Taylor is an industry leading stage director, arts educator, and administrator. Four BOC graduate students will earn college credit for their participation in The Elixir Project. The Elixir Project provides these students with invaluable performing opportunities as well as training from industry professionals.

“The Elixir Project is our chance to give back to the community and share opera with a broad audience—in places they would least expect—at no cost. Our goal is to reach an audience as diverse as Austin itself,” says ALO General Director, Joseph Specter. “We are thrilled to be able to collaborate with the Butler Opera Center and its talented young singers in such an innovative way as we build toward opening night of our main stage production of The Elixir of Love this fall.”

Says Director and Creator, Bruce Taylor, “The characters in this work are timeless and each one of them can be found in our contemporary lives.  Indeed, this introductory performance of The Elixir of Love takes as its premise that those who bring these characters to life come straight out of the audience; a young man whose object of affection couldn’t be bothered paying attention to him, a boastful braggart whose self-regard knows few bounds, and a charming huckster whose ‘magic potion’ inadvertently brings the story to happy and joyous conclusion.”

The Elixir Project strives to make a lasting connection with the greater Austin community, fostering an appreciation for opera and the arts, and allowing the Butler Opera Center and Austin Lyric Opera to engage new audiences in Central Texas with this vibrant art form. The project will also raise public awareness for ALO’s fully-staged production of The Elixir of Love, taking place at The Long Center for the Performing Arts in May 2014.