Greensboro Opera is honored to announce TowneBank as the Presenting Sponsor of the First Annual Ovation Gala 

September 2025 

Greensboro Opera is honored to announce TowneBank as the Presenting Sponsor of its First Annual Ovation Gala, to be held on Thursday, November 6, 2025, at Temple Emanuel in Greensboro. This premier fundraising event will celebrate the transformative power of music and community while raising vital support for Greensboro Opera’s productions and outreach initiatives. TowneBank’s generous leadership support as Presenting Sponsor underscores the bank’s long-standing commitment to community enrichment and the arts.

“The arts play an important role in uniting people, inspiring creativity, and strengthening our community, “said Scott Banker, TowneBank Triad President. “TowneBank is excited to support Greensboro Opera and the First Annual Ovation Gala as part of our ongoing commitment to serve others and enrich lives across our community.”

Read the full press release online at TowneBank Presenting Sponsor 

 

Greensboro Opera Awarded Grant from the Rotary Club of Greensboro

JUNE 2025 

On June 3, 2025, the Rotary Club of Greensboro Board of Directors and 2024-25 President Jodi Lorenzo, announced that a grant has been awarded to Greensboro Opera in the amount of $1,600. The grant application was sponsored by Rotarian Fred Lopp. Greensboro Opera has accepted the grant monies, agreeing that they will be used for charitable and educational activities consistent with our tax-exempt status.

We are deeply grateful to be the recipient of a grant that supports engaging educational programs aligned with our nonprofit mission to enrich our community by making opera accessible to all. THANK YOU, Rotary Club of Greensboro, for investing in the “greatest storytelling on stage” and helping share the magic of opera with our community.

Learn more about the Rotary Club online at https://greensbororotary.org

 

Greensboro Opera’s ‘Glory Denied’ finds power in restraint and resonance! 
Posted by Christopher Hill | 17 APR 2025 – Earrelevant

During the second weekend of April 2025, Greensboro Opera mounted an admirable production of Glory Denied, a work by Tom Cipullo. Mr. Cipullo (b. 1956) is a creative artist who has chosen text-based classical music—opera, especially—to address, like Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan before him, major themes and issues of his generation.

“Tom Cipullo has found a way to tell a relevant, if depressing, story in a way that evokes positive audience responses. The production in Greensboro certainly did that.” ….the production of Glory Denied by Greensboro Opera can, without reservation, be called a significant success, with superb singing and acting, intelligent stagecraft, and sensitive accompaniment.

Read the entire review online at Earrelevant.net

RICH, POTENT, AND EXCITING: GREENSBORO OPERA’S DON GIOVANNI!
Posted by Timothy Lindeman | Oct 31, 2024 | CVNC

For this rendition from Greensboro Opera, Baritone Sidney Outlaw magnificently sang the role of Don G. His rich voice was fit for the splendid acoustics in Odell Auditorium. His acting and singing demeanor changed as the role demanded: when he is “forced” to duel with the Commendatore, he is appropriately dark and foreboding. When he was seducing the women, he was suave and silvery. Branch Fields, bass, sang the role of Leporello, transforming his voice from submissive servant when he is with Don Giovanni, to a robust complainer when he is not, as well as a smooth seducer when wooing Elvira at the request of the Don.

Read the entire review online at CVNC Online

REVIEW FOR “HOMECOMING”, A BENEFIT CONCERT FEATURING SIDNEY OUTLAW AND WARREN JONES
Posted by Timothy Lindeman, CVNC | Sep 14, 2024

 

The duo immediately launched into Don Giovani’s aria “Deh vieni alla finestra” from Don Giovanni (1787) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Germany, 1756-91). In this scene, Don G is serenading a woman, entreating her to come to her window and provide him solace. His accompaniment is a guitar (of course), which Jones’ piano approximated very well. Outlaw’s singing was light and lyrical, with beautifully shaped lines, with some appropriate ornaments in the second verse.
Read the entire review online at Cultural Voice of North Carolina. 

Greensboro Opera has received a $100,000 grant from Truist Financial Corporation through its Truist Charitable Fund, a donor-advised fund at The Winston-Salem Foundation.

Read all about it here: https://greensboroopera.org/truist-grant/
dwb REVIEW: Not a Question of “If” My Son, But “When” – The Cautionary Love of a Black Mother
Composer Susan Kander and librettist Roberta Gumbel brought a montage of poetic and haunting moments examining the trials and triumphs Black mothers experience as their children come of age in a society plagued by racism and inequality in four shows across Greensboro.
Greensboro Opera’s La bohème: Visually and Vocally Stunning, An Opera for Everyone!
November 11 & 13, 2022
Greensboro Opera continued its 40-plus years of bringing high-quality opera to Greensboro with a moving production of La Bohème by Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924). The 2.5-hour, four-act opera was entirely engaging, with impressive sets, period costumes, and wonderful leads in all of the roles.
Greensboro Opera’s Porgy and Bess – the wait was well worth it!
Opera Wire – February 3, 2022
Living with COVID-19 altered everyone’s lives. People clung to what brings them comfort and to the people who are most important to them. Artists, especially performing artists, have felt this deeply. In 2020, when performances were being canceled and rescheduled, the opera community found ways to keep going and to support one another. While it took this production four years in total to finally be performed, it happened because of the resilience within the community.
Enjoy the complete Opera Wire review by Afton Markey.
Greensboro Opera postponing Porgy and Bess, starring Rhiannon Giddens to January 21 and 23, 2022
https://greensboroopera.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/DH-FINAL-Porgy-and-Bess-postponement-press-release.pdf
PORGY AND BESS September 11, 2018 announcement and news conference:
https://www.greensboro.com/blogs/gotriad_extra/greensboro-opera-performance-starring-rhiannon-giddens-is-tanger-center-s/article_d46b2102-79e6-589f-9c0d-e5dd1779b17e.html
BUTTERFLY reviews:
NEWS & RECORD
https://www.greensboro.com/z-no-digital/music-review-greensboro-opera-s-madama-butterfly/article_757b1973-e874-5a77-8727-b3dd0b4b3526.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=user-share&fbclid=IwAR1R2MU31Y-k6661l4kxrwZwmdFWBtabAb9fHbDft_Bx1maDlealSjfnZsI
CLASSICAL VOICE of NORTH CAROLINA
https://cvnc.org/article.cfm?articleId=9153
HANSEL and GRETEL review:
https://www.voix-des-arts.com/2019/03/performance-review-engelbert.html
BARBER of SEVILLE reviews:
Voix des Arts review: http://www.voix-des-arts.com/2018/01/performance-review-gioachino-rossini-il.html?m=1
“Perhaps more so than any other musical genre, and more so in the Twenty-First Century than ever before, opera is a community effort that depends upon a carefully-managed coordination of artistic, financial, and logistical collaborations. Putting on good shows with good singers is not sufficient to ensure an opera company’s survival. An opera company must look beyond the stage upon which its productions come to life for the raw materials with which to build its future. Most vital amongst these raw materials is involvement in the host community. Under David Holley’s stewardship, Greensboro Opera’s rôle in its community has metamorphosed from the elitist indulgence typical of opera in the United States to an advantageous cultural symbiosis. With this fantastic, superbly-sung production of Il barbiere di Siviglia, Greensboro Opera’s standing in both its local and global communities is solidified: no longer just Greensboro’s hometown opera, Greensboro Opera is a home for opera performed as composers and librettists intended.”