Austin Opera Opens New Southeast Austin Theater With Its First Commissioned Opera ‘Ofrenda’
The Butler Performance Center will host year-round programming and offer space to local arts groups
Austin Opera will open the Sarah and Ernest Butler Performance Center on Saturday, Sept. 26, giving the company its first theater and creating new rehearsal and performance space for other Austin arts organizations.
Located at 5811 Trade Center Drive in Southeast Austin, the center includes a 189-seat theater, four rehearsal rooms, a conference center and indoor and outdoor event spaces. Austin Opera plans to use it for smaller productions, education programs and community events throughout the year. The company will continue staging larger operas at the Long Center for the Performing Arts.
“There is a huge need for performance and rehearsal space for Austin’s cultural community,” Austin Opera General Director and CEO Annie Burridge said. “We’re really proud to be able to make this contribution to that landscape.”
The public can explore the center during a free community day from 2 to 6 p.m. Saturday. Austin Opera’s Resident Stars will perform in the new theater, and visitors can contribute to a community altar honoring Día de los Muertos. Family activities include an orchestra petting zoo. A ribbon cutting with Sarah and Ernest Butler is scheduled for 3 p.m.
The building changes how Austin Opera works behind the scenes, too. The company previously operated and rehearsed in a leased warehouse with limited parking and no space for public performances. Its costume shop was in a separate, unair-conditioned warehouse, requiring artists to travel between fittings and rehearsals. At the new center, the costume shop, rehearsal rooms and offices are under one roof.
Austin Opera’s new theater
Previously occupied by engineering firm J.D. Abrams, L.P., the building was adapted for performances, rehearsals and events. The theater’s tiered seating retracts into the wall, opening about 3,000 square feet of floor space. That allows Austin Opera to rehearse larger productions destined for the Long Center or arrange the room for other types of performances and gatherings.
Making the room work for so many purposes required particular attention to sound. Curtains and ceiling panels help control the acoustics, while the air conditioning system was designed to run quietly during unamplified performances.
“We’re asking a lot of this room,” Austin Opera music director Timothy Myers said. He described a space that must accommodate everything from a solo recital to rehearsals with a cast, chorus and large orchestra.
The center is named for Sarah and Ernest Butler, longtime Austin Opera supporters whose earlier gift established a fund for Spanish-language programming. The company also announced a $500,000 gift from Sangeeta Teresa Mai and Hai Nguyen, whose names will be on the theater. Austin Opera said it has raised $6.44 million toward its $8.5 million Inspire 2030 campaign goal.
An offering for Austin
The opening comes as Austin Opera expands its work beyond its mainstage season through initiatives including Concerts at the Consulate and its Residency for Latinx Creatives. The residency helped bring together composer Jorge Sosa and librettist John de los Santos for “Ofrenda,” the company’s first commissioned opera and the first production in its new theater.
“‘Ofrenda’ means ‘offering’ in Spanish, and so this is our first world premiere offering to the Austin community, and also our offering of this space as a community space where artists and audiences can encounter each other,” Austin Opera music director Timothy Myers said.
The 90-minute opera follows Macaria, an immigrant mother and hospital custodian who meets a figure of Death on her way home from work. Given the power to heal others, she must confront the cost of using it. Sung in Spanish and English with projected English titles, the work draws on Día de los Muertos traditions and themes of family and remembrance.
“Ofrenda” will be performed Oct. 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9 and 11. Austin Opera said the initial five performances sold out, prompting it to add two more; tickets remained available for Oct. 6 when the company announced the opening. Visit austinopera.org for tickets and more information about the performance center.
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