DULUTH — I felt a little awkward accepting the only chair in Lyric Opera of the North's office while the organization's co-artistic director sat on the floor, but that did at least put Sarah Lawrence at the right level to use the Nespresso machine. As we talked, she sipped with bliss.
"We have never had our own space, and we waited. Now we're 20 years old, and we have an office," said Lawrence, sitting in front of a large painting depicting the company's 2017 production of "Rigoletto."
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It was Sunday afternoon and LOON had just completed a sitzprobe (a run-through integrating singers and orchestra) of "The Radio Hour." The choral opera, which LOON will present Friday and Sunday at the Depot Theatre, demonstrates the company's facility with complex music.
"I'm just so impressed every time they sing it," said Lawrence, an experienced vocalist. "This was really, really challenging music."
The organization officially took residence at the Depot on Jan. 1, completing what Lawrence said opera writers Peter Hilliard and Matt Boresi described to her as Duluth's "own little Lincoln Center."
"I envision us doing more things together," said Lawrence, referencing fellow Depot tenants Minnesota Ballet and the Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra. Soon, that may include "a shared season announcement, so people can come to one place and hear what's coming up for all three classical arts organizations."
For decades, the Depot Theatre was primarily associated with Duluth Playhouse, the existence of which helped justify the $1.5 million (about $9 million in today's dollars) invested to build the performing arts wing.
The wing, containing the 280-seat theater, opened in 1977 and was largely the Playhouse's space until that organization left in 2023 to consolidate operations at the NorShor Theatre.
Lawrence praises the Depot's consultation with LOON, the DSSO and Minnesota Ballet to renovate the Depot Theatre to maximize its usefulness for their varied purposes. That includes a stage configuration with an orchestra pit for LOON's opera performances.
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"We did our fall opera here," said Lawrence, "and we heard from dozens of people, 'It's so good to be back there. We have such fond memories.' There's nostalgia, but also it's really easy to get in and out of your chair, and it's a smooth walk from parking into the building."
LOON, like the other two organizations, will continue to use outside venues for large-scale productions. The Depot Theatre, though, gives all three a "home venue," in Lawrence's words, that works well for smaller-scale performances. (Minnesota Ballet also uses the Depot's even smaller Studio Four.)
"The Radio Hour," the second of three professional productions in LOON's 20th anniversary season, is a one-act 2014 composition (music by Jake Heggie, libretto by Gene Scheer) that upends opera stereotypes.
Actor Christa Schulz, portraying central character Nora, doesn't utter a word — either spoken or sung. Instead, singers move about her, alternately voicing her inner thoughts and things she hears on a radio. There's no conventional plot. Instead, the arc follows Nora's inner struggle to find meaning and focus amid emotional turbulence.
"We can't stop talking about loneliness and isolation as an epidemic, and we work with a lot of people who are worried about what's to come," said Lawrence, speaking the day before Donald J. Trump was inaugurated for his second term as president. "We're very aware that this is happening on a big weekend for our country."
LOON's spring production, on the other hand, will be the opposite of timely. "'Fledermaus' is just a party," Lawrence said about the 1874 operetta by waltz master Johann Strauss II. "Bubbles, champagne, confetti and guest artists."
In the meantime, the company will continue its "Little LOON" tour, bringing an adaptation of Antonin Dvorak's "Rusalka" to area schools and incorporating student performers. Lawrence sounded aptly musical as she recited a list of the stops she could name offhand.
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"We've already been to many schools in Superior," she said. "We've already been to Bemidji and Laporte. We're going to Grand Marais, Ely, Silver Bay, Ashby, Goodridge, Crookston, Clearbrook, Gonvick, Hallock ... Aitkin, Cloquet, Wrenshall. We're everywhere! And a lot of schools in Duluth."
Lawrence sees the Depot as the perfect platform for LOON to launch its next era. The company still maintains a scenic shop at Builders Commonwealth in Lincoln Park; LOON's office space was previously tucked into Vikre Distillery.
"The distillery has been so gracious with that and they weren't saying we had to leave," said Lawrence, "but the closer we get with our friends at the ballet and the symphony, the more I wanted to be with them."
Lawrence's dreams for the space include turning the theater's box office into a sales point for all three arts organizations, with regular hours of operation.
"None of our companies have extra staff," she said, "but we can figure those things out together, and then there's a hub for all of these organizations."
LOON was founded in 2004 by Ruth Jacobson, who convened many people associated with the former Northern Opera Theatre Experience (1991-98). Lawrence and co-artistic director Calland Metts — also a singer, and Lawrence's husband — took the reins after Jacobson died in 2010.
"We're all over the state of Minnesota," said Lawrence. "We don't have to sort of tiptoe in anymore and say, 'Well, we're thinking about having an opera company.' We're having an opera company. There's an opera company here now."
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For "Radio Hour" information and tickets, see loonopera.org.
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