Austin Opera celebrating 40 years with new, permanent home

AUSTIN (KXAN) — Austin Opera is about to turn 40, and it’s getting a major birthday gift.

Austin Opera recently moved into a south Austin building that’s tucked away just south of State Highway 71, off Montopolis Drive and Burleson Road. The organization bought the building from JD Abrams and is now renovating it, with construction on track to finish up next fall, in conjunction with the Opera’s 40th season.

Annie Burridge, General Director and CEO at Austin Opera, said the site, which will eventually be the Butler Performance Center and Austin Opera’s new headquarters, will boast a 200-seat theater, four rehearsal venues, a costume shop, a conference center, an outdoor event center, and administrative offices.

Burridge said the space was designed to be “as versatile as possible.”

“Primarily designed with the cultural community in mind, but cultural spaces, when they’re designed the right way, feel inclusive and open and welcoming to everyone. So we’re happy to host all kinds of events in this space,” Burridge said. “We’re right across the highway from our primary collaborator, the Mexican Consulate. We’ve been performing over there for years and working with them for years. So to now be in this neighborhood just feels, it feels perfectly right.”

Burridge said Austin Opera has a long-term commitment to working with the Latine community in Austin through the Mexican Consulate as well as a residency program to develop Spanish-language opera. She said the new location is perfect because of the proximity to the consulate, but it’s also surrounded by schools with high populations of Spanish-speaking students.

“We’re just so excited to be embedded here in the community with doors where we can host all kinds of events,” she said.

Previously, the Austin Opera had been renting a space in north Austin and performing at the Long Center. Burridge said that finally having a permanent home and performance center of the Opera’s own is game-changing.

“The Long Center is a wonderful space and we love putting our large-scale, large-format operas on there, but to have our own performance space where we can add to our programming, especially our programming for families and kids and the community, is just such a huge asset,” Burridge said. “And Austin is in such dire need for more performance space for all of our great cultural organizations. So we’re also just so looking forward to being a hub of cultural activity. We’ll have artists in and out of here every day and performances every night. That’s the dream.”

The Austin Opera will continue to put on larger-scale shows at the Long Center, as well as host smaller productions in its new home.

Austin Opera’s 40th season will kick off in November with “Celebrate Opera! A Spectacular Birthday Concert” at the Long Center, conducted by Timothy Myers. Then, early in 2026, the Opera is putting on a huge production of “Fiddler on the Roof,” in partnership with Shalom Austin.

“So we’ll open this season with a 40th birthday concert, which will be an epic salute to opera, to our favorite art form, but it will also feature some great musical theater hits and will feature just some great content about Austin Opera and what we’ve been able to do over 40 years here,” Burridge said. “So it’s the perfect opportunity to do a sampling of Opera’s Greatest Hits.”

Austin Opera expects to hold a soft opening of the new space next summer and a grand opening in the fall.

More details about Austin Opera’s upcoming shows and events, and tickets can be found online.

Credit: Source link