Be prepared to be gobsmacked.
The historic Rio Grande campus of Austin Community College once Austin High School and, before that, Allan Junior High School has been thoroughly transformed with an eye to the future of learning in this city.
More than a century of gritty wear and tear, as well as almost geologic layers left behind from past makeovers and expansions, have given way to open, modern classrooms, science labs and meeting spaces that swim with light and are designed for streamlined comfort.
As part of a $49 million project, two open-air courtyards, which once allowed daylight into the interiors but baked in hot weather, have been covered with high-tech tenting from Germany, making them comfortable year-round. The former auditorium has been turned into a tall-ceilinged training center and software factory for Army Futures Command. What not long ago was a cramped cafeteria is now an ACCelerator, a high-tech learning center laid out for mentoring, like the popular
Under ideal circumstances, producing a full-scale opera is a mammoth task.
Now try doing that during a pandemic while outdoors on a wet spring night in Austin.
Envisioning an epic show that companies many times its size would not risk during the current health crisis, Austin Opera, surely the bravest of its kind in America, decided to stage Tosca, Puccini s masterpiece, at Circuit of the Americas, the city s Formula One racetrack.
Just to outfit the Germania Insurance Amphitheater stage for the job of handling an opera must have seemed overwhelming. Yet the COTA leadership graciously gave Austin Opera two full weeks to adapt to the space and the troupe ran with it.
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Austin 360
When you think of Tosca, one of the world s most beloved operas, you might conjure up lofty melodies, virtuoso performances and dramatic action that includes murder, suicide and a good deal of associated suffering.
You might envision, too, elaborate scenery and costumes depicting 1800s Rome, as Napoleon s troops enter a city ruled by Scarpia, the sadistic chief of police who tortures the painter Cavaradossi in order to force the artist s beloved, opera singer Tosca, into his bed.
Did I say it was a melodrama? It is. But a surprisingly effective one.
Puccini s almost Wagnerian score ranks alongside his other operatic zeniths, such as La Boheme, Turandot and Madama Butterfly.
Austin 360
In the first sign that we really might see and hear shows inside the Long Center for the Performing Arts in 2021, the Austin Symphony has announced a 22-concert season that includes some pops performances at the nearby Palmer Events Center.
This wealth of music will be presented in eight double-concert pairs as part of the Masterworks Series, two single-concert performances played simultaneously with movies, and two double-concert pops shows that seem suitable for spontaneous dancing in the aisles.
Masterworks Series
Sept. 17-18: Espíritu Latino! Dubbed an Anthony J. Corroa Concert after the symphony s recently retired executive director, this show will include Édouard Lalo s Symphonie Espagnole and Maurice Ravel s Boléro.