About DMMO

"Such high production values and careful casting make DMMO a find." - The Wall Street Journal

Des Moines Metro Opera has taken its place as a major American summer opera festival and is one of the Midwest’s largest performing arts organizations, annually producing over 100 performances across Iowa. The company’s summer festival season runs from May through July of each year during which three operas are performed in repertory. The summer festival season takes place in the intimate Pote Theatre at the Blank Performing Arts Center in Indianola. All productions, regardless of language, are performed with English supertitles above the stage.

Unique among local arts organizations and national opera companies, the company’s programming encompasses a distinctive mix of styles from five centuries of composition, with a special emphasis on fascinating combinations of early and mid-20th century masterpieces infrequently heard in the United States. Recent seasons have seen The Love For Three Oranges paired with Bluebeard’s Castle, Wozzeck with Candide, Salome with Pelléas et Mélisande, and this season’s The Rake’s Progress with The Cunning Little Vixen. Seasons generally open with a standard from the operatic or American musical theatre canons, and nearly all productions of the festival are presented in new and original productions in one of the world’s most remarkable and intimate performing theatres. We demonstrate that opera is a vibrant, theatrical and creative art form.

DMMO enlarges experiences through a curated series of concerts, lectures, art shows, film screenings and unique performance collaborations. We cultivate the next generation of musicians and music lovers through programs like the Apprentice Artist Program and the OPERA Iowa tour. The company has earned a reputation for quality and loyalty that annually draws audience members from more than 40 states and five countries. DMMO believes that an entirely professional theatrical organization should be a cornerstone of our growing region, and we serve that need.

DMMO receives annual reviews from industry publications such as Opera with Opera News and Opera Today. The company has also been featured in the pages of The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, the Kansas City Star, The New York Times and The Chicago Tribune, which said in 2017, “Shrewd programming, thoughtful casting and top flight production values have won the company wide acclaim. Those big-city opera snobs who would equate regional opera with provincial opera haven’t reckoned on DMMO.”

INTIMACY
100% of the seats in our 467-seat theatre are closer to the center of the stage than the front row at the Metropolitan Opera or the Lyric Opera of Chicago, so the audience is up close and personal with the powerful drama on stage.

DRAMA
The scale combined with the focus on storytelling—all of Des Moines Metro Opera’s productions are sung in original language and feature English titles projected from three locations above the stage—help turn beautiful music into powerful drama.

DYNAMIC REPERTORY
Standard operatic masterpieces have consistently been presented alongside works from our own land and in our own language. Our new commitment to presenting at least one opera new to our company each season began in 2012 with Eugene Onegin; 2013’s Elektra; 2014’s Dead Man Walking and Le Comte Ory; 2015’s Jenůfa, Three Decembers and La hija de Rappaccini; 2016’s Orphée et Eurydice and Galileo Galilei; 2017’s Billy Budd, A Little Night Music, María de Buenos Aires and Soldier Songs; 2018’s As One, Rusalka, Flight and The Tender Land; 2019’s Wozzeck, Glory Denied and Bon Appétit!; 2021’s The Queen of Spades, Platée, and Fellow Travelers; 2022’s Porgy and Bess and A Thousand Acres; 2023’s Bluebeard’s Castle, The Love for Three Oranges, dwb (driving while black) and The Falling and the Rising; 2024’s Pelléas et Mélisande and American Apollo; and this year’s The Cunning Little Vixen.

OUTSTANDING ARTISTS
Central to Des Moines Metro Opera’s mission is to provide a stage for rapidly rising American-trained principal artists. DMMO principal artists frequently sing with many of the major opera companies around the world including The Metropolitan Opera, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Bayerische Staatsoper, Covent Garden, Deutsche Oper Berlin, San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Houston Grand Opera, Washington National Opera, Santa Fe Opera and Garsington Opera.

BRINGING CULTURAL TOURISTS TO IOWA
We welcomed visitors and patrons from 5 countries and 40 states during the 2024 Season, and approximately 40% of our audiences came from outside the Des Moines Metro area. According to Opera America, Des Moines Metro Opera is second in the nation among summer opera festivals in the number of visitors attracted to performances from outside its home state.

REACHING THE NEXT GENERATION
Beyond our regular season, Des Moines Metro Opera reaches a year-round audience of nearly 26,000 young people and adults with such programs as the OPERA Iowa Educational Touring Troupe. Learn more about this vital music education program on page 20.

FINANCIAL STABILITY
Des Moines Metro Opera can certainly claim artistic stature among leading American opera companies. The company’s endowment ratio is one of the highest in the opera field, thus ensuring longevity and demonstrating that a decision to invest in DMMO is a sound one.

CONTRIBUTING TO THE DES MOINES ECONOMY
Each year Des Moines Metro Opera increases the volume of scenery, costumes, props and other production items created from locally purchased materials. The company employs substantial numbers of artists and attracts contributors and ticket buyers who patronize Des Moines and Indianola-area shops, restaurants and hotels for the festival season. According to a 2022 economic impact study, Des Moines Metro Opera contributed more than $5 million in labor income and more than $12 million in local sales or output within Polk, Warren and Dallas counties.

Our Repertory

Annual Report

Employment