Opera Gala

Join Des Moines Metro Opera as it celebrates the opening of the 51st Festival Season! The Opera Gala promises to be an elegant evening featuring a cocktail hour, plated dinner, and stunning performances by mainstage artists, followed by an afterparty! 

This year's Opera Gala will take place in one of downtown Des Moines’ iconic buildings­­—the American Enterprise Group’s national headquarters, formerly known as the American Republic Insurance Building. The building was designed and constructed in 1965 by Gordon Bunshaft, renowned architect and leading proponent of modern design, while with the New York office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Upon opening the building was featured in LIFE magazine and deemed “the talk of the Midwest.” The American Enterprise Group received an Honor Award for Architecture from the American Institute of Architects in 1967. In 2015, the building was painstakingly restored and won an additional AIA Honor Award for Architecture and an American Architecture Award from The Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design, The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies Metropolitan Arts Press. From inception, American Enterprise Group’s art collection was integral to the architecture and distributed throughout public and private areas. The building fuses workplace with this significant art collection creating a museum within an office.

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