"World Class Opera Grows Tall and Proud in the Corn Belt" - Chicago Tribune
Tuesday, July 11, 2017JULY 11, 2017, 1:55PM | INDIANOLA, IOWA
By John von Rhein, Chicago Tribune
As you leave Des Moines and head south for about 18 miles along U.S. Highway 65/69, past vast green fields of corn and soybeans baking in the summer sun, you arrive at this sleepy bedroom community of roughly 15,000.
To call Indianola an unlikely environment for opera would be an understatement.
But it is here, for the past 45 years, that the Des Moines Metro Opera has produced an annual festival that is among the oldest and most enterprising summer opera fests in the nation.
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...