Austin, TX
Austin Opera Envisions Dazzling Future Amid Industry Turbulence – Reporting Texas
By OISAKHOSE AGHOMO
Photography By OISAKHOSE AGHOMO
Reporting Texas
Jasmine Habersam who plays Musetta rehearses a scene in Act 2 of the Austin Opera’s upcoming production of ‘La Boheme’. She is surrounded by other members of the cast. Oisakhose Aghomo/Reporting Texas
Near a nondescript building in North Austin, if you listen hard, you can hear Mimi and Rodolfo falling in love.
As the Austin Opera prepares for its upcoming opening of “La Boheme,” it’s on the upswing into a new era – despite the recent turbulence surrounding the classical arts at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. And while the actor Timothee Chalamet recently said “no one cares about” opera and ballet, Austin Opera is building its future.
“The company had been leasing rehearsal and administrative space for many years when I got here. …We’ve been kind of running our costume shop out of the corner of a warehouse.” said Annie Burridge, general director of the Austin Opera.
For the last year, the company has been promoting its big move to the Sarah and Ernest Butler Performance Center in the fall; it will have both a rehearsal space and a costume shop. The company is betting that both the move and its ambitious slate of classic and experimental operas will fortify its business as threats to funding spiral across the industry.
Brittany Olivia Logan plays Mimi in the Austin Opera’s new production. Oisakhose Aghomo/Reporting Texas
“La Boheme” was originally composed by Giacomo Puccini as a tale of friendship and love, set in 19th century France, centered around lovers Rodolfo and Mimi. It’s sung in Italian, the de facto language of opera.
Austin Opera’s “La Boheme” is a production of around 160 people including stage crew and a youth choir. Several times a week for three-hour blocks, the cast and crew meet up in a waiting-room sized space filled with carts of props, costumes and musical instruments.
As director of the show, Eboni Adams works to make everyone feel at home with the space and each other.
“What I found in rehearsal spaces is that no matter if you’ve done ‘La Boheme’ one time or 20 times, I always look at the space that we enter into as this is the first last time we will do ‘La Boheme’ in this way because we have people in the room that we have never done this with,” Adams said.
Though “La Boheme” tends to attract a large audience, opera companies typically run a deficit, Burridge said.
“Even with ticket prices that can go up to as high as $250 when we’re doing something that’s really popular or in demand, that’s still only going to cover maybe 30% of the expense of putting on an opera,” she said. “It’s always been reliant on patrons willing to cover 70% of that gap.”
Burridge said that the company had been looking for additional sources of revenue to stay alive because “city, state, national support is just meaningless here in the U.S.”
Timothy Myers, the musical director, ends a scene with Jasmine Habersham as Musetta and the rest of cast and choir. Oisakhose Aghomo/Reporting Texas
In the last few months, a highly publicized breakup between the Washington National Opera and the newly renamed Trump Kennedy Center, under new management by the Trump administration, has unfolded. NPR reported that the new policies, which required the Washington National Opera to pay for the costs of production up front, caused the rupture.
In addition, the Trump administration has systemically cut grants from the federal government through the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for Humanities in the last year. The Madison Opera in Wisconsin lost a $25,000 grant in 2025, according to The Cap Times.
Burridge said that even though government funding could account for about 5% of an American city opera’s budget, the loss of the funding is “a signal that you don’t need to care about these things, and that’s tough to combat right now.”
Adams said that framing the arts as trivial doesn’t make sense.
“When has sports ever been underfunded? Hm,” she said. “And so the question is, what is it about art that some people and organizations are deciding generally that those things should not be funded? What is the power of art and why are people not finding it of importance?”
This is why, as an Austin native, Adams said it was disheartening that Texas’ unofficial cultural ambassador, Matthew McConaughey, was a silent bystander while Chalamet made his comments on the profitability of opera at a CNN and Variety Townhall, filmed at the University of Texas.
“My call to action – invite Matthew McConaughey and his friends and family to come see the show and experience the show. And his friend, Timothy Chalamet to the show as well. I want to hear their thoughts,” Adams said.
The show will run from April 30 to May 3 at the Long Center, which the company currently rents for shows while the Sarah and Ernest Butler Performance Center is under renovation.
When the center opens in October, Austin Opera hopes to use it to create more revenue by filling South Austin’s need for rehearsal and performance space.
“We’ll have rental revenue streams. We’ll have bar revenue. Hopefully, we can sell a lot of Chardonnay,” Burridge said. “Having our own will enable us also to broaden what we are offering so we can do opera and … chamber music, musical theater, jazz, all kinds of cabaret or recital formats as well.”
The opening will launch the 2026-27 season with “Ofrenda,” which is performed in Spanish and English – another feature of the company’s vision for its future. The opera is the brainchild of Jorge Sosa and John de los Santos as part of the Austin Opera’s Residency for Latinx Creatives.
Alejandra Martinez, one of the residents, said that expanding the language offerings will open up the market and help more consumers connect to the art form.
“If we’re not making the move to say, ‘we’re going to have this speak to you, we’re going to invite you into this world,’ then ultimately we’re to blame,” Martinez said.
Martinez said that opera’s future, monetarily and culturally, rests in its ability to connect its audience to their humanity.
“The thing that vibrates to make noise ranges in size from like the diameter of like, of like a dime or a quarter. It is a miracle that we speak and we sing,” Martinez said. “How wonderful it is to be human and to be able to do that.”
AUSTIN (KXAN) — As flood threats continue across parts of South Central Texas, Austin Pets Alive! has activated emergency response efforts to support animal shelters affected by the inclement weather.
In a social media post, APA! wrote, “We began offering aid last night, working to secure fosters for 10 dogs in the Castroville shelter, an open-air shelter that sits at the bottom of a valley.”
APA! said the situation escalated overnight with additional shelters reporting flooding. One shelter confirmed that floodwaters reached its facility, APA! added.
Communities overwhelmed due to weather include Uvalde, Castroville and Sabinal.
The nonprofit is asking the Austin community to foster, adopt or donate to free up capacity for animals displaced by the disaster. APA! needs to clear out its facilities to assist the animals in need of shelter.
Here are ways you can help:
- Adopt: APA! is offering a “Name Your Own Adoption Fee” on all animals.
- Foster: The shelter is seeking foster homes for a minimum of three weeks.
- Donate: Proceeds will fund vans and response teams setting up a staging and triage center at the heart of the disaster zone, along with an expanded stockpile of preventatives, PPE and additional supplies.
If you would like to donate, click here.
AUSTIN, Texas — With heavy rain expected across parts of Central Texas this week and flooding top of mind, the city of Austin is proposing to put more money toward flood mitigation improvements in next year’s budget.
The proposal would invest in new flood infrastructure, add staff, and help move flood mitigation projects forward, according to city leaders. Austin City Councilmember Ryan Alter said the investments are aimed at keeping the city prepared for future flooding.
Residents who live near waterways say they have seen how quickly conditions can change. David Haderspeck, who lives near Shoal Creek, said the creek “fills up pretty fast” and “gets a lot higher than you’d expect.” He said he has watched the water rise dramatically after rain.
“I’ve seen it come up probably 10 to 15 feet to the ordinary high-water mark,” he said.
This week, parts of Central Texas, including the Hill Country, are expected to get heavy downpours. While Austin is not expecting the same impacts as parts of the Hill Country, leaders said the city is using this year’s budget planning to continue investing in flood safety.
Alter said the city has the expertise to address flooding risks but needs to follow through on projects.
ALSO| Central Texas urged to prepare as heavy rainfall sits in forecast over next two days
“We have the experts. We just have to put the plans into practice, and that’s what we’re doing in this budget,” he said.
Under the budget proposal, the city would provide about $134.5 million for the Drainage Utility Fund, which helps pay for flood mitigation, drainage infrastructure and watershed protection efforts.
Alter said the proposal would shift more of the funding balance toward building new infrastructure.
“What we’re going to do is shift that balance a little bit more to building new infrastructure so that when we do have large flooding events, we’ve got that infrastructure in place to keep people safe,” he said.
The proposal also adds staff and invests in both new and existing flood mitigation projects across the city.
Asked whether the proposed investments would be enough moving forward, Alter said, “I do…I think we’re doing the right thing and just making sure that our residents have the infrastructure to stay safe.”
Alter said heavy rain cannot be prevented, but the city’s goal is to have infrastructure in place to help keep people safe when it happens.
FILE – LinkedIn logos are displayed on an iPhone and computer screen. (Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images)
AUSTIN, Texas – The Texas Attorney General’s office has opened an investigation into LinkedIn over allegations that the professional networking platform misleads consumers with advertising and profiting from misleading or fake job listings, otherwise known as “ghost jobs.”
LinkedIn investigation
In this photo illustration a Linkedin logo seen displayed on a mobile phone. (Photo Illustration by Stanislav Kogiku/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
What we know:
Texas announced on Tuesday it has issued a Civil Investigative Demand (CID) seeking documents, data and internal communications related to LinkedIn’s advertising, marketing, job listing verification practices and its Premium subscription services.
The investigation centers on whether LinkedIn violated Texas’ consumer protection laws by promoting paid subscription services while allegedly failing to disclose that some job listings on the platform may not actually be representative of hiring opportunities.
What is a ‘ghost job’?
An image of a woman holding a cell phone in front of a LinkedIn logo displayed on a computer screen. On Tuesday, January 12, 2021, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. (Photo by Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Dig deeper:
LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft and the world’s largest professional networking platform, with more than 1 billion registered users worldwide.
A “ghost job” generally refers to a position advertised online that either is no longer available or that an employer has no immediate intention of filling. The attorney general’s office cited independent studies estimating that ghost jobs account for between one-fifth and one-third of online job postings.
Texas AG targets Premium Subscription Fees
Photographer: Mark Felix/Bloomberg via Getty Images
What they’re saying:
According to the office of the attorney general, LinkedIn does not independently verify the hiring status of most job listings on its platform. Ken Paxton’s office alleges that the company’s marketing for its Premium subscription services does not disclose that a significant number of postings could be inactive, unfilled or not reflect genuine employment opportunity.
“I will use every resource available to my office to help job-seeking Texans find and secure real employment opportunities,” Paxton said in a statement. “LinkedIn has a duty to provide the services it advertises and ensure that consumers paying for Premium subscriptions are receiving access to legitimate job postings.”
Texas officials said LinkedIn’s Premium Career and Premium Business subscriptions cost about $39.99 and $69.99 per month, respectively, and are marketed to jobseekers looking to improve their employment prospects.
What’s next:
The investigation does not include any formal allegations of wrongdoing, and no lawsuit has been filed.
The Source: Information in this article was provided by the Texas Attorney General’s Office.
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