Art Hounds: Love, dance and embroidery

Art Hounds

Opera lover Miluska Novota of Minneapolis says she’s “saltando en dos patitas — jumping on two feet” for joy as she looks forward to seeing Venessa Becerra in Minnesota Opera’s “Elixir of Love.”

Novota loved the soprano’s performance in “The Daughter of the Regiment,” and she’s happy to see a Latina performer take the lead role as Adina.

In Gaetano Donizetti’s popular comedic opera, lowly farmer Nemorino (Andrew Stenston), tries to win the heart of the beautiful, strong-willed Adina, and a love potion feels like just the way to go. It’s a plot worth of a telenovela, says Novota, but with beautiful arias.

Novota appreciates that the Minnesota Opera has been “doing such a good job … recruiting singers of color, and bringing communities that may not have felt welcome in the classical world and in opera.”

The production is set in 1916 California. It will be sung in Italian with English captions projected above the stage. The show opens Saturday, Jan. 27, and runs through Feb. 4.

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Minneapolis-based performer Sam Johnson has long followed the work of choreographer Morgan Thorson, and he’s looking forward to watching her newest creation this Saturday night. “Untitled Night” stands out for its location: it takes place on a frozen lake at night.

“She often tackles these big, huge issues, concepts that we're all dealing with in our lives. But she comes at it in this in a really interesting, very dance-centric way that I really appreciate.”

The 30-minute dance performance investigates our relationship with winter and the night sky, performed as a collaboration of a dozen interdisciplinary artists. There are two shows at 5:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. at Silver Lake in St. Anthony.

This performance is part of The Great Northern, a Twin Cities Arts festival that runs Jan. 25 through Feb. 4.

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Art lover Marc Robinson of Northfield is looking forward to seeing the third and final installment of an interdisciplinary art project traveling southeast Minnesota that investigates the concept of home.

Artist Cecilia Cornejo Sotelo created a traveling recording studio, and she interviewed people in Northfield, Lanesboro and Red Wing about home, belonging and community.

In each town, their words were transcribed, and community members embroidered selected phrases onto squares that were then pieced together into a giant quilt. Red Wing’s exhibit includes three large quilts with the Mississippi running across all three, uniting them.

“Embroidering Red Wing: stories of home told with needle and thread” is on view at the Red Wing Arts Depot Gallery through Feb. 24. There is a public reception Saturday, Jan. 27 from 2-4 p.m.

“Embroidering Red Wing” also features an interactive touchscreen, that allows the public to listen to the original, anonymous recording made in 2022, on which the embroidered work is based.

The exhibition also includes The Wandering House - Sonic Archive, a repository of testimonials and ambient sounds designed as an exploration of home from a rural perspective. The archive comprises testimonials that Cornejo has been recording since 2019 with community members in Northfield, Lanesboro and Red Wing.