Kentucky Opera

Support musical storytelling that can only be found in Kentucky!

A visit to Kentucky Opera means seeing beautiful costumes, sets, and stories brought to life on stage. Hearing live classical music that delights and uplifts our audience. Feeling connection to our community the powerful medium of opera. 

Through mainstage performances, school programs, and community events throughout the year we aim to spark discovery and joy to build a vibrant, healthy community.

Support from donors like you keeps the magic onstage, in the classroom, and in community centers across Kentuckiana. Thank you for your generosity! 

Don't forget about our open house! Today, September 14 from 4-5:30pm. Come see us this afternoon for snacks, rehearsal sneak peeks, and more! 

Who We Are

Currently in our 67th Season, Kentucky Opera (KO) is the only major professional opera company in Kentucky, reaching over 240,000 households annually. Kentucky Opera offers a robust and exciting opera season, as well as innovative outreach/enrichment programs to youth and adults throughout the region. Every opera production is produced locally, representing a unique collaboration among over 400 professionals.

Kentucky Opera’s mission is to engage a broad, diverse audience by producing opera of the highest caliber. Further, Kentucky Opera’s vision is to deliver a top quality, highly entertaining, accessible, socially interactive, and affordable cultural arts experience to as many people as possible. Kentucky Opera continually strives to cultivate future audiences. Strategically, everything Kentucky Opera does focuses on positioning the company as a regional and national leader in developing innovative opera programming; reaching new and more diverse audiences; producing outreach and educational/enrichment programs designed to enhance access to and experience of opera; and training the next generation of American opera artists.

Kentucky Opera’s performances/productions, educational programs, outreach activities, special events, and other events are targeted at multi-generational populations throughout Metro Louisville and the Commonwealth of Kentucky, as well as the larger geographic region. Age groups targeted and served range from preschool and elementary school through senior citizens. While not every Kentucky Opera occasion or event is suitable for every audience, the stated goal of Kentucky Opera is to make the art form accessible, compelling, and fun for all ages, while opening it to as wide a demographic as possible.

To that end, Kentucky Opera’s activities are and will be conducted not only in the Brown Theatre, which is Kentucky Opera’s home stage, but also in venues such as churches, schools, private homes, meeting facilities, public facilities, and remote locations throughout the county, the Commonwealth, and the surrounding region. Outreach, enrichment, and educational events/programs take place in public and private schools, over public radio, online, in Boys and Girls Clubs, in libraries and senior centers, through business partnerships, and via social media. Kentucky Opera productions and performances are co-sponsored with other agencies and organizations whenever possible and appropriate. Populations targeted include, but are not limited to, children, senior citizens, young professionals, students, newcomers, outlying area residents, lower income individuals, “mainstream” arts patrons, and a variety of other groups.