Opera Building

This building (on Barton Springs Road across from the Long Center and Palmer Events Center) houses the Heller Opera Center and the James Armstrong School of Music. (There is a Preece Recital Hall inside, as a matter of fact.) Besides housing administrative offices for Austin Lyric Opera and a rehearsal hall and recital hall, there are practice rooms for the music school.

Estate

When does a house become an estate? In the case of a place we saw on Lake Travis Saturday night, it's when there is a separate 'pavilion' with restrooms and a catering kitchen, a covered area several times as large as my condo and a terrace overlooking Lake Travis. All of this separated from the actual home by a waterfall. I said a couple of times that I wouldn't want to pay to maintain it! We were attending a party to kick off the season of Austin Lyric Opera. I wish I could say divas stood on that terrace and belted out some arias but there was no musical entertainment, sadly.

A Kodosky Party

At the Long Center on the east side before the ring stretches around to meet the west side you may have noticed a glass-enclosed room. This is the Kodosky Donor's Lounge. In this picture you can see the glass facade of Long Center reflecting Auditorium Shores. If you saw 'The Bat' (Austin Lyric Opera's and Esther's Follies take on "Die Fledermaus"), you know that the character throwing the party at the Driskill was "Jefferson Kodosky." So, yeah they kind of took off on a real person. But in name only. Above are the real Jeff Kodosky and his wife Gail, dear friends of ours, of opera and of the community of arts and education. Jeff is a graduate of U.T. and a founder of National Instruments. I have NEVER seen him in cowboy boots! But he laughed out loud at the character on stage sharing his name who was this bantam rooster guy in outrageous cowboy garb organizing a costume bash for 'the bat' to work his operatic drama of mistaken idenity and faux pas. Of course, the lounge was their gift to the Long Center.

The West Austin Weeklies are Well-Represented

Holly Jackson is a social editor for the Westlake Picayune and himself, FFP, is a columnist for the West Austin News. I snapped their picture at the opening night of Austin Lyric Opera's "The Bat." Looking good, reporters.

It's Batty! It's Opera!

Austin Lyric Opera (and Esther's Follies) reimagined Die Fledermaus as "The Bat." With Strauss' beautiful music came hilarious English lyrics full of inside jokes and costumes and sets evoking our fair city at its most, um, outrageous. At the after party, Katherine Shileds (who wore a silver wig as a member of the chorus) sported these bat wings. She said the costume came with a black 'halo' but it looked silly. Bat wings, though, perfectly elegant. You can still run out and buy tickets to see this at the Long Center. Couldn't be more Austin.