The open courtyard at the Mill City Museum would be the site for "Pagliacci." Star Tribune photo by David Brewster

A new opera company will use the Mill City ruins to site a production of "Pagliacci" next summer. The Mill City Summer Opera will be praying for clear skies July 12-20, when the company makes its premiere in the open courtyard of the ruins, along the Mississippi River. If the rain comes, the production will move inside the adjacent museum — a nice place but nowhere near as dramatic as the open-air ruins.

The opera company is headed by artistic director David Lefkowich and music director Brian DeMaris. The board of directors includes composer Libby Larsen and mezzo Heather Johnson, a White Bear Lake native who performed last summer with the Metropolitan Opera. It was founded by Karen Brooks, a Minnesota-based bassoonist who caught the idea for an outdoor opera company after playing four summers with Ash Lawn Opera in Charlottesville, Va.

The local company will partner with the Mill City Museum; the Lundstrum Center in north Minneapolis will be an educational associate. There will be five performances of "Pagliacci" in July. No singers have been announced for the principal roles, although the group says "American singers with national reputations" will be used and Twin Cities singers will take supporting parts. They intend to use union musicians in the orchestra.

Looking ahead, the company hopes to alternate summer productions of opera with musical theater. Tickets for the July performances of "Pagliacci" are set at $25, according to the website, www.millcitysummeropera.org