David Lefkowich had his eye on the Basilica of St. Mary, the grand Catholic cathedral just off the edge of Minneapolis’ Loring Park. Literally.
“I have a condo that’s right by the Walker [Art Center],” said the artistic director of Minneapolis-based Out of the Box Opera. “During COVID, I would stand on that balcony with nothing to do but stare at the city, which is beautiful. But I’d look over at the basilica and the bells would ring. And I said, ‘I want to do a show there. That would be awesome.’”
But what opera would fit the setting and mission of Minneapolis’ capital of Catholicism? While meeting with Johan van Parys, the basilica’s director of liturgy and sacred arts, one suddenly popped to Lefkowich’s mind: “Suor Angelica,” Giacomo Puccini’s convent-set, one-act opera about a nun haunted by her past.
“I didn’t expect Johan to know as much about opera as he does,” Lefkowich said. “He said, ‘OK, that’s an interesting choice.’ ”
The seed planted in that conversation comes to full blossom this week when Out of the Box Opera presents “Suor Angelica” at the basilica. A promenade-style staging, it will take an audience of up to 200 from a community room in the building’s lowest level to an intimate chapel, then conclude in the expansive central nave, lined with stones and statuary.
“We’re very committed to contributing to the celebration of the arts in the community,” van Parys said of the basilica. “That’s part of our mission. Mostly the sacred arts, obviously, but I was very intrigued by the idea of an opera. I’ve always loved opera. My mother used to take me and my younger brother. ‘Tosca’ was my first opera. I was probably 9 years old.”
Lefkowich also knows “Tosca” well, as he directed that Puccini masterpiece last decade when he was artistic director of Mill City Summer Opera. Its productions were presented in the ruins of a riverside flour mill, in the Mill City Museum courtyard.
Now he returns to Puccini with Out of the Box, a company he founded in 2018 that’s presented offbeat fare like a series of “Diva Cage Matches” — featuring sopranos singing arias in a boxing gym — and adaptations of George Frideric Handel’s “Acis and Galatea” and Giuseppe Verdi’s “La Traviata” that, like “Suor Angelica,” asked audiences to move from room to room.
