Best New Opera Company

Sure, Minnesota Opera puts on great 

productions—but it does it inside, in the winter and spring. This summer, 

a new young opera company, Mill City Opera, broke on the scene with a playful production of Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci, on a stage shaped like a clown’s face, outside, in the middle of July. It was a gutsy, glorious experiment that built an instant audience for next summer’s production, whatever it may be.