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Opera Memphis Keeps Singing; Live at the Garden Season Cancelled

Opera Memphis is continuing its aggressive programming on Facebook. During April, it’s been offering a digital version of its 30 Days of Opera program with an Aria Jukebox, a teaser about a hedgehog hoping to revive his opera career, and local singer Philip Himebook singing multiple parts in, for example, what Opera Memphis is calling the social distance version of “O Mio Babbino Caro.”

Philip Himebook and Amanda Quinn singing ‘O Mio Babbino Caro’ on Facebook for Opera Memphis.

General director Ned Canty says that on Wednesdays at 7 p.m., Opera Memphis will have a variety of live events on its Facebook page. This week’s Opera for Animals program will be co-hosted by WKNO’s Kacky Walton, and next week will feature what Canty says is “an all musical theater edition of our ‘Opera Bingo.'”


He says he hopes to bring the Sing to Me program back soon, where a singer and accompanist travel to various neighborhoods to perform at an appropriate distance. And he is offering to celebrate birthdays of front-line workers by having a performer serenade them with “Happy Birthday.” Email singtome@operamemphis.org with contact info.

To see Opera Memphis’ programming, go here.

Meanwhile, the Memphis Botanic Garden’s (MBG) Live at the Garden season has been cancelled. Sherry May, co-director of Live at the Garden, posted on MBG’s website that the scheduled May 6 announcement of the summer’s acts was also cancelled.

The organization had hoped to celebrate its 20th anniversary with the season but now is considering other ways to mark the milestone. Live at the Garden brings in about 25 percent of the MBG’s annual budget. May called the cancellation “financially devastating.”