Enjoy your opera favorites as explored through the history of Locust Grove.
Settler William Croghan was calling Louisville home by 1784. That same year, Mozart became a Freemason in Austria, personally adapting ideals that not only influenced the American Founding Fathers, but would later embed themselves in his acclaimed opera, The Magic Flute . When The Magic Flute premiered a few years later in 1792, Italian opera legend Gioacchino Rossini was born in Italy, and back in Kentucky, William and Lucy Clark Croghan were establishing their home at Locust Grove. The Croghan family sold the land to riverboat captain James Paul in 1878, when productions of Gilbert and Sullivan’s H.M.S Pinafore premiered in the states, inspiring great interest in light opera throughout the country. When the site was purchased by Jefferson County and the Commonwealth of Kentucky and subsequently restored and opened to the public in 1964, Kentucky Opera was producing Bizet’s Carmen, Mozart’s Cosi fan Tutte and Verdi’s Rigoletto.
Bring your own blankets and chairs. Doors open at 6:00 pm; performance begins at 6:30 pm. Sweet N Savory Food Truck will provide concessions; Against the Grain Brewery will sell beer. Admission: $16/$14 for members.