About LOLA
LOLA's mission is to create innovative high-quality artistic experiences that eliminate barriers to connecting with the operatic artform, bringing artists and communities together.
LOLA commits to cultivating the future of opera by offering new approaches to this art form & classical singing & to propelling opera out of the grand hall & into the larger community at events in bars, parks, & small theaters. LOLA is particularly keen on giving Austin-based artists of all stripes unique & interesting outlets for their work that otherwise would not exist in the Austin cultural landscape. We work to ensure 70% of our cast and crew are female-identifying &/or from historically underrepresented communities (Latinx, Black and queer artists in particular.) Recent data tells us we reach diverse audiences & many who are new to Western classical vocal music. In 2022, we reached over 1,000 people through our programming at Waterloo Park, Mozarts, & our production of Lardo Weeping at CRASHBOX. Our audiences included people of all ages, families, & members of the LGBTQIA & BIPOC communities.
Instead of a formal season, we stay open to collaborating with arts organizations & artists & finding ways to support each other & center voices that are not traditionally uplifted in the opera community.
From LOLA’s first performance, we were already breaking from tradition by casting Puccini’s La Bohème with all treble voices. We intentionally set out to engage local singers of high quality as well as develop some new talent in the community. Organically we decided to tell this story through a queer lens of found family, young love, & heartbreak.
Our most recent production, Lardo Weeping a new chamber opera by composer Stopschinski & librettist Galloway, gives voice to Dinah LeFarge, a quite large, sexual, woman with 5 dollars in her bank account struggling to find meaning, hope, & laughter while living in her single room apartment. It is an exquisite meditation on finding beauty & value in unexpected places, biting criticism of fatphobia, & an unflinching look at an individual we all know but usually overlook for the easily digestible character.
Liz Cass
Executive Producer
Liz Cass is a producer, educator, arts leader, and active operatic performer. Founder and the Executive Producer of the award-winning LOLA, Local Opera Local Artists, Ms. Cass also holds the title of Executive Director of the Armstrong Community Music School and serves on the boards of Seagle Festival, Austin Classical Guitar, and is on the community advisory board of KMFA 89.5.
Ms. Cass is the originator of the mezzo role in the opera, Pancho Villa; From a Safe Distance by Graham Reynolds and Lagartijas Tiradas al Sol for which she garnered an Austin Critic’s Table Award for Best Singer. Other recent performance highlights: concert of French art song with Austin Chamber Music Center, the world premiere of Donald Grantham’s song cycle “Love Songs Sweet and Sour” with pianist Carla McElhaney, Mrs. Lowe and Dora in The Manchurian Candidate by Kevin Puts with Austin Opera, The Brahms Alto Rhapsody with Chorus Austin, mezzo soloist in Handel’s Messiah at the Teatro Nationale and Casa Santo Domingo in Guatemala and Pancho Villa; From a Safe Distance with PuSh Festival in Vancouver and the Prototype Festival in NYC.
Upcoming, Ms. Cass is originating the role of Dinah LeFarge in LOLA’s commissioned opera, Lardo Weeping, by Peter Stopschinski and Terry Galloway which will have its fully staged premiere in August of 2022.
Liz began her vocal studies with Dr. Rebecca Folsom. Ms. Cass is a graduate of the University of Missouri at Kansas City Conservatory of Music where she received her degree in Vocal Performance under the tutelage of renowned voice teacher Inci Bashar.
Rebecca Herman
Artistic Producer
Rebecca Herman is Artistic Producer of LOLA, Local Opera Local Artists in Austin, TX and an operatic stage director. This year Rebecca is especially excited to be Associate Director for Tomer Zvulun’s new production of The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs at Lyric Opera of Kansas City, and Atlanta Opera in Spring 2022 and return to Queen City Opera to direct Fidellio. 2021 Highlights include: Tosca (AD), Le Nozze di Figaro (AD), Austin Opera; Lardo Weeping, part 2 (Dir & Prod), Good Country (Dir & Prod), LOLA.
Pre-pandemic highlights include: Dido and Aeneas (Dir), LOLA & Panoramic voices, La Finta Giardiniera (AD) ,Portland Opera, The Magic Bullets (Dir), & Die Walküre, Act I (Dir), Queen City Opera, Otello (Dir), Don Giovanni (Dir), & The Daughter of the Regiment (Dir), Austin Opera.
Rebecca received an M.M. in Opera Direction from The University of Texas at Austin and both a B.A. in English Literature and a B.M. in Opera/Vocal Studies from Lawrence University.