PROVING UP || Missy Mazzoli and Royce Vavrek

7:30 pm OCTOBER 2, 3, and 2 pm OCTOBER 5, 2025
THE LITTLE THEATRE at CIVIC CENTER MUSIC HALL
OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA

A chilling tale of the American prairie by two of opera’s most innovative creators. The Zegner family are homesteaders in 19th century Nebraska who strive to own their land free and clear by satisfying the government’s requirements to “prove up”, including a sod house, five years of harvest, and perhaps the most elusive element - a glass window. The Zegners send their son Miles to share the window with another family who awaits a visit from the government inspector, but things go awry as he travels through a landscape of past tragedies and spirits and comes face to face with the Sodbuster - a dark and menacing man who has first-hand experience with the fragility of the American Dream.

Composer Missy Mazzoli has been called “one of the more consistently inventive, surprising composers now working in New York” (The New York Times) as well as “Brooklyn’s post-millennial Mozart” (Time Out New York). Her works have been featured at major opera companies across the world and she is one of only two woman composers who have been commissioned to compose a work for The Metropolitan Opera. Librettist Royce Vavrek has “shaken up the timid, backward-looking business of American opera” (The New Yorker) with his daring and inventive text for some of modern opera’s most celebrated works. Their collaboration in Proving Up has been called “harrowing...powerful...a true opera of our time” by The Washington Post.

Performed fully staged with orchestra in English with supertitles. Estimated length is 1 hours and 30 minutes with no intermission.

Join us 45 minutes prior to curtain to learn more about the opera in a pre-show talk.