Indianapolis Opera is turning a Broad Ripple dinner table into a stage next week, hosting its Bel Canto, Bella Cucina! Fundraiser next Tuesday at Ambrosia Italian Restaurant. The evening welcomes 90 guests for a four-course meal paired with Italian opera and Neapolitan songs, with baritone Daniel Narducci performing live during the event.
According to WISH-TV, the menu spans appetizers, salad, a choice of entrée and dessert, with wine and beer selections offered throughout the meal. Tickets are available through indyopera.org, and the fundraiser is one of several intimate pop-up-style events the company stages each year at restaurants and country clubs around the region — typically four to five times annually, per the same report.
General Director David Craig Starkey, who has led Indianapolis Opera since 2017, described the dinner as something close to a personal opera pop-up, according to WISH-TV. Starkey previously founded the Asheville Lyric Opera in North Carolina in 1999 before taking the reins in Indianapolis, and his tenth anniversary with the company arrives during the spring 2027 season.
A Company Built on Small-Scale Survival
Founded in October 1975 by Miriam Ramaker of Indiana Central University, Indianapolis Opera remains the oldest and only professional opera company in the state. The organization began with small-budget chamber productions before expanding into large-scale repertoire, and it has weathered repeated financial turbulence over the decades — production cancellations in 1981, 1995 and 2010, and a full suspension of operations during the 2014 season, before reaching fiscal stability under Starkey's leadership.
That history helps explain why ticketed events like this one carry outsized weight for the company's bottom line. Starkey has said opera is not as expensive to attend as many assume, and he has also noted that live opera is inherently unpredictable — observations that frame why smaller, controlled-capacity gatherings like the Ambrosia dinner remain a steady piece of the company's fundraising strategy.
A Baritone With Three Decades of History Here
Narducci made his Indianapolis Opera debut in 1990 as Sam in The Pirates of Penzance and has since performed six lead roles with the company over three decades. He holds a bachelor's, master's and doctorate in voice performance from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music and now serves as Assistant Professor of Music Performance at the Ball State University School of Music.
Narducci also won a BroadwayWorld Regional Award for Best Actor in a Musical for his role as King Arthur in Indianapolis Opera's 2019 production of Camelot. He is scheduled to appear again this November in the company's staging of La Traviata, which will run at The Tarkington inside the Allied Solutions Center for the Performing Arts in Carmel.
Family-Owned Venue With Its Own Deep Roots
Ambrosia, the host restaurant for the fundraiser, has its own long local history. Gino Pizzi, an Italian native, founded the restaurant in Broad Ripple in 1979, and it is now owned and operated by his daughter, Anna Pizzi Cage, and her husband, Dan Cage. The restaurant sits at 5903 N. College Avenue in the Meridian-Kessler neighborhood, having relocated block by block from its original spot on Westfield Boulevard. Hoodline previously reported on new Pizzi family ventures expanding Indianapolis's Italian dining scene.
What's Next for Indianapolis Opera's 52nd Season
The Aug. 25 dinner arrives as Indianapolis Opera opens its 52nd season, described in WISH-TV's report as part of the company's broader effort to make opera more accessible to the community. Beyond the November Traviata run, the company has also planned a spring production of Man of La Mancha and its Libiamo signature event in March.
On Sept. 11, 2026, Indianapolis Opera will hold its free Opera in the Park concert at Garfield Park's MacAllister Amphitheater, co-hosted by soprano Angela Brown and Maestro Alfred Savia in partnership with the Friends of Garfield Park. That performance, the ninth annual installment of the series, will commemorate the 25th anniversary of 9/11 and feature the Indianapolis Youth Orchestra. The company's chorus previously joined the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra for patriotic outdoor concerts covered by Hoodline's Conner Prairie coverage earlier this summer.
