This month's mini 'opera fest' is a prelude
to negotiations for more productions next year
BY CHANNING GRAY
Journal Arts Writer
Classical music fans in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles might get a chuckle out of the Rhode Island Philharmonic billing as an "opera fest" the two touring operas it is presenting this month.
In big cities that would mean around-the-clock Verdi, Puccini and Wagner. But in Rhode Island, the Philharmonic may not be far off the mark in regarding two operas within a couple of weeks as something remarkable.
After all, the state's own resident opera company, Ocean State Lyric Opera, mounts just one grand opera per season, although that may be about to change.
The Philharmonic, of course, is basically indulging in some old-fashioned PR, trying to put the best possible spin on its programs.
"If they weren't happening in the same month," David Wax, the Philharmonic's business manager, said half in jest, "we would have to go to three operas to call it a festival."
The first of this month's operas comes to town Tuesday, a production of Puccini's
Turandot
from Teatro Lirico D'Europa. That takes place at 8 p.m. at Veterans Memorial Auditorium.
London City Opera returns Feb. 17 with Franz Lehar's
The Merry Widow
,
also at Vets. (The same group is doing the show in New London, Conn., on Tuesday; see Page
X for details.)
Then there's a long dry spell until Ocean State Lyric stages its annual fall offering, an opera yet to be announced.
Formidable obstacles
For a city with what many observers consider an ardent opera following -- a city on the rebound -- you'd think Providence could support a company with a full season. Two things stand in the way of that -- money and product availability.
If you're a presenter like the Philharmonic, a group that buys touring packages outright, you're limited to what's out there. And that has become slim pickin's.
Touring has become so prohibitively expensive that most companies can't afford to take their act on the road. New York's famed Metropolitan Opera, which used to come to Boston for an entire week each year, stopped touring back in the mid-1980s. New York City Opera, which once played to packed houses in Providence, hasn't ventured out of Manhattan in about five years.
Of course, if you're like Ocean State Lyric Opera, and produce your own operas, you can mount as many productions as you wish -- provided you have the $100,000 to $200,000 to pay for each one. The Philharmonic can bring in two or three touring shows for what it costs Ocean State to put on one.
With costs this steep, it's amazing Ocean State can manage even one opera a season. Indeed, the company took a beating last fall with its
Madama Butterfly,
a box-office-friendly opera that should have been a runaway success, given the fact that it starred Rhode Island-reared soprano Maria Spacagna, one of the most revered Butterflies singing today.
But no one counted on two jumbo jets crashing into the World Trade Center towers. In the week and a half after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, ticket sales for
Butterfly
ground to a halt, said Ocean State artistic director Kathryne Jennings.
Opera companies across the country reported a 25-percent drop in sales, said Jennings. Although attendance has since bounced back, that doesn't help Ocean State, which won't be doing another opera until fall.
Possible partnerships
So it's something of a bitter irony facing opera in this city.
The Philharmonic makes money on its operas -- unlike its own orchestra concerts, which are not paid for by ticket sales -- but it can't find enough product. (The orchestra will be presenting three operas next season, because it has been able to squeeze Western Opera Theater, the touring arm of San Francisco Opera, into its schedule.)
Ocean State, on the other hand, puts on great shows, importing fine national talent and gifted directors. It just can't afford to pay for more than one per season.
Ocean State is hoping to change that, though.
The company, said Jennings, is going through a "restructuring," and talking with at least one New England opera company about sharing productions. Jennings said Ocean State hopes that such a partnership will yield two grand operas next year, in the spring and fall.
A third company has expressed interest in joining Ocean State and the other company, said Jennings. She did not want to discuss details at this point.
The way the collaboration would work, though, is that Ocean State and Company X would pick an opera, say,
Butterfly
. They'd then share the same cast, costumes, sets and conductor, thus cutting costs considerably. The two companies would also have to rehearse just once, another big cost-cutting measure.
Ocean State would put on its two or three performances of
Butterfly
in Providence, then the production would travel to wherever the other company is based for several performances there.
Jennings said that she took part in such a team effort when she was singing with regional companies in the South, and that this type of arrangement has been successful in many parts of the country.
It certainly seems like the only way to boost the number of operas produced locally, where raising money for the arts is a tall order.
"I don't think you can be an opera company and just put on one opera" a year, said Jennings.
In between its fall productions, Ocean State has been fleshing out the season with light opera in the summer and by hosting the occasional holiday recital, like its up-coming Valentine's concert, Feb. 14 at Rhode Island College.
That's Amore
features Ocean State regulars in an evening of show tunes by Gershwin, Berlin, Bernstein and Sondheim, along with arias from
Boheme
,
Rigoletto
,
Der Rosenkavalier
and
The Marriage of Figaro
. (Tickets are $20. Call 331-6060.)
How much is too much?
The question neither Wax nor Jennings could answer at this point was this: Is there a ceiling for opera in the state? Could it turn out that Ocean State and the Philharmonic, which co-exist amicably at this point, end up as bitter rivals?
The Philharmonic brought in three operas two years ago, and did well, leading one to think there is still room for growth.
"I suspect there is" a ceiling, said Wax, who joined the Philharmonic last year after many seasons managing the Houston Symphony. "But I don't know where that would be."
Perhaps an even more important question is, is the audience here discerning enough to support the high cost of quality local productions? Or are they content to settle for touring shows, which can be hit-or-miss?
"I've got nothing against tours," said Jennings, who has taken part in her share of traveling operas. "They can be great.
"But you never know. Touring is hard and singers get tired, or sick or fight with their boyfriends."
London City has been one of those hit-or-miss companies, as has Teatro Lirico, which first appeared in Providence under the banner New Bulgarian Opera. The company that year missed its plane, and arrived more than an hour late to the theater for a helter-skelter
Aida.
Last year's reprise of the Verdi classic found Teatro Lirico in good voice, but falling down when it came to acting, choreography and the pit orchestra, which was frightfully out of tune.
London City was a big hit when it debuted here in 1999 but brought around a dud of a
Magic Flute
the following season. Go figure.
Illness can, of course, strike any singer, but the conditions under which Ocean operates are far less daunting. Cast members are brought in for just a few weeks to concentrate on a weekend of shows, which lends itself to consistency. Everything is geared to those two or three performances, as opposed to tours where singers spend months on the road, sleeping in buses and appearing in a different hall almost nightly.
Time will tell whether Ocean State's efforts to expand its season find takers at the box office. If not, said Jennings, "we'll have to see where we go from there."
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