Connecticut Opera cancels 2008 - 2009 season

Dear Friend of Connecticut Opera:

Next month will mark the 67th Anniversary of the first performance by Connecticut Opera. Unfortunately, its passing will not be met with great celebration as we must regrettably inform you that Connecticut Opera is the latest victim of the current economic crisis facing our nation.
Last night our Board of Trustees approved a plan to cancel the production of our final two operas of the season: The Daughter of the Regiment and La bohème. The decision to cancel the rest of the season is not one that was easily made.

The reality of our situation is that ticket sales for Connecticut Opera in a normal season cover less than 40% of the cost of producingthe high-quality opera you have grown to expect from us over the past 67 years. This year, however, we are facing enormous economic challenges including a slow down in ticket sales and increased difficulty in raising charitable gifts and sponsorships. This combination has made it financially impossible for us to complete the season.

We know that you, like each member of our staff, will have many questions about Connecticut Opera’s future, but it will take a few weeks before we will have clear answers. We ask that you give our Board of Trustees the necessary time to develop a plan for our future.
On behalf of the Board of Trustees, Management, Staff and Artists of Connecticut Opera, we wish to extend our sincerest appreciation for your support and understanding during this very difficult time.

Sincerely,

John Kreitler, Board Chairman
Brooks Joslin, Board President
Willie Anthony Waters, Artistic Director
Linda Jackson, Managing Director

The Metropolitan Opera HD Broadcasts, brought to you by Showcase Cinemas in Manchester, CT

As the resident Marketing Intern, part of my responsibility includes handing out programs at the Metropolitan Opera HD Broadcasts in Manchester, CT. I love doing this because I get to watch the broadcasts when it's all said and done and it almost feels like a family over there at the Buckland Hill Showcase Cinemas.

It has become routine that I arrive at 11:30 am to set up shop for the performance that begins at 1:00 and upon arrival there are already atleast ten people there waiting infront of the theater and Eldon has had to assure them that I will be arriving shortly. It's funny because people want to be in that theater so badly even just for the sound checks which is actually refreshing in a way until you realize that these people, who are so stir crazy about getting to the opera at the movie theaters 2 hours in advance, are all over 60. Most of them have bought their tickets a year in advance, so I see the same people in there every time and can spot them a mile away. It's cute.

Over Christmas break I went home to Texas and decided to go to a Met broadcast there, Thaïs with Renee Fleming. Because I was so accustomed to everyone in Manchester arriving 2 hours ahead of time, I thought I should do the same at home because there was no telling how many people would be there. I got there and only two other people were in the entire theater, which makes me wonder.. why is opera in Manchester,CT such a big hit when no one could care less at the AMC Willowbrook in Houston,TX?

This past Saturday was the broadcast of Orfeo ed Euridice by Gluck, which ended up being not as classical as one would think. The singers were amazing, especially Stephanie Blythe and Danielle de Niese (who made her Met opera debut at the age of 19...geeze). The dancing,though, was by far the mose non-traditional aspect of the performance. The choreography was by Mark Morris and the costumes by Isaac Mizrahi, whom you may know from Target. The dancers were in basic street wear with glitter strewn about them and though the articles of clothing stayed the same, the color changed from scene to scene. Heidi Grant Murphy, playing the character of Amor, wore a pink spandex and collared shirt number with sequins attached to it. All in all, it was kind of a surreal experience.

Most importantly... sitting in the theater I saw a preview for The Audition, which is a documentary about the finalists of the Met's National Council Auditions, and I can't even tell you how excited I am for that.

Until Next Time...

Remembering Mayor Mike Peters

Throughout our history many local celebrities and politicians have graced our stage with cameo appearances. Today we note with sadness the passing of one such person who appeared briefly in our production of Rossini’s The Italian Girl in Algiers; Hartford’s Mayor Mike Peters.

I first met Mayor Mike when I was handling government and community relations for TCI Cablevision. The Mayor would go out with our production crew to tape “Mayor Mike’s Minutes.” These were short video spots created to give Mayor Mike a chance to do what he did so well, to promote Hartford as “a diverse collection of neighborhoods.” Mike truly loved Hartford and all it had to offer.

A few years later, after Mayor Mike became a well-known restaurateur in Hartford, Christen Eure, our former marketing director, asked Mike to make a cameo appearance as a pizza chef in The Italian Girl in Algiers. Although his schedule only allowed him to make one appearance, he readily accepted our invitation. On the night of his Connecticut Opera debut, Mayor Mike walked on to the stage at the Bushnell to an enthusiastic round of applause from our audience welcoming him to Connecticut Opera.

After that appearance, we began holding our annual Connecticut Opera Chorus & Super party at Mayor Mike’s restaurant. And Mayor Mike would join our party to celebrate the many people who help make Connecticut Opera an entertaining part of Hartford.

Thanks Mayor Mike for spending time with us at Connecticut Opera. We will miss you.

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus!

Earlier this month I received an invitation from a friend to see him portray Francis. P. Clark, the newspaperman who in 1897 penned a now famous and beloved response to eight-year old Virginia O’Hanlon’s query about the existence of Santa Claus.

“Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! How dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus.”

Now imagine for a moment how dreary life in Connecticut might be if this holiday season we stopped celebrating the generosity Mr. Clark writes about in his editorial.

Even as you read this blog you are probably getting inundated with countless letters and e-mails seeking your charitable support. Just like Connecticut Opera’s holiday appeals, those other letters and e-mails are from an assortment of charities working hard during this economically challenging time to make Connecticut a better place to call home. And Connecticut Opera is no different from those other groups - we truly need your generosity this holiday season.

Now we know that much of your charitable giving during this holiday season will likely go to charities providing basic human needs, but we hope that you will spend part of your charitable budget during this stressful time to support Connecticut Opera. And in return for your charitable support this holiday season, we will spend the coming year providing some uplifting moments to Connecticut as we give voice to life’s passions by:

~ Contributing to the artistic and cultural diversity of Hartford;
~ Providing seasonal employment to approximately 100 local musicians, production technicians and support personnel to present our main stage opera productions;
~ Bringing our nationally recognized educational program, “Opera Express” annually to tens of thousands of children around Connecticut at little or no cost to their schools.

Won’t you please take a moment today to make your on-line gift to Connecticut Opera?
Click here for more information.

From all of us at Connecticut Opera, we wish you a very safe and joyous holiday season.

Christmas shopping made comfortable

The Christmas tree had been already set-up and decorated. Holiday movies were playing on the television. And a fresh pot of coffee had been brewed.

Now with a cup of coffee, and my laptop, I sat down on the living room couch to spend my Sunday morning Christmas shopping via the Internet. But this would not be a typical on-line shopping excursion because I was going to start at the Connecticut Opera website and visit the E-Plaza.

The E-Plaza is an exciting collection of major retailers who, if you visit their website via the E-Plaza, will make a contribution to the participating E-Plaza charity that you select. And best of all, the prices and specials at the E-Plaza are the same as if you went directly to the retailer’s website.

Now back to my holiday shopping experience. When I began yesterday morning I still had a number of Christmas gifts to purchase this holiday season. After searching around the Toys-R-Us website, I selected some fun, age-appropriate, items for my niece (2 ½) and nephew (almost 7) in Wisconsin. Since they will not be able to come east next week to visit Uncle Dave for Christmas, I had their presents shipped to their mother’s attention. My sister will help me by wrapping the presents and placing them under their tree.

After leaving Toys-R-Us, I went to Staples and Ritz Camera to get some techno items for other family members. Those items were also being shipped, but this time to my home. I also made a purchase at Best Buy, which I decided to pick-up at the store. The Merchandise Pick-up line at Best Buy was shorter and faster than if I had completed the purchase at the store.

So in a couple of comfortable hours at my home, I was able to complete much of my remaining Christmas shopping without leaving my fresh pot of coffee or my holiday movies. And best of all, my Christmas is happier knowing that I helped Connecticut Opera raise some much needed funding in this tough economy.

Go ahead, pour your favorite beverage and do some shopping at the E-Plaza.

This Little Piggy

We are in the midst of our first week of the new season with four new Resident Artists (come get your first glimpse and hear them for the first time at our wine tasting at Bosc in Simsbury on September 21^st or at Opera Uncorked on September 29^th.) It’s always exciting to get a new crop of singers in and hear and see what they can do. (see their bios and head shots at http://www.ctopera.org/educational/resident.asp)

In the spirit of the new children’s show that they are in the midst of staging, The Three Little Pigs, here’s some useless trivia about pigs:

• The world’s pig population is approximately 857,100,000.
• A pig always sleeps on its right side.
• A gruntle is the best word to describe the snout of a pig.
• A pig’s skin is thickest on its back, where it can be up to one-sixth-inch thick.

Taken from The Ultimate Book of Useless Information

Maestro Waters in Berlin

Obama speaks here in Berlin at 5pm today. About five minutes from my hotel. No I'm not going - they say it will be mobbed. I'll watch it on CNN. One of the cast members asked, "are you going to see Obama?" I said, "is he coming to see me conduct Porgy?"

This is a "review" of last Sunday's Porgy perf, by a Berliner friend of one of my "internet" opera friends who lives in NY. One correction - there have been several productions of Porgy in Berlin since the famous 52 Porgy with Price and Warfield (e.g., Houston Grand Opera performed it here in the 80s), and Goetz Friedrich, late director of the Deustche Oper, has done it a couple of times at a smaller theater here (Theater des Westens).

-Willie Anthony Waters

It was not only a beautiful, but a deeply moving performance and the audience was enthusiastic, uncommon for our rather cool public here, despite the fact that the opera is shown every evening and that it was the 15th or 16th performance. As I wrote I needed some time to get accustomed to the music, which is rather far from that I usually listen to, and I needed about half an hour to get into the music. But then I was very moved too, by the music and by the stage, and the finale was overwhelming.

The opera group was the Cape Town Opera Company, only the orchestra was from Berlin. Stage director was Angelo Gobbato. You will know him because they wrote in the newspapers and in the programme that he is a very renowned artist in South Africa. The staging was completely realistic, I haven't seen such a staging for years, because they always show these crazy and absurd ideas of "progressive" stage directors here in Middle Europe. This staging was made very carefully and accurately in all details and I liked it very much. The Catfish Row was a run-down quarter in which white people had lived in former times, now it was partly broken off and only poor black people lived there. The time was not 1925 but perhaps 1970. You saw and felt the very difficult conditions under which people lived there.

Concerning the music I was most impressed not by the popular songs (I got plenty of nothing, It ain't necessarily so, Bess, you is my woman now and these hits) but of the great ensembles. It reminded me strongly of a great veristic opera. The singers all had big voices, the orchestra was loud and the performance had a tendency to great opera, not bad I think. Much better than a tendency to musical, because this is a sad, but nevertheless hopeful story.

The singers were nearly all very good in singing and action, no belcanto, but very authentic in style I think, and they were very suited for their roles with one exception: The singer of Bess was miscast. A very tall woman whose way to move was not elegant, with a very big but not pleasant voice, rather shrill. I think she is no bad opera singer but should sing character roles, not lovers. The singer of Porgy had a wonderful big and warm baritone voice and his singing went straight into the hearts, but most other singers were excellent too. Maestro Willie Waters did the musical direction very well and had big applause, but we must admit that the orchestra was not always perfect. You felt that the (German Symphony) orchestra was not accustomed to play music of such kind. Willie has the problem to play these performances with three different orchestras. It was not bad, but I can imagine that the performance with the Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper did it more exactly and with more drive. They are on tour now.

"Porgy and Bess" is an opera shown not often in Berlin. My last performance was 20 years ago, and as far as I know there was no performance of the opera in the meantime. So it was very interesting for me to see and to hear this opera, and I had a very beautiful and moving performance by the Cape Town Opera Company.

I hope I was able to give you a short impression of this beautiful production, and we all should be grateful that we have a chance to see it here. All critics were very positive, and I think it is nearly sold out every evening.

-Vigo