Shining the Spotlight: Bringing Opera to the Community
I am deeply invested in the arts, both professionally and as someone who finds great personal stimulation in, for instance, recently walking through Art Basel Miami Beach.
There is something about opera, however, that I find truly and consistently moving. Since I was young, there has been something in opera’s intersection of human voice, music, narrative, dance and visual elements that – even now – touches me like little else.
I’m aware that’s not true for everyone.
Many are put off by opera’s reputation for being stodgy, inaccessible, and irrelevant. While I don’t buy that opera is a dusty and boring art form, certainly it did little to appeal to wide audiences for much of the past century.
Happily, many opera companies now present work that is lively, accessible, pertinent, and even transformational. One such company is Boston Lyric Opera (BLO), now presenting its 49th season and preparing for its 50th anniversary. We are delighted to spotlight BLO’s deliberate and focused work to make powerful opera available to everyone.
Here are just three of the many reasons we love this amazing organization:
#1 Relentlessly focusing on accessibility
The Jane & Steven Akin Emerging Artists Program is a superb example of BLO’s thoughtful, intentional approach to creating welcoming spaces for artists to grow. BLO appropriately notes that ”the next generation of opera stars needs to be nurtured in order to flourish, and that the future of the art form depends on their success.”
And the company is highly methodical in its approach to embracing real and enduring representation in both talent and programming.
For instance, for its Akin Program, BLO holds public auditions to listen to hundreds of singers and select a diverse cohort, offering them mentorship, career guidance, and visibility through supporting (and sometimes principal) roles.
More broadly, a review of BLO’s programming and the casts and crews bringing these works to vivid life underscores the company’s continual interrogation of a central question: Whose voices are missing?
BLO invests in stories of diversity from many communities – and in the talents of those whose lived experiences can best translate them for all audiences. Their version of Madama Butterfly, for instance, reimagined this oft-told tale as an examination of “the experience of Japanese Americans during a critical moment in US history” during World War II.
Its New England premiere of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Omar centered on the Fula Islamic scholar Omar Ibn Said, who was kidnapped from his West African home in 1807 and enslaved in South Carolina. The BLO featured this special work because it “infused the conventional Western orchestra with the sounds and melodies of Americana, Arabic and West African folk music to create this radiant narrative of strength, resilience and conviction.”
#2 Opening opera up to the people
BLO believes – simply and unwaveringly – that opera is for everyone. They’re equally clear-eyed that, for many, cost and perception about the art form itself are barriers to attending performances.
Those convictions have led to creative, community-focused investments like Boston Lyric Opera’s Street Stage, a mobile stage that the team now takes to neighborhoods throughout Greater Boston to offer completely free performances, open to all. Beyond giving every neighbor a chance to experience opera at no cost, it also showcases just how life-enhancing this art form truly is. BLO invites anyone to request a visit to their particular neighborhood. What’s more accessible than that?
#3 Bringing scrappiness, energy, and values to the work
The scale and complexity of opera provide monumental challenges to pulling off a successful performance. There are so many components to any opera production that the qualities of flexibility and adaptability can be in short supply.
Yet BLO repeatedly puts that rule to the test. Most opera companies plan their seasons five or more years in advance. Because Boston does not have a permanent, reliable performance venue suitable for the art form, BLO must work on a much more compressed timeline: often less than a year out and in spaces not designed for opera. Imagine the challenges that creates for production planning and casting!
And yet their resourcefulness is always remarkably evident – as illustrated by the company’s last two galas, which each presented unexpected challenges. The BLO’s only annual fundraising event, last year’s gala was conceived as an elaborate performance and dinner at a hotel. Mere days before the event, opera leadership learned that hotel workers were striking. To show support for the workers’ cause – and rejecting the option of crossing the picket line – BLO pulled out of the venue.
While the easier path was to simply stay the course, BLO’s values-motivated stance meant pivoting to using its own performance rehearsal space for the gala. The energy it took to successfully recalibrate an event that had taken months to plan impressed everyone and elevated the feeling of the event. To no one’s surprise, everyone had a great time.
This year, the company faced another disruption to its gala plans: a few days before the event, one of the principal performers let BLO know she would not be able to appear. Within hours, company leadership had successfully identified a world-class replacement. On vacation in France, she arrived in Boston the next day, rehearsed, and performed flawlessly with gala attendees’ full support and delight.
BLO’s inspiring vision and remarkable execution are delivered by company leaders Bradley Vernatter, Nina Yoshida Nelsen, and David Angus – plus their excellent staff and increasingly engaged board members. We are honored to work with them.
Check out Boston Lyric Opera here – and join us in celebrating an art form that is more accessible, colorful, giant, and fun than many realize.
Like what you read? Good! Our community needs reminders that staying true to vision and mission translates to transformative impact.
Our team at Russell Philanthropies will periodically spotlight the many organizations we know of that are doing good work – from clients to those organizations we’re personally connected to through our own volunteer work to those we admire from afar. Let’s take inspiration and heart from their worthy examples.
Image credit: BLO (blo.org)