BEHIND THE SPOTLIGHT

In 2002, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) reported that only 3.2% of the adult population participated in Opera. This week, the NEA released updated statistics: their 2008 research revealed that 2.1% of the adult population participated in Opera.  Not only is this the LOWEST of any art form, it represents a decrease of 34.4% in 6 years!  I have three things to say to opera company leaders, board members, and funders:

1. DON’T BLAME THE AUDIENCE FOR NOT SHOWING UP.

2. TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR AND OWNERSHIP OF THESE STATISTICS.  

3. IT’S REALLY NOT ABOUT WHAT YOU WANT TO SEE ON STAGE. IT’S ABOUT SERVING YOUR PRESENT CONSTITUENCY, BUILDING NEW AUDIENCES BY LISTENING TO CONSUMER PREFERENCES, AND SERVING THE FUTURE GROWTH OF THE ART FORM ITSELF. YOUR PERSONAL TASTE CAN AND SHOULD INFORM PROGRAMMING DECISIONS, BUT ULTIMATELY IS SUBSERVIENT TO MORE IMPORTANT GOALS. 

Those of us who work in opera can come up with many reasons (and/or excuses) why participation in Opera has decreased so significantly in the past 6 years, but I have always asserted that one of the biggest problems in our field is that those of us who love opera, and who are responsible for leading opera companies, are TOO in love with the art form to really perceive it the way that it is seen by the majority of contemporary American society.  The majority of opera producers are not sufficiently market oriented. We must decimate this myth that opera has become unpopular as tastes have changed. OPERA HAS BEEN MADE UNPOPULAR BY THE VERY PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN TRYING TO KEEP IT ALIVE.

Historical Fact: Opera was made unpopular in the United States as it was removed from popular culture. During the mid-nineteenth century in America, culture was divided into popular and elite arenas as the social elite gravitated towards arts and cultural organizations. By framing culture according to their own tastes and sensibilities, the wealthiest members of society gained control of opera by taking it out of the marketplace that had, up to that point, catered to a broad public. By insisting upon only presenting foreign language works in specially created venues, which themselves fortified a code of behavior that was deemed “appropriate” for cultural enrichment, a small but powerful portion of society effectively removed opera from the sphere of popular entertainment in the United States.

We must remember, however, that in any country, and in any period of time in which opera was thriving, it was a popular entertainment form, in the language of the people, that passionately engaged and entertained large and diverse segments of the population. If opera is to thrive in the 21st century, we must look back to its roots as a popular entertainment form that developed as a result of the tastes of the societies in which it was produced.

Commercial Broadway and Off-Broadway Producer Ken Davenport recently blogged about the coexistence of commercial and non-profit producers in the Off-Broadway theater sector. He describes the increase in non-profit producing, and the reduction in commercial productions. He then asks if in 20 years we will only see non-profits producing Off-Broadway, and then further wonders if this is a similar trajectory that opera took over the past 200 years.

While opera’s trajectory wasn’t quite this simple, Ken makes an interesting point that most opera lovers either don’t know or ignore: opera was once a very commercial endeavor and a populist art form.  However, opera has not benefited from the coexistence of non-profit and commercial producers within the opera sector.  Non-profit theater producers have access to money from commercial producers in the form of enhancement funding. In addition, just because a theater company is non-profit doesn’t mean they can’t make money. Non-profit is a charitable status, and it means that no individual can financially benefit from a company’s success; but there are non-profit theater companies that that are turning a “profit” in New York and around the country - they just call it “excess” on their tax return. The Roundabout Theater Company reported an “excess” of $4,873,480 in 2007 (the most recent 990 tax return available online). I imagine most commercial producers would be happy with that sort of “excess”, but therein lies the difference - that $4.8 million has to be reinvested in Roundabout’s programs and cannot be split among “shareholders”, “investors”, or “board members”.  But let’s not fool ourselves into thinking that the non-profit theater sector doesn’t make money from time to time!  However, I digress…

Looking at the development of Museums in the United States can help to shed further light on the challenges we face in opera, and the parallels between opera and the theater sector. Art historian Carol Duncan explains that “the Americans who founded the nation’s major art museums in New York, Boston, and Chicago in the decade of the 1870s were enthralled by the V&A’s much vaunted power to improve and civilize the working classes, but they were also dazzled by the old master collections in the Louvre Museum and other impressive European art galleries.  Their combined gallery of fine art/museum of applied arts became the template for almost all later American museums.”  This path is very similar to the way American opera houses developed.   Our producing role model is in great part based on an antiquated European model.  Interestingly, in the United States, we tend to focus on the “classics”, whereas the European houses were historically operated less as museums and more as living theaters for new works.  We function, however, without the same sort of government support that exists (or existed until very recently) in most European countries, without a substantial body of repertoire in our own language, and most importantly, without a societal sense of opera belonging to the American consciousness.  Opera is still perceived by the majority of the American population as a foreign art. Theater doesn’t have that problem. There is an enormous wealth of work in English, both in the established repertory, and in the hundreds (or thousands!) of new plays and musicals written each year.

Opera companies and service organizations might like to believe that opera is becoming more entrenched in the general public consciousness, but the fact is, opera continues to be a marginal and relatively inconsequential art form for the majority of contemporary American society.  Companies continue to struggle with why the art they love continues to diminish in popularity and why they continue to have difficulty attracting and keeping young audiences, but it is their very love of opera that is making them blind to one of the biggest problems.  Building participation in any art form requires having, or building, a body of repertoire that appeals to the consciousness of the society in which you operate. Bluntly stated, our current body of repertoire appeals to a very limited market.  If opera is to survive in the twenty-first century, opera administrators must reflect back on the roots of opera as popular entertainment produced from market driven factors.  The marketing mindset has always been part of operatic history.  The problem that we face is that in the past, this marketing mindset was not articulated so explicitly.  It was understood by composers, librettists and impresarios, but it was rarely codified.  As we start to speak more openly about the need to adopt a market driven orientation, arts administrators cry foul - but in any period throughout history when opera was thriving, a market driven orientation to the development of new works was an inherent part of the process.  

Successful companies, whether they are commercial or non-profit, constantly evolve to meet the needs of the market they serve.  Opera companies have actually made some very important changes in the past fifty years.  The days of “park and bark”, where singers simply stand at the edge of the stage and let their glorious voices peal forth are, for the most part, long gone.  Acting has become a vital part of operatic staging, due in great part to audiences’ expectations that going to the opera should be a more complete and satisfying theatrical experience.  For the same reason, the days of 300 pound Mimis dying of consumption are also behind us.  Casting in the opera house now takes into consideration factors beyond the purely vocal abilities of a singer.   Many have suggested that we are now in the age of the stage director due to the increased importance placed on production values and theatrical effectiveness.  Although some musical purists bemoan the increased emphasis on the theatrical (at, to their ears, the expense of the music), opera companies would not continue down this path if it wasn’t supported by the majority of the constituencies they serve.

Unfortunately, although opera companies have made serious attempts to modify the presentational aspects of their core repertoire, they have given much less consideration to a re-examination of whether or not their core repertoire itself is serving them as well as it should.  They also continue essentially to produce under a model based on European traditions, a model that is most strongly represented in the United States by the Metropolitan Opera. The Met serves, in part, as a role model to the majority of opera companies in the United States, whether they wish to acknowledge this fact or not.  The problem is not that the Met’s producing model is a bad one, but that it is not necessarily the best one for all cities, for all audiences, and most importantly, for all missions.  The Met is essentially a museum that restages the classics with the great (at least, their goal) singers and an extraordinary orchestra in lavish productions.  American world premieres are rare, and contemporary repertoire in general makes up a small fraction of what is performed on the Met stage.  The Met serves a vital purpose, but are regional companies really serving their constituencies to the best of their abilities by essentially replicating - on a smaller scale, and with a lower budget - the Met’s producing model?  It is common for companies to produce rotating repertoire (either in a repertory season, or in a segmented season in which a few operas are presented for a limited run scattered throughout the season); they strive to hire the best and most famous singers that they can afford; they aim to put on the most lavish and exciting productions - often directly influenced by the Met or other major international houses; and their repertoire focuses on the “warhorses” with occasional supplementation by new or rarely seen operas.  Every opera company needs to understand their audiences’ interests, and the city that they operate in, while at the same time realizing what they have the ability to do best.

It is useful to look at the museum “industry”, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in particular, for further enlightenment.  The Metropolitan Museum, much like The Metropolitan Opera, is an enormous institution that strives to appeal to an enormous constituency by exhibiting works of art from the entire spectrum of world history.   The Metropolitan Museum inspired many other museums around the country that similarly aim to collect and display a diverse assortment of art.  The Museum industry, however, has discovered the benefits to specialization.  In cities where we see large diverse museums, we also see museums devoted to modern art, or Indian art, or art of a specific period or country.

Theater companies have also discovered that specializing has the potential to not only increase their audiences, but can improve both the quality and the impact of what they do.  The non-profit companies that Ken Davenport cites tend to specialize to some degree.  It is not uncommon to see companies dedicated to new works, Shakespeare, musical theater, and classical theater - all in the same city. In order for so many companies to exist side by side, a certain degree of specialization has to exist.  We can’t forget, however, that these companies could not exist at all if they were not serving a particular constituency or audience.  It is that very specialization which makes it possible for so many different companies to exist side by side and serve diverse audiences with differing tastes and needs. Some areas of specialization also serve different participation building goals and strategies in tandem with the organizations’ artistic missions.

Opera companies, however, tend to be large organizations that try to do it all.  While this might work to some degree, marketing guru Philip Kotler points out that “you cannot be all things to all people”. Unfortunately, this is exactly what most opera companies try to be.  Successful organizations, Kotler says, “engage in the search for their own uniqueness, what we might call a competitive advantage or advantages.  That comes by cultivating certain strengths and putting them across as meaningful to the market you’re going after.”  If the mission of an organization is dedicated to artistic endeavors at the expense or even partial disregard for the public it has the potential and desire to serve, should we be surprised that we are really digging our own grave? Peter Drucker, another expert in the marketing field, points out that, even if the mission of an organization is “universal,”  in order for it to be successful, “the institution has to think through its strategy and focus on the main target groups in marketing and delivering its service.” 

So what does this mean for opera, and the pitiful participation rate we are currently experiencing? 

Let’s look back at the co-existence of commercial and non-profit producers in the theater sector. In his role as Producer at The Public Theater, George C. Wolfe described the particular quandary that non-profit arts organizations find themselves in when operating in an environment predominantly inhabited by commercial entities:

The whole concept of the journeyman artist has disappeared. You are not allowed to go on a journey.  There is no journey. You’re either extraordinarily brilliant or you’re dead…a corporate thought process is beginning to dictate what has always been a small, individual- or community-driven art form[...] As the commercial landscape gets more and more bland in an attempt to appeal to everyone[...] the pressure’s put on the not-for-profits to be what Broadway used to be once upon a time - to provide exciting and challenging theater for the commercial landscape. As opposed to being what the not-for-profit originally was, which was a breeding ground for maturing talent, and an alternative to the commercial landscape.  We’re instead expected to pick up the slack.  So in the nonprofit world you have to be smarter about every single thing that you do.  There are plays that I did two or three years ago at the Public which I would be very cautious about doing now, because I now understand that I’m not just letting a new artist be discovered, I’m introducing a new ‘product’ which is a daunting task. 

The fact that there is not a commercial equivalent to opera, as the Broadway theater is to nonprofit theater, is both a blessing and a curse.  Because opera is generally not popular enough to warrant commercial interest on the scale of Broadway (with rare exceptions), opera companies that actively engage in new works development are perhaps able to allow artists to continue their personal journeys with more freedom than theater companies that have to be mindful of the direct competition they have from commercial theater.  But, at the same time, because opera companies are generally not providing material for the commercial landscape, opera companies generally don’t pay nearly as much attention to broad audience preferences as do most theater companies.  In so doing, opera companies lack the consumer orientation that is essential if they are to have any chance of appealing to more than a very limited audience.  Although non-profit theater companies may bemoan much of what happens in commercial theater (and the repercussions that they feel as a result of commercial successes and failures), the entire theater community is more attuned to contemporary American society because of the coexistence of the non-profit and the commercial within the theater sector.

While we will likely never see a commercial opera sector that parallels the commercial theater sector, and there certainly is a danger in engaging in too commercial approach to any art form, Opera desperately needs CPR, and I’m convinced it’s not going to come from companies trying to market the same old product with new advertising campaigns, and rudimentary attempts (like this blog!) to engage in social media. The percentage of Americans trying, engaging in, and enjoying opera will only increase if those of us responsible for producing opera are willing to take a step back and reevaluate everything we’ve been doing - including, first and foremost, WHAT we develop and put on stage.

While it took a little longer than I expected to get the video from our workshop of The Golden Ticket edited, I’m glad to report that the sound quality is excellent, and today I am posting a short excerpt for your viewing and listening pleasure! As one of my earlier posts discussed the casting of Veruca Salt, I thought that I would include a scene from the opera in which Veruca is prominently featured.  

In this scene, we see Veruca for the first time. Mike Teavee was just interviewed on television about finding his Golden Ticket, and she is none too pleased that her rich father has yet to buy enough chocolate bars to find her a Golden Ticket. I can’t wait to see how the production team brings this scene to life: a factory floor full of workers opening chocolate bar after chocolate bar, all at the whim of a spoiled little rich girl!

If you are amused by these photos form our workshop of The Golden Ticket earlier this month, the best is truly yet to come… Next week, I will be at the Opera America conference with my colleagues from Opera Theatre of St. Louis, who will be presenting preliminary design research for the world premiere production.  For now, enjoy these photos of our wonderful workshop cast! Design details will be coming soon…

All photographs by Michael Chadwick, Chadwick Creative Arts.

I was following a Twitter discussion (experienced ‘tweeters’ please feel free to let me know the correct term for this) about the role of young arts administrators.  Greg Sandow tweeted “a study found that younger people don’t like working for established arts org because their ideas aren’t listened to.” This is hardly news, but it opens up a very important question as pertains to programming and the overall activities of established arts organizations. If most Artistic Directors or General Directors at established arts organizations are  “older people” (as opposed to the “younger people” Sandow is discussing), are they the best people to shape programming and to facilitate constructive organizational change? If the “older people” are not really in touch with the constituency they hope to serve (note, I am stressing new constituents, not existing audience members), how well are they really serving their organizations?

Take a look beyond the walls of our “traditional” arts organizations.  As John Seabrook points out in his book Nobrow (a very interesting read, albeit a bit disjointed) at MTV, the three top executives feel that they are too old to trust their own instincts. In order to do their jobs successfully, they have to rely on a combination of market research, intuition, and YOUNG INTERNS more than personal experience.  Doug Herzog, the former head of Comedy Central who went on to lead Fox’s programming division, says that he explicitly refuses to rely solely on his own taste to make programming decisions. If one looks at any organization that is really in touch with the audience it is trying to reach, more often than not, the leaders of those companies realize that their own personal taste and experience are not nearly as valuable as their ability to assimilate information on societal trends and consumer preferences from a variety of other sources.  Yet in traditional/established arts organizations, those who make programming decisions are very often strong personalities that may be in touch with their current core audience, but are not always in touch with the groups they wish they could bring in the doors.  And let’s face it, if those of us who are directly responsible for running arts organizations are not actively trying to diversify our audiences, we are not doing our job. 

At MTV, interns - who make up the core of the target demographic - have the possibility of moving quickly through the ranks. “As an employee emerged from the demo, he or she could become an associate producer[...] and then, while the feeling of being in the demo was still fresh, a full-fledged producer[...] Just at the age when people in other companies were starting to get loaded down with real responsibilities, people at MTV felt the pressure to leave, so that others who were closer to the demo could be brought up to take their places.”(Seabrook 81-82)  Interns at large arts organizations are typically are a source of free or low cost labor that are rarely entrusted with any artistic or programming related responsibilities.  When they do start to move into entry-level jobs, especially in the areas of artistic administration, they usually remain subordinate for many years to older, more experienced supervisors who continue to control the development and design of the company’s artistic product. 

Unfortunately, it is the fact that these supervisors are older and more experienced (or more specifically, experienced functioning according to long-established, accepted norms and espousing a specific taste) that prevents the artistic departments of many companies from being in touch with the constituencies they could be serving.  In addition, the separation between marketing departments and artistic departments remains strong, continuing to fortify the misguided notion that marketing is simply supposed to advertise and sell the programs that artistic department designs and implements.  Without ongoing, responsive, two-way communication between these departments, preferably with the respected input of individuals who are strongly aligned with the target markets, how can arts organizations hope to effectively reach new audiences who are already not a part of the companies’ immediate families?  Imagine what could happen if programming initiatives were guided by a group of talented, diverse young adults in their twenties?  The results might pleasantly surprise audiences and administrators alike.

Greg Sandow also tweeted “Create new organizations! And many younger classical music people are doing that. Change is coming from the bottom up.”  Of course, I completely agree. At American Lyric Theater, the culture encourages and embraces input from the youngest people in our family.  But that is built into our mission, and is part of the reason I founded ALT in the first place. The big organizations still play a huge role in the public perception of the performing arts. They also get the biggest slice of limited funding dollars.  Is it not their responsibility to become more proactive in diversifying their audiences? How do we get arts executives at these companies to let go of their control to younger colleagues.  If they wait until these young colleagues have had the time to prove themselves, as is often the argument, they are going to miss the boat!  Ideas anyone…?

I was not surprised to receive so many emails about my last post. While the debate continues, a few responses that I’ve received have prompted me to be a bit more clear about my feelings on this topic!

Many people emailed me directly about this, or posted comments on facebook (please, post your comments here so everyone can see and get involved in the discussion!).  One very strong opinion against making the workshop process public came from my friend Eric McNaughton in Atlanta:

Public opinion is the enemy of creativity. Far too much value is put on the thoughts and opinions of the faceless (myself included). Production by popular vote/comment/survey will only lead to bland and easily digestible works…like white bread. Fewer risks will be taken, and everything will become benign…like a tumor.

To some extent, I agree, but I believe a comment like “public opinion is the enemy of creativity” has to be qualified. Certainly, there are many masterpieces - in all genres, including opera - that would not be the masterpieces they are if their creators sought public feedback and then changed their vision in response to negative feedback.  Richard Strauss’s Salome, a piece that I love and think is rather brilliant, was banned in London for two years, and the original performers were reluctant to perform the piece. When it did premiere in London, it was actually modified, much to the amusement (and apparently, later, annoyance) of Thomas Beecham.  In New York, the premiere was suppressed by wealthy patrons, and it wasn’t until 1918 - 13 years after the premiere - that it premiered in Vienna, despite the passionate advocation of no less than Mahler! 

If Strauss had done a workshop, conducted an audience survey, and changed all of the parts of both the music and libretto that the audience did not “like” or found offensive, the world would have lost one of the greatest operas ever written (IMHO).

So, what’s the point?  Yes, public opinion can be the “enemy of creativity”. The key here is that it can be - it doesn’t have to be.  I would never suggest that creative artists bow down blindly to public opinion.  But I do feel that often, the public’s feedback on CERTAIN issues can be very useful when a piece is developing.

One of the challenges we face in opera is that in any country and in any period of time in which it was really thriving, it was a POPULAR art form, in the language of the people, that was both familiar and relevant. That simply is not the case in opera in the US today.

New operas can be a very useful way to attract new audiences to opera (in fact, 25% of those at our workshop this weekend had NEVER been to an opera before.) Listening to audience opinion is different than production by popular vote - which I agree, would be disastrous! But is it really wise not to at least listen to the opinions of the audience we hope to serve - the audience that we hope is going to buy tickets and tell their friends how much they enjoyed the opera? 

I think the real issue is balance. Do we bow down to public opinion? No. But do we listen? Is it possible to learn useful information? Absolutely. That simply cannot be done if we hide behind closed doors. That being said, there are a few issues I’d like to expand upon:

1. IT MAKES A DIFFERENCE WHEN IN THE PROCESS YOU OPEN WORKSHOPS TO THE PUBLIC

This is very important point that I didn’t address in my previous post. The Golden Ticket will go into production in a year. The piece has been under development for many years, and there have been a number of closed workshops prior to this open one. (ALT did a closed workshop in May 2007, and much has been done to develop the piece since that time).  I feel that workshops should be open to the public when those involved feel a work is very close to completion, and once they feel their vision of the piece is clear.  Opening earlier workshops to the public would be counterproductive. In other words, an open workshop is potentially useful to the creative process only when the overall shape of a piece, musically and dramatically, has been determined by the composer and librettist, AND once they feel they have fulfilled that vision.  I do not believe a workshop should ever be used to determine what a piece should be.  I do believe a workshop can help writers see, from an invaluable outsider’s perspective, if they have been successful in fulfilling their own vision.

2. WHAT YOU ASK THE AUDIENCE TO TELL YOU MATTERS?

Market research is an art in itself. Surveys can be useless and even counterproductive if not properly executed.  We ask our audience answers to questions we want answers to.  For example, I didn’t ask:  Do you like that Augustus falls into the chocolate river?  That’s the story. Period.  As pointed out by Eric, it would be like asking a preview a audience at West Side Story if they would have preferred that Tony and Maria ride off into the sunset. We’re not looking to the audience to write the piece.  What we DO want to know is this: is what we are doing being clearly communicated to the audience? Is the storytelling clear?  These are areas where audience perception is very useful.  We don’t ask - how could this be more clear? We ask - is this clear? It is up to the composer and librettist to make the storytelling clear. YOU CANNOT LEAVE THAT TO A DIRECTOR!  A gifted director may be able to make a weak piece stronger, but ultimately, a piece should be - as Mark Adamo calls it - director proof.  If it’s not in the score and it’s not in the libretto, at some point, in some production, it will not appear on stage. (I’ll write another post on the concept of being “director proof” because, as both a stage director and producer, I find this a very useful concept.) If  the telling of the story through the music and words is not clear to an audience who has no previous exposure to a piece, that is a problem - and it is a problem that is not always apparent to those deeply involved in the writing process.

Of course, a few people at our workshop of The Golden Ticket suggested modifications to the opera that the creative team vehemently disagreed with.  You can be sure that the writers aren’t going to change anything that modifies their vision of the piece.  At the same time, there were some very constructive comments made that can be used by Peter and Donald to reinforce their vision.  I think that is really what it boils down to:  audience perceptions during the development phase of a piece can help writers identify opportunities to make their vision of a new work stronger.   Opening the process is not intended to influence what that vision is in the first place. Tony should die in West Side Story. Bernstein, Sondheim and Laurents knew that (of course, so did Shakespeare!).  In The Golden Ticket, Wonka should give the Chocolate Factory to Charlie.  That was Roald Dahl’s decision, and one that Peter and Donald bring to life in the opera. The public is not being invited into those kind of decisions!

I know public workshops will always be a contentious issue.  Workshops can be an incredibly useful tool in the development of new works, but how one workshops a piece is crucial. Too often, workshops don’t do as much as they could - periods where a new piece is heard by those directly involved, without the ability to get invaluable distance from their own work. 

By opening the workshop process, we are not asking the audience to write our new operas for us. What we want is to discover how well the creative vision of our artists is being communicated in the work they write. You can’t communicate with an audience if they are not there. If we wait until a work is complete, a valuable opportunity - if properly used - is lost. Does that really serve audiences or artists?

The response to our workshop of The Golden Ticket last weekend has been incredibly positive. Interestingly, both before and after the workshop, there has been a lot of discussion as to whether or not workshops should be open to the public. I strongly believe that inviting the public in to see pieces in development is a crucial part of the process.  

As composers and librettists (not to mention producers and directors) are working on a piece, we all become very close to the work at hand.  Regardless of how objective we strive to be, there is incredible value at being able to look at an opera being developed with a completely fresh perspective, and simply put, that is impossible when you are part of that process.  Most opera companies develop new works behind closed doors.  I understand why they do this.  The last thing anyone wants is for a new opera to be prematurely ‘judged’ or evaluated. Other companies invite select guests to their workshops. Again, I understand the protective rationale; however, I believe that by only inviting ’select’ guests, a company is effectively stacking the deck and not getting a representative sample of the public that is ultimately going to be the audience for the piece.  Feedback from opera ‘experts’ is valuable, but equally valuable is feedback from our intended audience. 

This is not to say that ALT is the only company that opens the workshop process to the public, but we are in the minority. The development process should not be a mystery.  It can take a LONG TIME to develop a new piece.  Let’s acknowledge that, and honor that. Too often, operas are rushed to the stage well before they are ready.  While I’m not going to cite any specific examples, I’m sure we can all think of pieces that could really have benefited from further development and ‘audience testing’ so to speak.  A new movie or television show would NEVER be launched without extensive consumer testing. Plays and musicals are increasingly being put through a more extensive workshop and audience testing process.  For Broadway Musicals, this is what out of town tryouts are all about.  In opera, we don’t have the money for ‘tryouts’, and generally, operas are more complicated musical documents in which it is not easy to pull out one song that doesn’t work and replace it with another.  If we want to properly revise works in progress, we need to give our writers sufficient time to really address the issues at hand.  Hence, ALT feels that the workshop process is absolutely essential if we are to provide opera writers with the best environment in which to develop their work.

At our workshop of The Golden Ticket last weekend, we had an audience of 150 people.  While we had our entire design and production team in attendance from Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, as well as representatives from other opera companies considering co-producing the world premiere, the majority of those in the audience were not directly connected to the piece. We created an online audience survey that was distributed via email to that segment of the audience in which we asked a wide variety of questions.  We start off with basic information about their attendance habits for both opera and musical theater; their age; and their previous knowledge of the book and both film versions of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. We then ask them about how they felt when they heard about an opera based on this famous story, and how - if at all - those feelings changed after hearing the reading. This information is very valuable from a marketing perspective.  Then we dive in deeper.  Were they able to follow the storytelling? Were there parts where they didn’t understand what was going on?  If so, where did this happen? What did they really like? What didn’t they like?  And finally, we simply open the floor to any comments they might have about the piece.

Scary? Not really if you think of a couple of things.  First of all, we are not developing new operas for ourselves - we are developing new operas for AUDIENCES.  Yes, we care what they think.  Are we going to respond to every issue raised in an audience survey? No. But, we are going to look for areas where there is a strong consensus among audience members. Sometimes, those issues are already apparent to all of us working on the project. More useful, of course, is when the majority of the audience has a strong feeling about something in a piece that we had not previously thought to address. Ultimately, the composer and librettist - working with the producer and director - need to stay true to their vision of the piece. But, we really do urge the writers to consider audience perception, and to consider how that perception can be used by them to improve their own vision for the piece.

So that, in short, is why we open our doors to the public!  Without the public, there is no reason to write new operas. Being defensive about what we are creating - or scared of public opinion - is not only going to hurt the work at hand, but ultimately will have a negative impact on the art form. Opera needs audiences.  Let’s take time to listen to them whenever we can. They may not always be ‘right’ to us, but they are always ‘right’ to themselves, and they are the ones who are going to buy the tickets or stay home!

If you weren’t at our workshop this weekend, I’ll be posting short clips to give you a sample of The Golden Ticket. We had two cameras recording the workshop - mostly for archival purposes and so that The Golden Ticket team could listen to the piece repeatedly. But, I do want to share some highlights with you!  Today, a scene from Act I, where Augustus Gloop and Violet Beauregarde are interviewed by Candy Mallow - a TV talk show host - just after they have found their Golden Tickets.   

Timothy Redmond conducts Andrew Drost (Augustus), Kiera Duffy (Violet), and Elise Quagliata (Candy). Brian DeMaris, piano.

More video soon!

A quick post today to thank everyone involved in our workshop of The Golden Ticket.  The reading was a tremendous success, and the entire workshop period was incredibly helpful for all involved in the project.

I know that I said I would post more regularly during the workshop, but artistic duties called and had to take priority! That being said, we have tons of photos and hours of video footage to review.  After a couple days of much needed rest, I will be posting a wide variety of things from the workshop…

A quick post today to share some photos of last night’s rehearsal.  Peter Ash and Donald Sturrock have been with us since Monday, and it is very exciting to see Peter and Donald working with the cast and conductor, Tim Redmond. One of the most important facets of doing a workshop is having the opportunity for the composer and librettist to not only hear their work, but work one-on-one with the singers creating the roles to look at potential revisions to the score, and to give them musical and dramatic coaching.  I woke up this morning to an email from Peter with a few new pages of music, which we will print out and distribute to the cast this afternoon.  This is what makes a workshop exciting - watching the opera take shape, and having the creators here to polish and refine the score. 

Last week, I was asked to do a quick Q&A session with Kyrian Friedenberg, our wonderful Charlie in The Golden Ticket.  I don’t know if this mini-interview will ever be published, but some of Kyrian’s answers were so entertaining, I thought I would share it with you…

How old were you when you started performing?

 I was 5. I was Hercules in The Sorcerer, at a theater near my house.

Do you play any instruments?

Piano and Violin.

Were you nervous working with Broadway legend Patti LuPone in Gypsy?

I wasn’t nervous – I just tried to stay out of her way and do what I could to please her. She was very nice to us.

What has been your favorite role to perform?

That’s quite a question – I have no idea.  I’ve done a lot of fun shows.

What musicals have you seen recently?

Lion King, A Catered Affair, and West Side Story.

What is your dream role?

Billy Elliot.

Aside from performing, what are some of your other hobbies?

I like to go on my laptop and play games, go on facebook and  hulu. Oh, and  look at armadillos – I’m kind of obsessed with armadillos.  They just interest me so much. I’m gonna get an armadillo when I’m older. So what, they can carry leprosy – I still want one because now they have cures!

“Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” is written by beloved children’s author, Roald Dahl. What is your favorite Roald Dahl story?

The Witches.

What is your favorite candy?

Twix.

You are playing the role of Charlie Bucket in American Lyric Theater’s workshop of  the opera The Golden Ticket, which is based on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Are you like Charlie at all?

Yes and no. I don’t get chocolate that often, and Charlie only gets it once a year. Also, I think that when people around me are acting  spoiled and getting into trouble, I’m usually just sitting there trying to be good .  Oh, and I think it would be very nice to own a chocolate factory.

What is biggest difference between performing theater and opera.

Theater is, in a way, a lot easier, because you can read lines anyway you want or however the director wants, but with opera, all the rhythms and pitches are set. You absolutely have to be sure to get those right!

Why do you like doing opera?

I love how it all comes together. I just like the music and how there is so much around you, so many singers, the chorus… It’s overwhelming…  but in a good way!

Following our work through yesterday, we spent today working in detail on specific scenes. We took the morning off, and started the afternoon with a private coaching for our Mike Teavee, countertenor Jason Abrams.  Peter has written an incredibly amusing and virtuosic parody of a baroque aria for Mike, in which he very creatively uses coloratura to portray a boy obsessed with television violence.  One of the best things about an extended workshop period is the opportunity for singers to work directly with the composer.  Jason actually started an email dialogue with Peter to discuss this aria before rehearsals started, and today, he had the opportunity to work through some of the ideas they discussed with our music staff. It was a very productive session, and by the end of it, Jason was transformed into a very disturbed and funny teenager!

We then moved on to an extended session for Veruca and Lord Salt.  Tim spent most of the session working with Abigail Nims (Veruca) and David Kravitz (Lord Salt) not only on the musical structure of the scene, but also on the fantastic dysfunctional relationship between the spoiled little rich girl and the father that stops at nothing to make her happy.  

After a dinner break, the full chorus assembled for a three hour session with Tim.  The chorus had two weekends of preparation time with our wonderful chorus master Jennifer Peterson before the formal workshop period started last Wednesday. Now that Tim is with us, he is building on the foundation Jennifer laid, and getting them to embody - both musically and dramatically - all of the different roles they have to portray.  In The Golden Ticket, the chorus plays the role of Oompa Loompas, Workers in Lord Salt’s Factory, Townsfolk, and Turkish Nut Sorting Squirrels in Wonka’s Factory…  Is there any other opera in which the chorus play such an wonderful array of characters?  Our chorus is fantastic and is embracing the challenge with an enthusiasm that is contagious!

Tomorrow, more individual scene work, with video footage to follow…