Happy 50th Birthday, Idaho Arts!

Cecilia Violetta Lopez, soprano and artistic advisor to Opera Idaho / Photo by paulinagwaltney.com

BY KAREN DAY

What is art, anyway? The question has stalked humans for millennia. Enigmatic, personal, enthralling, and often incomprehensible, art is as much experiential as cerebral - a gut punch with a feather that whispers without words to our unconscious: there is more here than what you see. If only for a few delirious moments, art transports us beyond our mortality with a vision of the invisible and enduring. In other words, art is the making of the unknown known. Hence, great art is timeless. That’s a heady explanation for what most viewers describe as, “You know when you see it.” Or hear it. Or feel it.

That’s the simplest explanation for what might be the hardest, most overlooked job on the planet. Being an artist is like living with a pain you can’t live without. It’s the act of creating something from nothing and demands placing public bets wagered with only imagination and sweat. It is not a job for the timid.

BALLET IDAHO

No one embodies and physically suffers more for art more than a dancer, especially a ballet dancer. Garrett Anderson, the current Artistic Director of Ballet Idaho, knows this from his previous performing career. Now, his job is to ensure that Ballet Idaho’s precarious and ethereal moments of flight and beauty continue to fascinate audiences as the company approaches its 50th season. “I was hired to take the company in a new direction, and I think anytime there’s a shift, it’s challenging. People were excited about the possibilities, but none of us knew what to expect, including me.” That was five years ago.

Before moving from Santa Fe to Boise with his wife and children, Anderson had danced here with the Trey McIntyre Project and LED at Treefort. “My wife and I both loved it here…and when we heard there was an opening for an artistic director, it planted a seed…what if? What if I could do that?”

Navigating an entire corps of dancers through ever-changing classical and original choreography and music scores in front of live audiences, as well as managing the logistics of leadership, staff, budget, and fundraising is far more complicated than performing. Ballet Idaho’s growing success proves that Anderson has thrived as much as the company. Dancers have bloomed and audiences have expanded. “As much as ballet is constantly evolving,” he said, “I think it’s our job as artists to investigate what it is becoming while still understanding our legacy. We’re uniquely positioned because of our geographic isolation. There are other dance companies in Idaho, but we’re the only professional ballet company. This community is not over-saturated with too much going on. People pay attention. They care.”

Isolation does not equate to a lack of creative collaboration for Ballet Idaho. Anderson’s performance career allowed him to call on a network of talented guest artists from around the world to advance programming. “The response has been wonderful. They may have worked with huge companies like San Francisco or New York the week before, and they get here, without pretense, and have found the community so kind and the dancers so willing and talented. I hope we can retain that.”

Ashley Baker

PHOTO COURTESY OF BALLET IDAHO

The exponential growth of the Treasure Valley has affected more than the real estate prices. “When I began, I had a three and a five-year plan,” he explained. “No one can plan for a global pandemic, so I’m rewriting and recasting those plans, which includes touring. But as much as we are fueled by inspiration and dreams, we must stay sustainable while attracting new talent and audiences.”

Leonardo Gonzales

PHOTO COURTESY OF BALLET IDAHO

Ballet Idaho’s annual Nutcracker has been a sold-out community tradition for decades, but has the population influx translated to bigger audiences and budgets? The company has an advantage in attracting younger generations of devotees with a year-round dance school, but Anderson says the key to building audiences is “coming to the people.” Plans include more free performances.

Ethan Schweitzer-Gaslin with BIA student Eva Neville

PHOTO COURTESY OF BALLET IDAHO

“You don’t need a secret code to understand ballet. It’s athleticism. It’s humor. It’s drama. And people don’t need to understand it to appreciate it. You are going to watch this living, breathing art in motion and I promise, you’re going to have a response.”

BOISE PHILHARMONIC

The Boise Philharmonic’s beginnings trace back to the 1880s, before statehood, as the Boise Civic Orchestra. From a volunteer group of musicians to a respected symphony orchestra, The Boise Phil, as it’s known locally, celebrated its official 50th season in 2020 and continues to transform, according to Eric Garcia, Music Director. “We brought on a sizable portion of new musicians this year. It’s going to be a very exciting season.”

The stereotype of symphony conductors is cinematic, a musty cult of men of great age, pomp, and dramatic mannerisms soon to be refueled by Bradley Cooper starring in his next musical blockbuster, “Maestro,” about Leonard Bernstein. Garcia fits the snapshot, but only with his early, robust head of gray hair. “I started turning gray when I was in my 20s,” says Garcia. In some ways, the gray might predicate judgment about his 40-ish appearance when he steps onto the top podiums across America with only a baton in hand.

PHOTO COURTESY OF BOISE PHILHARMONIC

Garcia previously served as Assistant Conductor of the Seattle Symphony, a guest conductor all over the U.S., and has collaborated on contemporary music with Marvin Hamlisch, Herbie Hancock, and Brandie Carlile. He also serves as the Conductor of the McCall Music Society Summerfest. No matter the length of his resume, the challenges of stepping onto the podium in front of the Boise Philharmonic remain the same - using his baton to unify and evoke glorious music from 60 to 100 musicians.

“This year, we’re coming off a year and a third of not having performed together as a full orchestra,” Garcia said. “The hardest part of being a music director is having talented musicians in front of you that are all unique personalities and sounds, and you must bring them all together to make an organic whole. You also want to make sure you can take what they offer individually. So, the greatest challenges are also the greatest joys of what we do.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF BOISE PHILHARMONIC

Performance art doesn’t exist without an audience and 2020 was a killer year for these organizations. The classical music industry and concert attendance already faced a steady annual 5% decline in audience numbers before the pandemic. Disaster gave rise to performance innovation, including for the Boise Phil. “One thing that was very helpful was our digital stage - we had a chance to reach new people in the Treasure Valley, and throughout the nation,” Garcia said. “We sold subscriptions to people who had never seen a live performance. They heard a symphony for the first time and learned it was thrilling. Data is now showing those audience members are joining us for the first time.”

The name Tchaikovsky may sound pretentious and intimidating, even boring to some who have never heard his music played by a live symphony. Marty Jacobs, Vice-Chair of the Board of Directors, knows better. “I would recommend opening night of this season to anyone. The concert concludes with Tchaikovsky’s Symphony #6, the ‘Pathetique.’ It’s a musical portrait of the human condition, a tug of war between joy and sorrow. It premiered a week before his death, and he described this symphony as, ‘The best thing I have ever composed.’”

Symphony #6 was written 1893. Obviously, great art serves as its own best sales pitch through the ages.

OPERA IDAHO

“It’s the voices,” says Mark Junkert, General Director of Opera Idaho, defining the art form and the tagline of the Boise organization that is also celebrating its 50th season. Granted, if operas were that simple to understand, and sung in English, general audiences might embrace the art form more widely. Therein lies the dilemma. When you hear a great operatic voice, it transcends the need for translation or understanding. The sound touches you in a vertiginous rush and the hair on your arms stands up. You finally feel what all the fuss is about. Opera is pure, everyday emotion - love, anguish, vengeance, jealousy - expressed with astounding beauty (and often, lavish sets).

CARMEN

PHOTO COURTESY OF OPERA IDAHO

“Opera is just sung stories,” Cecilia Violetta Lopez, soprano and artistic advisor to Opera Idaho explained. “Heartbreak, revenge, comedy. For instance, Carmen, a very famous opera sung in French, premiered in 1875. It’s a story about a fiery gypsy seducing a naïve soldier who kills her in a jealous rage. That’s certainly, and sadly, pertinent today.” Opera Idaho did a recent staging of this opera and set it during the Spanish Civil War, in the 1930s. As proof of its inherent and enduring artistic value, Carmen could also be set in modern-day Ukraine or the International Space Station.

Of all the performing arts, opera is the most complicated. “We have singers who must act, a chorus, an orchestra, costume and set changes,” Junkert explained. “Sometimes, we even have dancers.” (i.e. Carmen has can-can dancers.)

Junkert is a former baritone who now parlays in every aspect of running a business in the art of opera. “We just finished Opera in the Park, our free annual concert in Julia Davis Park. The audience was huge, probably 3,000 people.” The challenge for Opera Idaho, and most opera companies, is attracting those same people into the Egyptian Theater or the Morrison Center. This General Director has an insightful and long-term vision in this regard. “Opera audiences tend to be an older and wealthier demographic. I think this is because younger people, millennials, are putting their time and money into work and raising kids. As they get older, kids leave, they have more time, people turn to the arts. I can show you articles from the 1800s about the demise of classical music and opera. But it never happens because people are always going through this process of life. Music fulfills the human soul in a unique way.”

DEAD MAN WALKING

PHOTO COURTESY OF OPERA IDAHO

“By budget, we’re a B company, but we attract A talent,” said Junkert. Compared to the Metropolitan Opera, with an annual budget of three-hundred and fifty million, Opera Idaho might appear dwarfed in Boise. However, there are less than 200 companies in the U.S. and Opera Idaho is recognized within the industry for excellence. The soprano, Madison Leonard, and tenor, Carlos Santelli, who performed at this year’s Opera in the Park, were winners of the 2018 Metropolitan National Council Auditions. The soprano, Cecilia Violetta Lopez, and the baritone, Brian Major, are established international opera stars and featured in an upcoming opera documentary, ARIA.

“Dead Man Walking was our way of attracting a broad demographic, “ Junkert said. “The upcoming 50th season is filled with great operas - MacBeth, The Barber of Seville, Rusalka. We’re committed to presenting a diverse schedule, including a Mexican Independence Day concert, featuring Cecilia. There’s something here for everyone in Idaho.”