Artistic Director’s and Executive Director’s Message

As we do every season, we want to welcome you to our 2021 Winter/Spring Festival. This year, our greetings are particularly heartfelt as we launch a season like no other in our history and amidst the many challenges of a worldwide pandemic.

When we prematurely ended our 2020 Winter Festival on (ominously) Friday, March 13, we envisioned a temporary shutdown and thought that when the fall came, we’d be back to business as usual. None of us imagined that opera houses, theaters, and concert halls around the world would be mostly shuttered for a year (and counting) and that most of our artists would be out of work.

As we navigated the uncertainty of the situation, we realized that we couldn’t remain silent. Despite the health emergency, we felt it was important to keep a connection with our audience, community, and artists. That resulted in our Fall Concerts (indoors and out) and OperaMobile programming that replaced our cancelled fall production of Don Giovanni.

It was that same motivation that helped us develop this Winter/Spring 2021 program. We wanted to safely bring back staged opera to our opera house and find a way to serve as much of our audience as we could. Therefore, we created a season of “socially-distanced” performances in the Opera House, that can also be streamed online, for those who don’t feel comfortable coming to a theater.

We are particularly happy that in choosing the four operas for this season, we have found interesting repertoire that fits our health and safety requirements. In addition, because the number of artists (singers, orchestra, crew) required for these operas is small, we can perform them, as our mission states, “true to the vision of the composer,” at the same time keeping all of our company safe. Our performances of these operas will be almost exactly what Rossini, Pergolesi, or Purcell would have expected and the productions will be staged in the same way we would have done them had there been no COVID (except for perhaps a little less kissing, for safety’s sake).

Over the past year, as we talked to our patrons, donors, and colleagues, it has become very clear to us that live music, opera, and all the arts are more important than ever. It provides us solace, comfort, and stimulation as we deal with the uncertainties of our current situation.

We have to thank our donors and audience who have supported us through this crisis. It is your help that allowed us to pay last season’s artists through the end of their contracts, providing them with some income when the future looked extremely bleak. That continuing support has meant that we can keep working, providing virtual programming when we could (including our Youth Opera which has continued throughout the pandemic, barely skipping a beat), and letting us plan for the future. On behalf of our artists, staff, and community, we are extremely grateful.

Photo by Matt Holler

Victor DeRenzi Artistic Director Richard Russell Executive Director