Up North

It is to those companies that we turn our attention this month, for while devout opera fans will travel when it suits them, not everyone else can, or is lucky enough to live near a major city, or can afford, in addition to the cost of an opera ticket, the added cost of a trip to New York or D.C. For many opera lovers in the northeast, opera is defined by where it is, and you have to make due, for its not everywhere. There may not be many Met size orchestras the further you get into Maine, New Hampshire or Vermont, but that doesn’t mean you can’t find a 25 or 40 piece orchestra and a talented group of opera singers willing to put on a rousing good show even in the most rural settings. And even if you can't find them it doesn't mean, as we will see below, that they aren't out there, needing only the right person to come along to put it all together. Indeed, as you shall see from the companies we spoke with, that is exactly how some got their start and how others are just starting.

In most places newly established opera companies do manage to assemble enough talented musicians sufficient to put on quite good shows – even if limited to one or two new productions a year, as opposed to the impressive selection the Met offers.

None of these impediments, however, prevent those who enjoy opera from attending when and where they can find it. Indeed, it is rare when you can’t find singers and musicians who want to perform opera who are unable to do so because they can’t find a suitable venue -- for make no mistake about it, there is opera up north, and performers, as well as an audience, eager to share the opera experience given the chance and forum.

This month, OperOnline.us thought it would be interesting to take a look up north, away from the big cities normally associated with opera, and ask those in the business to give us an insider’s look at the state of opera in their neck of the woods. What we discovered was that opera is alive and well in some places and struggling in others, but in each circumstance, its supporters are eager to show and grow as their counterparts farther south. We talked to a small sampling of three opera companies to get a sense of how they came about, what operas and where they performed, and to gather some interesting anecdotes you might find both instructive and amusing – and maybe just tempting enough to give you a reason to plan your vacation around them.

We had hoped to include more on Vermont Opera located in Montpelier in this story, but it didn't quite work out. While responsive, Vermont Opera is not active producing operas at this time and couldn't contribute more. We discovered that while Vermont has many opera houses, it has very little opera that we could find. That is sad, although probably not permanent. As for Maine and New Hampshire, we found just the opposite. There are a number of active companies. We chose two: Maine Grand and Granite State in New Hampshire, since next month Opera North in New Hampshire will participate in a piece we're doing on Summer Opera. So, with that as a preface, lets begin our tour, starting with . . .

THE MAINE GRAND OPERA COMPANY:

Karen Eisenhauer, a professional opera singer by trade, is the artistic director and founder of Maine Grand Opera. After returning to the United States from a seven year stint living in Germany, Ms. Eisenhauer and her family took up residence in Camden Maine near her relatives. Interested in continuing her opera career, she discovered one day, what she describes as "this beautiful opera house (490 seats) in the center of town which for the most part, sat empty."

"There was no opera to be seen or heard" in Maine she says, describing what went through her mind that day as she gazed at the 1893 building (restored in 1996). "Maine Public Radio decided to put talk shows on instead of classical music" and the state's only other classical music station "catered to chamber music." Where others may have seen an empty opera house, Eisenhauer saw a vacuum waiting to be filled and an opportunity to fulfill a dream.

It was in February of 2001 that Eisenhauer began thinking about starting an opera company with others in town. Camden may be a small community of only 5,500 residents, but as Eisenhauer notes, it has its share of Pulitzer Prize winners, opera composers, stage directors and cognoscenti, such as the founders of the "Curtis Institute of Music", to name a few. You didn't have to be a mathematician to figure that if you added the population of the five surrounding towns that make up the Camden school district, and sprinkled that population with some opera loving tourists thrown in for good measure, you had enough of a potential opera base from which to feed a loyal opera following.

"There were others in Camden who traveled the world just to see opera and had season tickets to the Met," Eisenhauer observed - a circumstance that seems common to the northern states . "The question was: would they attend an opera if it were in Camden?" The answer, she would discover, was an emphatic yes. And that's how it all began. There were no cast calls, no ruffles and flourishes; rather, it started with a casual conversation in a local restaurant that led to a coincidental meeting that led to a few phone calls and a couple lasting commitments. The music director, Janna Hymes-Bianchi, and Eisenhauer, for example, met one day when one tapped the other on the shoulder and began talking about opera. After "a brief exchange of who, what, why and where" Eisenhauer says the two knew they were on to something. Ms. Bianchi was an established conductor, and recipient of the "Besancon International Conducting Competition" and a "Fullbright Scholarship."

With herself as artistic director, and Bianchi signing on as the company's musical director, all that was needed was a stage director. “The third piece of the puzzle” Eisenhauer says, was finding someone with experience. A phone call from a local academic telling her that “a famous vocal coach and stage director was living in Camden” who might be interested in what she was planning resulted in a call to Professor Beaumont Glass. Their meeting was serendipitous. Eisenhauer invited him to be the opera company’s resident stage director. Glass, was a rare catch, having had a long career in opera culminating in a decade lengthy run as Director of Opera Theater at the University of Iowa between 1988 and 1998. In addition to being an academic, Glass has translated 20 operas, is author of various books, and served as opera coach of the Zurich Opera. With his wife, Noël, he still coaches opera and lieder at the “American Institute of Musical Studies” in Austria during the summer months.

With an annual budget of $100,000 Maine Grand Opera, situated in Camden Maine, is just getting its legs. Its opening opera, Mozart’s “The Magic Flute”, premiered in December of 2001 to a full house with a production that was full of surprises. Eisenhauer describes it this way: “The heat which is turned down during the day to save money was turned up only an hour before curtain. During the entire overture all the pipes banged and clanged so loud you could barely hear the music.” On another occasion the performers had to travel to another town to rehearse, only to go through rehearsal in their overcoats because the manager of the hall forgot to fill the heating oil tank. “It was so cold you could see everyone's breath on stage.” On another occasion, while rehearsing La Boheme, melting snow caused the roof to leak, right in the middle of the stage, “which was more realistic for the outside scenes than we wanted.”

In spite of the early problems, Eisenhauer says things are improving. “Aesthetically the auditorium is beautiful, with a chandelier that will rise as the lights dim.” Issues with the stage and backstage areas are being addressed quickly. And constant improvements in set design are the rule now that the company has signed on three-time Emmy nominee, Chez Cherry. His set designs are described by Eisenhauer as “beautiful and tastefully done.”

This year, Maine Grand Opera, with full orchestra and chorus, plans on performing “The All Night Strut”, “Carousel” and “Die Fledermaus” before audiences that Eisenhauer says are “usually surprised how accessible opera can be after seeing our production.” Ticket prices run between $25 and $35. Ironically, the opera audience in New Hampshire seems to be more ready and available than the forums in which to perform the productions. Eisenhauer explains that the company wanted to perform Die Fledermaus last Christmas in Bangor, ninety miles north of Camden, but had to cancel its plans because "its never been done before. None of the performing spaces in Bangor are open during Christmas week," she says. "So now we have to do the performances in Camden and wait for the regular time of year to go to Bangor."

The biggest hurdles yet to be overcome says Eisenhauer are, in rough order: one, the size of the state. Getting musicians and players to travel long distances (Portland is two hours to the South) is daunting. “The people in Maine,” Eisenhauer explains, “hold full time jobs and therefore can’t attend daily rehearsals. To schedule rehearsal times for the musicians and make it equitable for everyone is a daunting task.” Second, is getting adequate press coverage. “People like to buy tickets at the last minute and depend on word of mouth. Our second weekend performances are always sold out because newspapers don’t run news until the week before, and there are no critics to review classical works up here.” Lastly, there is the issue of singers. “We would love to give singers in Maine opportunities to perform,” Eisenhauer says. “There have been some, but for the most part, Maine is a very big state and they live in every corner. Our principle singers,” she says, “come from auditions we do in Boston. We have been very fortunate in that regard," she adds. “There are many talented singers out there looking for jobs.”