Opera Theatre of
St. Louis (OTSL) opens its 2021 season on May 22nd, once
again on the Webster University campus but this time outside of
the Loretto-Hilton Center instead of inside. I chatted via Zoom
with OTSL General Director Andrew Jorgensen about
the coming season and how it will be both similar to and different
from the OTSL experience in the past.
Chuck Lavazzi (CL): I wanted to talk about what
differences people can expect this year. I know it will be
significantly different for people who are used to the traditional
experience but for the rest of us, maybe not so much.
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| L-R: Andrew Jorgensen, Chuck Lavazzi |
Andrew Jorgensen (AJ): I think the name of the
game this year was adaptation. More than anything I wanted to
ensure that we planned an opera season that wouldn’t be cancelled.
We had to do that a year ago and we all understand why that was
the right thing to do. I’m grateful to our community of supporters
for helping us to do so in a way that we were able to make a
settlement with all the company members who didn’t get to come
work with us last year. But as we turned our attention in the
summer of 2020 to what we would do in 2021, two things quickly
became clear to us: the pandemic was going to last longer than any
of us expected and so therefore we should not plan a return to
normal.
And so that, with the encouragement of the board from Opera
Theatre, opened the door for the staff to say “OK, what can we do
that will be safe, artistically satisfying, and financially
supportable?”
CL: Time to think our of the box and out of the
building.
AJ: Yes, time to literally think outside of the
box. We met with a small task force of board members
that we assembled who were deeply connected with COVID response, at
hospitals, and at large institutions, and this group said to us,
“don’t count on normal.” That opened door to the question
of how you adapt in a way that insures you can put a season on.
That's how we arrived, all these months later, at the festival season
that we are going to have.
We’re turning the parking lot next door into an outdoor opera
house. We have just shy of 300 seats in socially distanced pods of
two. So, you can come and have your picnic in our picnic area—that
tradition will continue—with socially distanced picnic tables.
Then you put your mask on and to into the outdoor seating area and
take in a live performance.
With the collaboration of my artistic and production colleagues,
we have basically turned the kind of stage you would see at an
outdoor rock concert into a beautiful opera stage—full sets, full
costumes, full lights. With the collaboration of the St. Louis
Symphony Orchestra, the orchestra will be with us outside. So,
we’re planning a series of productions that actually, I think,
represent (albeit in a very different way) the best of what you’d
get in any Opera Theatre season.
With the advice of the medical team, we’ve planned for no
intermission and no performance which is longer than 75 minutes, so
that the logistics of coming together are made a little bit
easier. We have smaller cast sizes, different forces; but even
within those parameters we’ve planned for four different
productions that I think represent the best of what Opera Theatre
has to offer.
We have a classic comedy that we haven’t done in over 40 years,
“Gianni Schicchi.”
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| Patricia Racette |
CL: Yes, I remember that first production.
AJ: It’s one of the great comedies, and we
haven’t done it since 1979! In William Grant Still’s
“Highway 1, U.S.A.” you have a one-act opera which is beautiful:
beautiful music, incredible orchestration. It’s a brilliant work
by a brilliant composer whose opera have been terribly overlooked.
He was called “the dean of African-American composers,” but no one
produces his operas. It is so within Opera Theatre’s mission now
more than ever to bring that work back to, literally, center
stage.
CL: You know, like a lot of people—especially
those of us who cover classical music—I know William Grant Still
as an instrumental composer, but I had no idea that he had even
written any operas.
AJ: That’s perfect. That you say that delights
me, because that, for me, is exactly why it’s so exciting to give productions
of operas that need to get back into the center of the Canon—as Opera Theatre has done for so many wonderful pieces.
In “Le Voix Humaine” of Poulenc we have one of the great stars
of the opera world, Patricia Racette, in an electrifying one-woman
performance in a great piece. And then we have not one but three
world premieres as part of our “New Works, Bold Voices Lab," which
I’m really excited about. It’s a unique collaboration, a unique
project; I think it represents the best of Opera Theatre’s
ingenuity.
So within the context of all of these adaptations we found a way
to put artists back to work, to reunite artists and audiences
safely, and to keep art happening. And that, to me, is the most
exciting thing.
CL: All this will be familiar to people who go to
the St. Louis Symphony a lot: the limited time frame, no
intermissions. All this stuff is going to be familiar to a lot of
your audience.
AJ: That’s because all of us are working with the
same team of doctors that are working with the St. Louis Symphony.
We’re all responding to similar public health guidance and setting the health and safety of our company members and our audiences are
our highest priority. I think many of us are coming up with
similar kinds of solutions about how we can safely adapt despite
the fact that even with a rising vaccination rate, we’re still in
this pandemic.
CL: Yeah, we have a long way to go. Has it been
easy to work with the union involved? I know there has been some
friction between Actors Equity and performers who are represented
by Actors Equity. I don’t remember the name of the union that
represents your singers.
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| Nicole Cabell |
AJ: It’s called AGMA, the American Guild of
Musical Artists. And I have to say I am so grateful to Webster
University, to the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, to the singers’
union, to our stagehands’ union. Everybody has come to these
conversations and to this season with good will, with flexibility,
and with a desire to get back to work. And I think we recognize
that we can all come together and collaborate and that we can make
this happen.
Opera Theatre will be one of the very first opera companies
and one of the first major art institutions in the country to
return to large-scale live performance. And I think that is
exciting and meaningful to so many artisans and artists who are
eager to get back to their work.
CL: And you’re one of a limited number of
venues—I suppose Tanglewood would be another—where it’s actually
feasible to do this because you can work in an outdoor setting.
AJ: Well, we don’t really have an outdoor
setting; we’re turning a parking lot into an opera house.
CL: Well, but you can create one.
AJ: Yes, and I think many different companies are
finding ways to do just that. Many of my colleagues at other opera
companies are inventing different kinds of solutions, and when
it’s not terrifying it's really exciting to have this opportunity
to re-invent our business model and find new ways to produce opera
and to make art happen despite all these challenges.
CL: Now in addition to the regular season, you’re
doing some other programs this year. Could you talk about those?
AJ: Absolutely. The first is that we will
continue our annual Center Stage concert, which puts your young
artists at the center of the action.
CL: Which is a tremendous show.
AJ: Yes, it’s a tremendous evening. So many of
these young singers are at the start of brilliant careers and I’m
always excited about who we’ll hear that evening because I’m sure
we’ll see their names in lights going forward. Patricia Racette,
who is the director of the Young Artists program, has brought
together a fabulous group of young singers this year.
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| Will Liverman |
We also will launch a new concert called “I Dream a World.” It’s
presented in collaboration with the Missouri Historical Society. It will be at
the History Museum and will be curated by Nicole Cabell and Will
Liverman, two singers of color who are the leads in the “Highway
1, U.S.A” production. We are so excited to offer our platform to
their vision of how we can celebrate Black Music Month, how we can
observe the occasion of Juneteenth, and how we can continue to
grow outside of the work that we have done, and to celebrate this
extraordinary musical tradition that so many of us are not
well-versed in.
It’s just an exciting opportunity to work with Nicole and Will
and to see them spearhead this effort, bringing artists together
and commissioning work.
CL: Because this is a new situation for your
audience, I wonder if you could give people a quick overview of
what they can expect when they come to see one of the operas.
Because it is going to be a different procedure.
AJ: The first thing to say is that when audiences
come the crowd size will be smaller. And everything that we’re
planning has been thoroughly vetted with all the authorities and
the doctors.
Upon arrival we’ll check everyone in. We’ll do temperature
checking and make sure that everyone is feeling OK and that we’re
ready to come together. We will ask people to be wearing masks
when at their picnic tables and we’ll ask for masks at seats. We
will continue our picnic tradition with prepackaged picnics so
that people can feel good about coming together at a physically
distanced picnic table. I think you can expect the Opera Theatre
level of quality and customer care, but with lots of adaptations
to make us all feel comfortable.
Instead of printed programs, we’ll have program books that are
part of our new app that we’ve created, with all the information.
We’re having contactless ticketing so people can print their
tickets or have them on their phone. We’ll have lots of little
adjustments that will enable people to feel comfortable after
coming back into public settings—for many of us, possibly the
first time back in large public gatherings.
CL: Will you be checking for proof of
vaccination, or is that something you feel would not be that
helpful at this point?
AJ: We talked about that. With the collaboration
of the medical team what we’ve planned for are safety protocols
that assume nobody has been vaccinated. And that was important to
me because while many of our audience members will have been
vaccinated many of our singers and staff are not yet vaccinated.
So we are trying to maximize everybody’s health.
I am incredibly reassured that many of our company members and
audience members will be vaccinated, though. That is the ultimate
“belt and suspenders” in this context, but we planned in way that insures that even those among us who are not will also be safe.
There are also many adaptations on the singer and company member
side: smaller casts, each cast in its own bubble so there’s no
crossover between the productions and there's a regime of testing and
quarantining and physical distancing so the cast members can
self-isolate. They rehearse in masks. They will only unmask when
they are singing so they don’t have to physically distance on
stage. It’s about finding ways to set the art and the health as
priorities and set protocols that support that.
CL: You folks did a really nice job of that with
your digital season. Those were shows where no one wore a mask,
but they had all been isolated together beforehand for two weeks,
right?
AJ: Exactly. We learned so much with our
collaboration with Nine Network, our “Songs for St. Louis,” our
Holiday Concert, our wonderful “Pirates of Penzance” for our
education programs—all those different efforts. So now we’re just
“super sizing” those efforts as we bring a full festival company
together.
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L-R: Angel
Riley, Ryan Johnson in
The Pirates of Penzance |
The other major new initiative this year is that we’re
inaugurating a program of free tickets called “Phyllis’s Seats.”
We’re celebrating the legacy of Phyllis Brissenden, a long-time
donor and board member—one of our founding members, in fact—who
was so dedicated to the company and who left us a very significant
bequest. She believed so passionately that opera could be for
everyone. She loved to invite new guests to the opera. And so,
celebrating that commitment we will have 30 tickets each night
which are completely free, starting two days before each
performance.
We’re operating at about one-third of our capacity—from 1000
seats down to less than 300—and from almost 28 or 29 performances
down to 17 or 18. So there's a reduction of inventory, but we want people
to know that they are invited and they are welcome, so that’s why
we launched this program of free seats. And we will continue it
and grow it as we come back into the opera house in future years.
Which signifies this commitment that we believe that opera can,
should, and will be for anybody. We want to include as many
members of our community at Opera Theatre as we can, and we don't want cost to be a barrier.
CL: A couple more practical questions: I know
that the stage will be covered but the audience area will not be
(just like the Muny), so I wonder if you could tell us what kind
of arrangements you’ve made for the weather in case it doesn’t
cooperate. Which, this being St. Louis, it might not.
AJ: (laughs) Yes, so I guess the first answer is
that it never rains in St. Louis, but I think you’d know if I said
that, that I was probably not on the right page. Of course, we’d
rather contend with the weather than with the virus, so that’s the
boat that we’re in. We’re considering a number of different
approaches.
We will delay the start of the performance if we feel by doing
so that we have a better shot, and with shorter performances that
might not be the worst thing. We might pause and continue with
only piano if that’s an option. We’re having ponchos made up so
that if it starts to drizzle, we’ll give audience members ponchos
and we’ll all grin and bear it together.
We are also exploring the possibility of video capture of the
season so that audiences who are rained out or who can’t get
tickets may have access later to some of these performances.
Obviously, we hope that every evening will be a beautiful evening,
but we also understand that it’s a fact life and we will work with
our audiences. If it gets rained out, we’ll refund your ticket but
in general we hope that our audiences will make the best of it
with us.
CL: And I guess, speaking of that, we should
understand that the Loretto-Hilton Center will be closed and can’t
be accessed, so people won’t be able to use those restrooms.
AJ: That’s right, but we have other arrangements
that we’re making for company and audience members. And, again,
that may be one of the benefits of shorter performances.
CL: That too, yes. One quick question: are you
finding that you have to work with a smaller orchestra given the
space, or is it about the same?
AJ: It will be a slightly smaller orchestra for
the two larger pieces, “Highway 1, U.S.A.” and “Gianni Schicchi”
because we’re also observing the same distancing requirements that
the Symphony has in place for the players. But this is still an
extraordinary orchestra.
The “New Works, Bold Voices Lab”—these three short
commissions—are actually designed with very small orchestral
forces in mind. We commissioned those pieces this year for
socially distanced forces so they could be performed during the
pandemic. And the Poulenc
is done with just piano, which is often how “La Voix Humaine” is
performed.
CL: Is there anything else you want your audience
to know that we haven’t talked about?
AJ: Just to underscore how excited we are to be
returning to live performances, how grateful we are to our
community for supporting us and making the best of this moment,
and that we can’t wait to welcome everybody back to the opera
after a very challenging year and after seeing so many things
cancelled and pushed off. It feels really great. As I look out my
window, I can see the tents being erected. It feels great to be
returning to our work and we can’t wait to share it with all of
you.
CL: Thanks, and we’ll see you at the opera.
The Essentials: Opera Theatre of St. Louis opens its
2021 season with Puccini’s “Gianni Schicchi” on Saturday, May
22nd; William Grant Still’s “Highway 1, U.S.A.” on Saturday, May
29th; Poulenc’s “La Voix Humaine” on Saturday, June 5th; and the
“New Works, Bold Voices Lab” on Thursday, June 20th. The
productions will run in rotating repertory through June 20th at
the OTSL outdoor theatre on the Webster University Campus.
“Center Stage: A Young Artist Showcase” takes place at the same
location on Saturday, June 19th at 8 pm and Sunday, June 20th, at
1 pm. “I Dream a World: A Celebration of Juneteenth” takes
place on Tuesday, June 15th, at 6 pm at the Missouri History
Museum.
For more information, visit the OTSL web site.
