Opera Boston Shuts Down

Season cancelled, doors closed. Merry Christmas.

Opera Boston: 2003-2011.

Opera Boston, the innovative company whose 2011 productions included a stellar version of Paul Hindemith's Cardillac and Hector Berlioz' Beatrice et Benedict, has announced that it will cease operations on January 1, 2012.

According to a report in Boston Business Journal, the city's second-largest opera company faced "insurmountable" fundraising difficulties in 2011, despite good ticket sales and innovative choices in repertory.

Opera Boston staged its performances at the 1903 Cutler Majestic Theater, located in the heart of that city's theater district. The company launched in 1993 with summer performances as "Opera Unlimited" featuring repertory like Thomas Ades' chamber opera Powder Her Face. Later that year, the company began its run at the Majestic with Leonard Bernstein's Candide and John Adams' Nixon in China. 

The announcement came 24 hours after employees were informed that the company was going out of business.  "The company has had many artistic triumphs in its recent history," said company chair Winifred Gray. "However, as the end of the year approaches, we find ourselves in a financially untenable situation, and the responsible thing is to work with our creditors and cease operations."

"The board realizes that this development will come as a shock to the Boston arts community, and it is not a decision we made lightly," Gray said in the statement.

A planned Spring 2012 season would have included an eagerly anticipated performance of Sir Michael Tippett's opera The Midsummer Marriage, and Bellini's Shakespeare adaptation I Capuletti e i Montecchi.


The last time a Boston opera company closed was in 1990 when Sarah Caldwell's Boston Opera Company shuttered its doors. The announcement leaves the Boston Lyric Opera as the city's main professional opera company.

The Airing of the Grievances: the Worst of 2011

From the City Opera to the Battle of Lincoln Center.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

"As I rained blows upon him, I realized there had to be a better way... a Festivus, for the rest of us!!!"
Festivus prophet Frank Costanza (Jerry Stiller. with pole), acolyte Cosmo Kramer (Michael Richards)
and his disciples Jerry and George. Image framegrabbed from Seinfeld "The Strike"  © 1997 NBC.

Today is December 23, the date some New Yorkers celebrate Festivus, the holiday invented at a toy store by one Frank Costanza while fighting over a Cabbage Patch™doll.* Originally observed every year in the Costanza household, Festivus is a simple holiday. It requires a large aluminum pole (instead of a tree.) At the Festivus table, there is a simple meal, followed by the Airing of the Grievances, and then something called the Feats of Strength.

In the spirit of the season, we here at Superconductor celebrate Festivus with our first ever Worst-of list for 2011. There are eleven items on the list, in deference to the year. So set up the aluminum pole, and let's get to the worst things that happened in the classical music industry--or at least the ones that we covered this year.

Ed. Note: The closing of Opera Boston happened the day after this piece went to press. We've added it to the bottom of the list.

Cancellation fever strikes.

The Metropolitan Opera's 2011-2012 season was marred by all manner of cancellations. Ben Heppner and Gary Lehman both pulled out of the title role in Siegfried, the latter one week before the prima. Angela Gheorghiu cancelled Faust for this year, citing "artistic differences" with director Dez McAnuff. (She was replaced by Marina Poplavskaya.) Just to be sure, the Romanian diva cancelled her 2012 contract as well. It's a matter of some conjecture if she sings at the Met anytime soon.

The decline and fall of the New York City Opera.
This one had been brewing for a while. With its labor contracts up, the decision of NYCO general manager George Steel to ditch his company's longtime digs and embark on a (sort of) odyssey across New York recalls the decision by fictional British rock group Spinal Tap to replace their songs with the blues-jazz (or is it jazz-blues?) noodling of bassist Derek Smalls. This ongoing story includes a protracted battle with the unions for both the orchestra and chorus, a bitter dispute that is currently before a federally appointed mediator.

(For more on the slow death-spiral of New York City Opera, read Fred Cohen's excellent (and educational piece in Opera News: The Ballad of NYCO.)

Salvatore Licitra dies in a motorcycle accident.

A number of singers passed away this year, but the most shocking death was the loss of the talented Italian tenor Salvatore Licitra. Following a motorcycle accident in his native Sicily, Mr. Licitra died of complications following a brain injury. He wasn't wearing a helmet.

Bankruptcy on Broad Street.

Labor troubles between symphony boards and musicians have been a common thread this year, with industrial action taken in Louisville and Detroit. But the venerable Philadelphia Orchestra became the first major American ensemble to file Chapter 11 this year. This was either a loud cry for help or an attempt to play hardball with the union. Eventually, the union blinked, and the season started on time. The effects of this action are still reverberating in Philadelphia.

The Metropolitan Opera's new start times.

As long as we're airing grievances, the Met's new 7:30pm start times make the relaxing activity of going to the opera house a mad dash through New York's subway system. Citing a survey of opera-goers taken in 2011, the Met pushed back all of their start times by half an hour. That's so people driving in from the suburbs can get home a little earlier, but a little hard on us New Yorkers. Maybe it's a plan to close area restaurants around Lincoln Center and sell more little sandwiches at the Revlon Bar?

Peter Gelb vs. Bradley Wilber
The most shameful act by the Metropolitan Opera this year. The company sent a "cease and desist" letter to Brad Wilber, an upstate librarian and author of the 'Metropolitan Opera Futures' page, a website that offered uncannily accurate predictions of forthcoming seasons at the Met.  (The Met claimed that the site was making it harder to negotiate advance contracts with artists.) We miss Mr. Wilber's cybernetic crystal ball, which had a knack for telling you what was coming up on the Met schedule and what direction the company was heading in. 

James Levine's Labor Day slip.

The ailing conductor was placed on the disabled list in May, stepping down from his Boston and Tanglewood obligations to rest and recover. On Labor Day weekend, Mr. Levine fell while walking in New England. Emergency surgery was required. As a result, Mr. Levine hasn't conducted anything since Wozzeck and Die Walküre in the spring. He is not scheduled to conduct at the Met until at least the 2013 season, but retains the post of Music Director.

The Music Director's (literal) fall from grace led Met general manager Peter Gelb to elevate Fabio Luisi to the post of Principal Conductor at the Met. Mr. Luisi agreed to salvage the new productions of Don Giovanni, Siegfried, and next year: Götterdämmerung. But the schedule-shuffling required Mr. Luisi to cancel a number of European and North American  commitments: concerts with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and the Vienna Symphony. He also bailed out of a Rome production of Richard Strauss' Elektra, three weeks before the premiere.

EMI Records sold.

The proud record label, which made the first major recordings of Herbert von Karajan with the Vienna Philharmonic and helped set the tone for the development of the modern classical recording industry is being folded into Vivendi, owners of Decca and Deutsche Grammophon. Will the EMI brand (which has been home to artists like Angela Gheorghiu, Roberto Alagna, Plácido Domingo and Jacqueline du Pré) survive into the next decade, or will it suffer the same fate as Philips Classics?

The "Machine" Malfunctions.

Miscues and malfunctions marred the 2011 premieres of Die Walküre and Siegfried, the second and third installments in the Met's new production of Wagner's Ring Cycle. Deborah Voigt fell off the set on opening night of Walküre. (She was OK.) The first two Siegfrieds had clunks, thunks, and one outright dead stop (in Act III) on the second night. The action was hastily moved to the apron of the stage. 

The Occupation of Lincoln Center--by the NYPD.

On Dec. 1, the night Metropolitan Opera's final performance of Satyagraha, Lincoln Center was closed off. Hearing that Occupy Wall Street was planning a demonstration, the NYPD and Lincoln Center security barricaded the entire plaza against the arrival of peaceful demonstrators. This shameful behavior led to the Occupiers having their say on the sidewalk. Speakers included songwriter Lou Reed, his wife Laurie Anderson, and Satyagraha composer Philip Glass, who read from the Bhagavad-Gita.

Opera Boston goes under.
A late addition to this list--because it happened after this post went to press. On Dec. 23, two days Christmas, Opera Boston announced that it was ceasing operations, effective immediately. The company reported that it could not continue due to a $500,000 operating deficit and insufficient fund-raising. According to a report in the Boston Globe, six members of the 17-member board were against folding. So they weren't invited to the meeting when the company was folded. So much for democracy.

Visit the rest of the 2011 Year in Reviews, our account of the year that went to "'11".

*According to Wikipedia, the "Festivus" holiday was actually invented in 1966 by Dan O'Keefe, whose son Daniel wrote the 1997 Seinfeld episode "The Strike."

Opera Review: All Mirth, And No Matter

Opera Boston mounts Béatrice et Bénédict.

Lady Disdain: Julie Boulianne (Béatrice) spurns Sean Pannikar (Bénédict.)
Photo by Clive Grainger © 2011. Courtesy Opera Boston.

Opera Boston continues to delve into adventurous repertory with Hector Berlioz' rarely heard Shakespeare opera Beatrice et Bénédict. Distilled from the pages of Much Ado About Nothing, the opera focuses on the romantic sparring of its two title characters. Tuesday night's performance, reviewed here, was the last of the run at the Majestic Theater. 

Tenor Sean Pannikar and mezzo Julie Boulianne made their company debuts in the title roles. Mr. Pannikar has a clear, pleasing tenor that compresses slightly when he rises above the stave. Forced to switch between sung French and spoken English for the duration of the opera, Mr. Pannikar's performance took flight the Shakespeare text yielded to Berlioz' music.

Ms. Boulianne faced similar problems, delivering the spoken dialogue with awkward flourishes. Her fine-pointed, dusky mezzo was suited to Béatrice's pert nature, but her mannerisms made this a difficult heroine to love. She improved in the second act, singing the gorgeous trio and bringing real warmth to her reconciliation and eventual marriage.

Although Béatrice is the opera's titular heroine, her cousin Hero (soprano Heather Buck) gets some of the best music to sing. The Nocturne, sung by Hero and her handmaiden Ursule, (Kelley O'Connor) wove a spell of Berliozian magic. In a manner reminiscent of the Dance of the Sylphs in La Damnation de Faust, it brought Act one to a subtle, gorgeous close.

One of Berlioz' better additions to the play is Somarone, a music master played here by baritone Andrew Funk. A conductor/composer (like Berlioz himself), this fellow's preening, fawning behavior allowed the composer to have little fun at the expense of his profession. Mr. Funk played the part for laughs, particularly the Wagnerian bit about using a particular baton to create darkness and light from his orchestra. As his performers left in disgust, one thought of Haydn's Farewell Symphony. Finally, he led the Act II Improvisation (a bawdy drinking-song) with gusto.

This is Berlioz' fourth and final opera, and his second entry in the genre of opéra-comique. In this style, spoken dialogue is used instead of recitative, interpolated between the arias and ensembles. Since French speech is usually delivered at a rapid clip, it can be challenging for an American audience to follow, even with surtitles.

The solution chosen here was to use an English translation, culled mostly from Shakespeare's text by director David Kneuss. Mr. Kneuss' treatment of the text was difficult for the actors. The characters delved in and out of Shakespeare's idiom, in a struggle to meet the needs of the libretto. The production moved the action to a 20th-century setting, in sets suggesting a Tuscan villa was a low-budget nod to Kenneth Branagh's movie version of the play.

All of the singers seemed uncomfortable delivering the dialogue, with even the lesser members of the cast falling prey to over-exaggeration. In the pit, music director Gil Rose did his best to compensate. Although the famous overture was curiously muted, the later pages of the opera sparkled, and the final double-marriage scene ended the evening on an upbeat note.

Opera Review: Who's Afraid of Cardillac?

The Officer (Steven Sanders, l.) confronts Cardillac (Sanford Sylvan, r.) in a tense moment.
Photo from the dress rehearsal of Cardillac by Clive Grainger 
© 2011 Clive Grainger/ Opera Boston

On Friday evening, Opera Boston offered the New England premiere of Paul Hindemith's Cardillac, a rarely performed, but influential German opera. Baritone Sanford Sylvan gave a towering performance in the difficult title role.

Based on Mademoiselle de Scudéri, a story by the writer/composer E.T.A. Hoffmann, Cardillac is an early example of mystery fiction: the story of a goldsmith in the Paris of Louis XIV, who murders his customers in order to resume possession of his jewelry. Although a success at the work's 1926 premiere, Hindemith later revised the opera, adding a final act and softening the title character's sharp edges. The rise of the Nazis and the flight of Hindemith to America consigned Cardillac to obscurity.

The Opera Boston production made a good argument for the unrevised 90-minute Cardillac, playing the three acts without intermission. Director Nic Mumi updated the story to a modern jewelry boutique, some time in the "near future." Erhard Rom's set was dominated by three tilted white flats, surfaces that allowed the actors to cast gigantic shadows at climactic moments. A huge, reversed banner advertising René Cardillac as a "fashion name" like Fendi or Gucci adorned the proscenium. Hi-Def televisions advertised his wares, and a series of sculptures and flying tables raised and lowered, occasionally revealing the corpses of the homicidal jeweler's latest victims.

Sanford Sylvan showed exceptional versatility and range in the title part, taking his baritone down to the depths of Cardillac's depravity and floating pianissimo high notes when needed. His portrayal made the jeweler's decision to kill his customers seem almost reasonable, pulling the audience in as co-conspirators as he preyed upon the elite. The Canadian baritone controlled the stage every time he was on it, from his interactions with his daughter, to the final confession and death scene.

As Cardillac's Daughter, (in the tradition of many early 20th century German operas, most of the characters are nameless) soprano Sol Kim Bentley sang with a powerful, spirited instrument, never unpleasing to the ear. She was well paired with heroic tenor Steven Sanders as the Officer, a young buck who confronts Cardillac, wanting to woo his daughter, only to be seduced by the lure of gold. Mr. Sanders handled the high tessitura, and had an heroic stage presence. Although his fine instrument vanished for a few bars in the last act, the tenor recovered for a strong finish.

Part of the difficulty of staging Cardillac is in its music, which combines the chromatic complexity of Richard Strauss with the intricate polyphony of Johann Sebastian Bach. By fusing these two clashing styles, Hindemith made that contrast the driving force of his 90-minute score. Cardillac demands heroic effort, not just from the brass (that's the norm in operas of this era) but also from the woodwinds, whose constant commentary on the action forms the backbone of the opera. Newly appointed Opera Boston music director Gil Rose never let the momentum slip, maintaining the air of mystery and intrigue throughout.