City needs a new home for its cultural treasure
LETTERS
Many Lethbridge residents, young and old, shared a great evening of Gilbert and Sullivan at the Lethbridge Symphony Opera Concert as Southminster United Church on Feb. 3 and 4. The concert featured young performers from our University Opera Studies and our own Vox Musica Chorus superbly accompanied by our Lethbridge Symphony Orchestra.
As the audience experienced this delightful evening, they certainly appreciated the lifetime efforts of all the musicians — orchestra, chorus and dancers. These citizens/artists spent countless hours developing talents they shared with us for a few precious hours. Consider how these musicians, as youth, faithfully practised with the “encouragement” of parents. Consider the sacrifice of time and money by parents to purchase and encourage lessons and grow the talents of their children.
Certainly, we need more such uplifting experiences here in Lethbridge. There are so many negative impacts on individuals and families in the form of drugs with the resulting individual and family-destroying addictions, family and individual-destroying pornography, school policies that try to block the role of parents in teaching values to their children, etc. Families and family culture in Lethbridge is diminished profoundly by our neglect and waste.
We should not be neglecting the venues and learning spaces needed to encourage the performing arts in our community. While the venue for this concert, Southminister United Church, is acoustically superior to any other venue in Lethbridge, we need a real theatre that will comfortably accommodate a larger audience with capacity for scene changes and friendly space for performances.
Perhaps we should employ some of the funding that would be wasted on the political fad of curbside pickup and invest it in detailed planning for the design, construction and operation of a fully functioning performing arts facility. The Yates Centre is not suited for the scenery, sound, workshop and rehearsal spaces needed for live theatre, either homegrown or touring. If we were to review the mayor’s reasoning, “Why I voted no to blue cart recycling,” February 2015, we could see a better alternative in a performing arts theatre. The one deals with garbage, the other will build an uplifting and enduring culture.
I challenge all City of Lethbridge elected officials to consider the desire of the citizens and the need to build the social culture of this great city, to go forward with plans for a suitable Performing Arts Centre so that greater audiences can attend and suitable production facilities will be available.