SOMETHING TO SING ABOUT
BOB MCPHEE LEADS CALGARY OPERA IN CELEBRATING 40 YEARS
If the first 40 years of its history are any indication, Calgary Opera audiences might just want to hold onto their seats for the next 40.
From being a novice regional opera company that boldly presented four biggies of the repertoire — La Boheme, Rigoletto, Carmen and Madama Butterfly — in only the first two years of operation, since 1972 the company has matured to the point of offering a diversity of programming that in the past decade has come to encompass not only the grandest of grand opera but also the Canadian premieres of lesser-known masterworks, and especially, the world premieres of three new large-scale Canadian operas — Filumena, Frobisher and The Inventor.
Oh, and did we mention an innovatively comprehensive training program for emerging artists that has given young Canadian singers insight into both stage business and the business of managing their careers?
But lest relative newcomers to the world of Calgary Opera think that everything before the arrival 14 years ago of current general director and CEO Bob Mcphee was mere prologue — it wasn’t.
The early history of the company was punctuated by attractive productions featuring prominent Canadians of the calibre of soprano Heather Thompson, for instance, or tenors Emanno Mauro and Pierre Duval, or baritones Joseph Rouleau and Cornelius Opthof, all then in their prime.
It was just that the nuts and bolts of day-to-day operation at Calgary Opera weren’t as tight as they were to become nearly 30 years later.
Industry-wide in the 1960s and ’70s, stage preparation was brief — unlike the two to three weeks of rehearsal usually accorded productions today, says George Ross.
Ross’s association with the company goes back to its founding and a time when he served as stage manager (until 1979) under the artistic direction of Alexander Gray.
Once loaded into the Jubilee Auditorium, Ross says, “We had the first rehearsal on a Monday, dress rehearsal on Tuesday — and we opened on Thursday.”
The necessity of getting the show together in only a few days — no high-tech video stuff here, only scenery rolled in off trucks — was not only a factor of limited money and resources but also of artist availability, Ross recalls.
“In those days, artists sometimes didn’t show up until three days before dress (rehearsal).”
According to Ross, an increase in the dramatic lustre of Calgary Opera productions in the 1970s and ’80s came primarily through connections enjoyed by Brian Hanson, who took over as general manager and artistic director in 1976, after serving at Vancouver Opera under the artistic leadership of renowned opera conductor Richard Bonynge for several seasons.
“Brian had all those folk on his roster in Vancouver,” Ross says.
Nevertheless, adds Ross, a member of the Calgary Opera Chorus since 2004, “we didn’t have the critical mass of opera we have now.”
The move toward “critical mass” gathered momentum under David Speers who was named Calgary Opera general director in 1988.
As was the case with his two predecessors, Speers’ tenure fostered the career development of fast-tracking Canadian talent — artists such as Tracy Dahl and Richard Margison, for example, appeared in Calgary Opera shows at the Jubilee in the 1990s.
Encouraging and supporting young Canadian singers also took the form of programming fully staged matinee productions of operas using the mainstage sets.
There were two performances each, using a young, relatively inexperienced “second” cast, complete with emerging directors and conductors.
Speers, who by his own admission was out to make “a much more theatrical product,” also made a habit of lassoing some pretty major names in opera — people such as megastar sopranos Kiri Te Kanawa, Jessye Norman and Cecilia Bartoli, and bass-baritone Samuel Ramey, to name a few.
“Those were the days when you could actually afford to bring those big stars out, sell tickets and actually make some money,” Speers says.
“Then the fees just got elevated so much that you would have to charge way more than our market would certainly bear.”
Asked about his biggest challenge when he succeeded Speers in 1998, current Calgary Opera boss Mcphee laughs and says, “Going to the bank in February and getting a line of credit so I could make payroll.
“When I got here, the company was just over $1.9 million (operating costs) and it was carrying an accumulated debt of about $450-460K. “We were broke.” Mcphee immediately set about not only securing financial stability for Calgary Opera but also trying to broaden the community’s interest in repertoire, away from the “chestnut” category.
Accordingly, such operas as Susannah (2001) and Dialogues of the Carmelites (2002), became successful company premieres.
“I’ll never forget the second year I was here,” Mcphee recalls.
Die Fledermaus was on the bill (productions are routinely programmed two and three seasons in advance.).
“(The set) was tired old painted drops and trees, wrinkled and cracking, and I said to (lighting designer) Harry Frehner, ‘Harry, if you make this look pretty, I promise you that I’ll never give you another set like this,’ ” Mcphee says, laughing.
As well as expanding the rep and sprucing up the look, Mcphee has consolidated the company’s previously far-flung operations under one roof (Arrata Opera Centre); secured an efficient and permanent administrative staff; and changed the face of a previously hardworking board to one that is more corporately connected and fundraising-oriented.
Coupled with the intensive training program provided annually to eight or nine young singers on the make, it all translates into ever greater visibility and outreach for Calgary Opera in the community it serves, Mcphee says.
And beyond that, he adds, it’s just a matter of “trying to dream up the next thing to keep the company energized and moving forward — of finding the next thing to stimulate our audience.”