Vancouver Opera switches to festival format
Concentrating productions in spring designed to attract new audiences and save $1 million
In a bid to attract a younger audience and shave $1 million off its budget, Vancouver Opera has adopted a festival model that focuses its productions in a three-week period in the spring.
The change from the traditional programming of operas spaced throughout the year will begin in 2017, the company’s general director James Wright said at a news conference Tuesday.
“Instead of an opera in October, November, December and March and May, we’re going to concentrate three of our four works into a three-week period in the spring,” he said.
The inaugural festival will open with Otello on April 27, 2017, and will also include a new contemporary work.
Wright said the new festival will take place in the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, Vancouver Playhouse and Queen Elizabeth Plaza, and will include more than 20 events such as dinners and parties in an outdoor tent, singalong movies, workshops, and forums.
He said each festival’s major work will be chosen from traditional opera favourites and large scale masterpieces traditionally staged in the Queen Elizabeth Theatre. More intimate works will be shown in The Playhouse. Wright said the new model will allow the company to create a celebratory environment and engage people, and also allow the company to reduce its annual budget from $10 million to $9 million.
The new model means the company will go from staging three large and one small production a year to two large and two small productions. Wright said that by moving a production to The Playhouse from Queen Elizabeth Theatre, for example, the company saves as much as $500,000.
Wright confirmed the changes will mean some year-round employees will be shifted to contract work. Wright wouldn’t confirm the number of permanent job losses Tuesday, other than to say there would be “several.”
Vancouver Opera, now in its 55th year, will still maintain a year-round presence in the community. Wright cited several examples, including a family-friendly pre-holiday production scheduled for the fall of 2016 and a collaborative production with the University of B.C’s Opera Program beginning this year.
He said a festival format attracts a younger, more diverse audience.
“Our research has told us that the established opera festivals are very successful,” he said.
Other opera companies in the U.S. that have shifted to mounting productions in a concentrated period include Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Cincinnati Opera and Fort Worth Opera. Information provided by Opera Vancouver said that Portland Opera will shift to a similar festival program next year.
Wright acknowledged that not all of its traditional audience may support the change.
“Older audiences are aging out. We have got to replace them to preserve the best of the opera canon. We have got to make the kind of changes to bring enough people in the door,” he said.
Wright will retire in 2016 after 17 years with the company. His replacement is expected to be announced before the end of the year. Vancouver Opera opens its 2015-16 season with Rigoletto at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre from Sept. 26 to Oct. 4.