Opera Carolina readies its next act
Opera Carolina readies its next act
Plus: The top news of the week: 2040 Comprehensive Plan hits roadblock — CMS to discuss more in-person learning — Vaccine eligibility accelerates — Mr. K's closes
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Drama: After last summer’s ‘doom and gloom,’ Charlotte’s opera company grabbed funding lifelines and looks ahead to live performances; 'We think the worst is behind us’
Soprano Sequina DuBose performed “Hold Fast to Dreams” on Opera Carolina’s online video series iStream NOW in February (viewable on the opera’s Facebook page). The opera turned to online performances to keep its patrons engaged during the pandemic.
by Cristina Bolling
When you think of an art form that best sums up the events of the past year, opera pretty much nails it.
Themes that revolve around love, tragedy and death? Check.
Characters tested by the unimaginable and torn by conflict? Absolutely.
And running an opera organization this year?
It might not have the drama of, say, the capturing of an Ethiopian princess in Verdi’s “Aida,” or the downfall of a serial womanizer in Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” (both performances that Opera Carolina was forced to cancel during the pandemic). But navigating an arts organization through 12 months with no big in-person performances or crucial fundraisers has been a supreme challenge.
Opera Carolina, Charlotte’s 71-year-old opera company, had to cancel or postpone four major performances on the calendar between last spring and this spring. Like many arts groups, opera programming moved online with some free and some pay-per-view performances on platforms including a Virtual Opera House. The organization lost approximately $300,000, or 11% of the organization’s budget, during the course of the pandemic.
None of the opera’s 12-person staff had to be laid off, thanks in part to a PPP loan and $200,000 in grants from Foundation for the Carolina’s THRIVE Fund for the Arts and funding given by the City of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County to help arts groups through the pandemic.
Now, opera staff is putting together plans for 2021 performances that will likely be an amalgam of live and virtual experiences, using tools they’ve learned over the course of 2020.
The Ledger’s Cristina Bolling spoke recently with James Meena, artistic director who has been with Opera Carolina since 2001, about the challenges Covid brought to his organization and other arts groups, what he’s learned through it all, and what he envisions for the opera going forward. Comments have been edited for brevity and clarity.
Q: It’s safe to say that all arts organizations have struggled during the pandemic. What challenges are unique to the opera?
Opera has more challenges than any of the other arts groups because of the nature of singing. The scientists have said that loud public speaking is a perfect way to disseminate the virus. Singing is even worse. We have the same issues with the orchestra musicians that play wind and brass instruments who are expelling air and saliva.
When we’re looking at how we re-program and how we re-schedule things, our first priority is actually to the artists. I know my ticket buyers and donors scratch their heads and say, ‘Why isn’t it us?’ The answer is that we can socially distance the audience — we can keep you 12 feet apart if we need to. But when we think about a large grand opera like “Aida,” where we have 70 singers onstage and 60 musicians in the orchestra pit, it’s better not to even try and take the risk of putting any of the artists at risk.
Q: How were you able to keep the opera up and running despite no theater performances?
We came up with a series of small-scale events and internet performances that we’ve now housed on the Virtual Opera House and it’s been successful. We’ve heard back from so many of our patrons that they’re thrilled we’re keeping things moving. We’re looking ahead now to the next five months and scheduling 30 events between now and the second week of June — all designed to be small-scale, depending on seating protocols, all of them outdoors or virtual, in order to keep the company working.
We were able to keep donations going through the spring. The summer was a big downturn and we knew it would be. Then we got one of the PPP loans which helped us get through September. Then things really started to pick up nicely as soon as we were starting to perform again. I think we did 20 different events between the first part of October and mid-November. When our patrons started to see that the opera was alive and well and we were going to make it, people like to join a winning team, so they were willing to support.
The THRIVE fund and the city and the county came together at the end of 2020 and pooled their resources and directed specific grants to some of the major institutions in town. That helped us get through the next wave. The philanthropy from those large organizations really helped sustain us, so now we think the worst is behind us. We’re planning through next season and going all the way through June 2022 with some of the plans that we’re making.
Q: What were some of the hardest decisions you’ve had to make this year?
One of the decisions we made early on was that for as long as we could, we were not going to furlough or lay any of our staff off. I felt that was important that we make that commitment to the staff because we knew we had to leverage their creativity in order to come up with a different way of doing business. It took us the better part of last summer … to come up with a formula and programming that we could then implement that would keep our artists performing. We keep more than a dozen local artists on our roster, so for a lot of them there was no work for awhile.
It’s been tough. I’ll be really honest. There were months between April and May and June, where we were just scratching our heads saying, ‘Are we going to make it? How do we do this?’ This sense of doom and gloom. But we stuck together and we did it.
Q: What are some of the changes caused by Covid that you envision sticking around for awhile at the opera?
We’re pretty convinced that even through the fall we’re going to have to socially distance our audiences and have safety protocols for artists as we’re rehearsing and performing. I don’t think that’s going to go away until some time in 2022. The other factor is people’s perceptions and what I call the ‘Covid hangover.’ I just don’t see our older patrons running out and enthusiastically coming to the theater anytime before early- to mid-2022.
I do think there’s some things we will continue to do that really make good sense. We’re going to virtual playbills. No more printed playbills, no more printed tickets unless somebody really wants to have printed tickets. The protocols for cleaning are going to stay in place.
It’s really been funny in a way because so many of the things we’re doing for Covid we had always been talking about doing, either as cost savings or convenience. And now we’re doing it because we have to.
There’s also no reason for us to get rid of the very successful small-scale events and performances. People like them and it gives us another avenue to hire and pay our artists.
Q: The opera’s annual fall fundraising gala, Bella Notte, is always one of the biggest events on the city’s social calendar and a big moneymaker for Opera Carolina. How much of a blow was it to have to cancel that?
We really looked at it and for awhile we thought, ‘OK, we can pull this off. Maybe not. Maybe we do a virtual event.’ Finally, we decided for 2020, ‘Let’s not do it,’ rather than do something that was not at the standards we had set for Bella Notte. We weren’t sure we could make money, and we were all scrambling. Now we’re planning for Bella Notte 2021, and it’s going to be a combination of events that are outside of the theater and potentially an event that is in the theater. We net anywhere from $170,000 to $200,000 [from Bella Notte]; it’s maybe 8% of our budget. We can survive not doing it for one year. Two years? I’m not so sure.
Cristina Bolling is managing editor of The Ledger: cristina@cltledger.com
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This week in Charlotte: 2040 plan hits a speed bump, vaccine eligibility accelerated, CMS to consider more in-person days, Mr. K’s closes
On Saturdays, The Ledger sifts through the local news of the week and links to the top articles — even if they appeared somewhere else. We’ll help you get caught up. That’s what Saturdays are for.
Politics
Roadblock for 2040 Plan? (Ledger 🔒, WFAE, Biz Journal) The city’s proposed 2040 Comprehensive Plan, which would guide Charlotte’s growth over the next 2 decades, ran into opposition at Monday’s City Council meeting. Council members said they worried that planning staff has not incorporated community feedback into the plan, and several expressed concern about a provision that would allow duplexes and triplexes in single-family neighborhoods. Look for more coverage on this topic in Monday’s Ledger.
City arts money: The City Council backed a plan to redirect arts funding from the Arts & Sciences Council to arts organizations, including those at city-owned venues. Last year, the city’s $3.2M arts contribution made up about one-quarter of the ASC’s budget. (WFAE)
Education
Back to school plans: (WBTV) Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools students may soon have more in-person days added to the calendar. According to a report Thursday by WBTV, school board members are expected to consider a plan at their meeting Tuesday night that would have elementary students learning in-person four days a week (an increase from the current two days a week). Middle- and high-school students would attend school in-person two days a week (an increase from the current plan where they attend one week out of every three). The agenda for Tuesday’s meeting says the board will discuss “Revised 2020-2021 School Calendars.”
Local news
New group eligible for vaccine: (Ledger) Frontline workers in essential industries became eligible for the Covid vaccine on Wednesday in North Carolina. The new eligible group includes grocery store and pharmacy employees, restaurant staff, U.S. Postal Service workers, library workers, clergy, university faculty and staff, paramedics, police officers, firefighters, veterinarians and elected officials. On Tuesday, Gov. Roy Cooper announced that people with underlying health conditions that put them at higher risk from Covid and who don't already fall into Groups 1-3 will be eligible to get vaccinated in three weeks.
“Saturday Night Live”: There was plenty of buzz early in the week about a “Saturday Night Live” bit that referred to Charlotte as the “regional banking capital of the world” and the “gateway to Gastonia.” Gastonia’s mayor told The Ledger he welcomed the attention, and The Observer examined the “inside story” behind the bit.
Business
Business travel: (Ledger 🔒) Business travel has been clobbered by the Covid pandemic, and predictions vary about whether it will ever resume at the levels it was pre-pandemic. The Ledger talked to several Charlotte road warrior executives about the impact not traveling has had on their businesses and personal lives, and what they envision for their companies’ travel in the future.
End of the line for Mr. K’s: Ice cream and burger joint Mr. K’s closed Friday after 54 years on South Boulevard. The owner said last month he was ready to retire and was looking for a buyer. It will become a family-owned pizzeria called The Crust Pizza, the Biz Journal reported late Friday in a “breaking news” email alert.
Office downsizing: (Axios Charlotte) In a preview of what might take place all over Charlotte, Atrium Health said it is considering letting leases expire on 100,000 s.f. of offices over the next year, or about 10% of its office space, as a money-saving move brought about by remote work. Atrium is the Charlotte region’s largest employer.
Sports
Spectrum Center to reopen to fans: (WFAE) The Charlotte Hornets will allow fans into the Spectrum Center for the first time in a year starting on March 13 against the Toronto Raptors. About 3,000 fans can attend. “Tickets will be sold in pods of 1-4 seats throughout the arena, and each pod will have a six-food radius surrounding it,” WFAE reported.
Knights season delayed: (Knights) The Charlotte Knights have a new opening day for the 2021 season — May 4. The season was originally set to begin April 13, but Major League Baseball this week moved the Triple-A East season back three weeks. The Knights’ first home game will be May 4 against the Gwinnett Stripers.
Olsen, Davis retirements: (WSOC) Former Panthers stars Greg Olsen and Thomas Davis say they plan to sign one-day contracts with the team this month so they can retire together as Panthers.
Ledger originals
Library reopens: (Monday) Big news for south Charlotte readers — the South County Regional Library reopened Monday after a 15-month, $11M renovation that transformed the library into a more modern, brighter facility equipped with new spaces for gathering and studying. Currently, the library can accommodate only 50 visitors at a time because of Covid restrictions.
Fortune 500 CEO indicted: (Friday 🔒) Sonic Automotive CEO David Smith was indicted this week in connection with domestic abuse charges, including a felony. His lawyer says he plans to plead not guilty.
No more Morrison: (Friday 🔒) Neighborhoods in the SouthPark area largely agree on a new street name for Morrison Boulevard. It’s being changed as part of the city’s efforts to remove names tied to the Confederacy or white supremacy.
Planning director residency: (Friday 🔒) Charlotte’s planning director, Taiwo Jaiyeoba, explains why he does not live in Charlotte while leading two significant efforts — the transit plan and the 2040 Comprehensive Plan — that would transform the city’s future.
Back to the office: (Wednesday 🔒) Excerpts of a speech by the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond on how companies should be thinking about returning workers to the office.
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Executive editor: Tony Mecia; Managing editor: Cristina Bolling; Contributing editor: Tim Whitmire, CXN Advisory; Reporting intern: David Griffith