“Opera is relevant.”
If there is one thing to take away from a conversation with Boston Lyric Opera General and Artistic Director Esther Nelson, it is that she is a champion for opera.
She is champion for the genre, the singers, the instrumentalists, the stagehands, the scenic designers, the conductor and coaches, the costumers—and the list goes on. Not to mention, of course, a champion for Boston Lyric Opera, for which she has served as general and artistic director since 2008.
When she took over, she was being handed a company that was already in fine form.
“The company already had a very good foundation, so it wasn’t in need of a knight in shining armor,” she says. “I was able to build on the success the company experienced prior to my time.”
Even so, Nelson has continued growing the company artistically, financially, and in other ways that can’t be explained in so few words.
When she came to BLO, she had been a management consultant for clients such as the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Historical Association. Before that, she led Glimmerglass Opera for seven years.
“Everything I have done, whether it directly related to opera or not, has been something I can use [to lead BLO],” she says. “And opera—just like symphonies, classical theatre, and ballet—is as relevant today as it was 400 years ago. We are competing with a saturated entertainment market; there are many more options than there were, say, 100 years ago. It’s how you position yourself in this market that is sometimes a challenge for arts organizations and art forms that have been around for a long time.”
Nelson says the centuries-old art form sometimes suffers from a “misfortunate image.” The problem being with the image and not opera itself or some idea that it is less relevant in the 21st century than in centuries past.
“If people have never come to an opera and you ask them what they think of [it], what springs to their mind,” she says, “it’s often a cartoon image of ladies singing very loudly with horns on their heads. It’s not always flattering. That’s unfortunate, because [that image in particular] wasn’t even around until Wagner in the late 19th century.” It’s not indicative of what audiences actually experience when they attend an opera, she notes.
Audiences usually know what to expect when they go to the ballet or the symphony, but opera can seem like a scary, unknown, and unattainable experience. Nelson says that she and other colleagues around the world find that when people do attend their first opera, they are “generally pleasantly surprised” and find it “extraordinarily entertaining and very moving.”
“The larger problem,” she says, “is that people think, ‘Well, they’re singing in a foreign language. I have to be highly sophisticated and educated.’” That is simply not true, she says, and Nelson firmly believes there is no reason opera cannot continue to thrive as a form of entertainment today.
The connection we can all feel to these grand works begins with the stories.
“It’s often about timeless subjects; even though it may be a love story set in the 17th century, the reason why the creators chose the story is because it has relevance. It’s a deeply human experience,” she says.
And layering on top of that are the other ways in which opera sets itself apart from other performing arts.
“It’s an art form that is powerful because it communicates on three levels,” she says. “One is the words that are being sung onstage; then there is the theater that happens onstage—and there is a lot of theater in opera; and then there is the communication that happens via the music, and that is the one that hits directly into our emotional core. Opera really hits to the core like theater is supposed to, but it has that added element of the music that connects in ways that are deeper and more immediate—and less tangible in a way.”
Opera Annex
Each year since the 2009–2010 season, BLO has presented one production in a nontraditional space. That first installment was of Benjamin Britten’s The Turn of the Screw at the Castle at Park Plaza in Boston’s Back Bay area. Since then, works have included The Lighthouse by Peter Maxwell Davies, this year’s In the Penal Colony by Philip Glass, and a commission, James MacMillan’s Clemency.
This initiative specifically addresses the issues of grandiosity turning away potential first-time operagoers.
“One of the things that I think sometimes handicaps people’s perception of opera is that we have enshrined them, particularly in the 19th century, into very large theaters that are viewed a little as temples of art,” Nelson says. “That’s in one way wonderful, because it’s meant to be uplifting, but it can also be distancing. It can give that impression that people have already about opera: that you have to be sophisticated to understand it.”
BLO addressed that misconception with Opera Annex.
“If we were to take some of the operas and actually not put them into a theater space, what would happen?”
With seven years’ worth of these productions behind them, BLO can now say, based on audience attendance, that the Opera Annex program makes the kind of impact they were hoping for.
“Indeed, a lot of people who might not have tried opera are going to something that—just by not putting it in the theater—seems to make it more accessible in their minds. And that’s mostly for titles they’ve never heard of,” Nelson says. “Most of our Annex titles are rather obscure and often contemporary operas [for which] you would have a tough time getting people into the [main] theater—but in removing it from the theater, people have a curiosity about it. People who do go to the opera regularly also are coming in greater numbers than we had originally anticipated because they too are curious about what we are doing in a space outside the theater and they are more open to the obscure titles.”
While three of the productions in BLO’s annual season (this season: La bohème, Werther, and The Merry Widow) are still presented in their main theater, the Citi Performing Arts Center Shubert Theatre, there is a certain freedom allowed through offering up lesser known works in locations with no proscenium and no orchestra pit.
“The people are far more open in terms of what you do with it. They are less likely to have an image in their minds about how they think you ought to do it, how you ought to stage it, how you ought to perform it.”
Emerging Artists
BLO’s Jane & Steven Akin Emerging Artists program is a mutually beneficial way of filling supporting roles and covers each season. Nelson is well aware of the catch-22 singers face at a certain point in their careers: to get work, you need an agent—and to get an agent, you need work.
The emerging artists program allows select singers, ideally already based in the Boston area, to build their résumés locally without having to pack up and move to New York and hope to find work there, Nelson says.
“There are a number of really good Young Artist Programs around the country,” she says. “It’s often that next step, once you’ve graduated past the Young Artist Program, but you’re not quite at the stage where you have sufficient work, that’s a real critical time in a singer’s life today. That’s what we’re honing in on. That’s rewarding for us, and we hope as well for the singers.”
Singers also receive coachings and other training such as how to audition and how to get an agent.
In fact, the program isn’t limited to singers. BLO will also select pianists, conductors, and stage directors. The catch-22 experience isn’t limited only to the singers, Nelson says. It can affect everyone in that stage of pursuit of working in the opera industry.
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Sidebar
Casting at Boston Lyric Opera
Perspectives from Boston Lyric Opera General and Artistic Director Esther Nelson and BLO Music Director David Angus
on what they look for in singers they hire.
What are auditions like for BLO?
Esther Nelson: Sometimes we hear between 40 and 60 singers a day. It’s inevitable that by the end of the day, [we] get a little tired. [But if a] singer walks in and all of the sudden all three of us are sitting up and practically not taking any notes, and we are absolutely captivated [by someone] who is mesmerizing us for one or two arias, the chances are they will do the same when they are onstage.
What do you look for in singers?
EN: Different roles demand different skills. It’s to some extent subjective. Sometimes it’s actually the less perfect singer who might be chosen because the total package is there. What ultimately captures you? It’s sometimes someone who may have certain vocal flaws but they have “it,” they make you believe they are the person they’re [portraying], and they just blow you away.
David Angus: In general, I am taking for granted that they can sing the notes beautifully. I am listening for character that matches the role we’re looking for. Obviously, the weight of voice should match the role; [for instance for a piece] with big orchestra, we’re looking for a heavy voice.
Beyond all that, which is a given, I am looking for somebody who sings musically, sings real legato, and has the character of the music in the voice and vocal acting. They’re not just singing the notes. I want to hear someone who is communicating something.
I want high musical standards and for them to sing.
What can a singer do to get rehired?
EN: [The person must be] vocally great for a particular role—someone who engages, who has that ability to pull you in when they’re onstage. Opera is essentially an intimate art form. You want to be pulled in by a performer. I don’t mean they always have to look the part. You may think, “they don’t look the part”—but then they open their mouth and begin to sing and act the part, and they’re it. They have that magnetism to captivate the audience. It’s not about perfection, whatever that is. It’s the total of what they bring.
DA: The same thing that would apply in any walk in life—they must have delivered the goods and really done what we wanted and have shown they’re good colleagues; that they are professional, reliable, turn up on time, and know their music; and are then able to do what we’ve asked of them. The ones who respond well to what we’re asking of them are more likely to be asked back.
