With a 2016 season featuring Sweeney Todd, The Italian Girl in Algiers, The Magic Flute, and Eugene Onegin, Portland Opera’s first season in summer festival format is shaping up to be just as varied as seasons General Director Christopher Mattaliano has programmed in the past. Not much has changed for the company except for the months in which they will perform: Mattaliano still strives to bring great opera to a community that has grown to love its 50-plus-year-old company.
What were some of the reasons Portland Opera decided to switch to a summer festival format?
With the shifting to a summer season and a different programing model, our goal is to bring in something fresh and exciting and build on what we’ve done for the past 50 years but carry a larger footprint in the Portland area. There’s very little happening in the Portland area in terms of classical music during the summer with the exception of Chamber Music Northwest. The city is particularly beautiful and populated during the summer months, and the weather is beautiful, and we felt it was time to move in a different direction.
We’re excited to use our smaller theater more. We’re unusual in that we have two venues. One is a 3,000-seat theater, and one is a 900-seat theater. We started using the 900-seat theater, the Newmark, about 10 years ago for one opera per season, and we’ve gotten exceptionally good feedback on that venue and experiencing opera in a more intimate setting. So we have shifted to more performances at that theater, and that excites us too. Part of the reason we’re doing it during the summer is availability of the theater, so the change to a summer season is, on one level, a purely practical change.
What is Portland Opera’s mission when it comes to producing new works and works by American composers?
Our mission specifically directs us to explore the beauty and the breadth of opera, and I think when we worked on a new mission statement a few years ago, the word “breadth” was very important to me in that it would provide a directive for us to make sure that we continue to challenge ourselves in terms of programming.
We’ve done at least one or two operas every season that have never been performed here before. So that was part of the new directive in artistic planning when I became general director in 2003, to make sure every season we program one or two titles that are new to our audience. That may include American opera, but it may include the works of Cavalli or Handel or Monteverdi, or a much less familiar opera by a well known composer.
The idea was not necessarily to limit ourselves to strictly 20th-century American works but to say every season we have to do a work or two that’s new to our audience. We’ve been consistent in doing that and, yes, it has included a number of contemporary American works, but it’s not solely that.
How have audiences responded to the programming of these lesser known works?
I’m lucky in that I became general director of an opera company where audiences for decades have grown accustomed to the fact that there would be at least one opera they’ve never heard of. My predecessor, Robert Bailey, always included works like The Consul, Prokofiev’s The Love for Three Oranges, Dialogues of the Carmelites, Offenbach’s La belle Hélène—there was always at least a title or two that people were unfamiliar with. That made my job a little easier as an artistic director when I came to Portland in 2003.
Invariably, there are people that will—like when we did Nixon in China in 2006—encourage us to do more works like that, and there will be people who express their displeasure. I learned years ago that in the programming battle, you simply cannot please everyone, and so we try to emphasize that we have a vision for programming and we’re consistent in following that vision.
There are more people who want to see Carmen than want to see Nixon in China; that’s just the nature of our business. But I will say, the people who love the Glass works and John Adams and less familiar Baroque works are incredibly supportive and enthusiastic. We have an audience that embraces and accepts what we do artistically.
Like many (or most) other opera companies throughout America are doing, does Portland Opera strive to reach an audience that might not be already drawn to opera?
Yes, yes, yes—a resounding yes! We take that part of our mission very seriously. I instituted student rush tickets when I became general director. An hour before curtain, all remaining tickets go on sale for $10 to students, as well as senior citizens and military personnel. You can walk up to the box office with your student ID and get an excellent pair of orchestra seats. It’s cheaper now to go as a student to the Portland Opera than it is to go to the movies.
We have the most expansive outreach education program in the Western United States. We put together a one-hour opera in English that tours to schools and community centers with professional singers and sets and costumes and piano accompaniment, that tours every corner of Oregon and southern Washington. And last year we went into northern California. We reach 22,000–24,000 students every year.
This past season, I’m particularly proud in that we did our first bilingual production. We did The Barber of Seville in both Spanish and English, and that was very well received.
We’re always looking for ways to reach out to a more diverse audience. Next season we’re reviving The Magic Flute with sets and costumes by Maurice Sendak, the children’s book illustrator. We’ll work closely with reading organizations and with Powell’s Books, a very popular bookstore in Portland.
How does Portland Opera collaborate with other arts organizations in the Portland area?
This season, we did The Rake’s Progress with sets and costumes by David Hockney and we had a major David Hockney exhibit at the art museum running simultaneously while we did the opera. That’s an example of how we cross-pollinated with patrons from the art museum, some of whom might already go to the opera, but not necessarily.
Portland is a big dance town, so we have collaborated with a few dance companies. On our production of Carmina burana we worked with BodyVox, a very popular modern dance group here, and that allowed us to get a little into the dance audience here.
Many companies have merged the position of artistic director with general director. Do you see it as a luxury to still have both positions at Portland Opera?
With the general director model, there’s no question that it makes it very clear where the buck stops. If we fail at something, then it makes it very clear at whose feet the blame should be laid: it’s mine.
Our structure is a general director and five senior directors, and those each have their own staff (production, development, artistic operations, administration, and marketing). They report to the general director, and the general director reports to the board. We have a very clear structure in terms of how the company operates, and I think that’s one of the strengths of our organization.
That said, the job of general director at an opera company has become so complicated in recent years that one has to be very clear where your strengths and weaknesses are and where your learning curves lie. I’m fortunate in that I have an exceptionally gifted and professional senior team. I rely greatly on them for advice. My background is primarily artistic—I’m a stage director who made my living directing opera, and I’d never run an opera company until I got this job.
I made it very clear to the board and the search committee when they hired me that there would be certain areas that I would need to learn and grow and that I would work very hard, but I remain very conscious of the fact that no one person can do it all: raise money, work with the marketing team, plan seasons artistically, be a face for the community, develop community relations. It’s a complicated position, and one needs to be clear as to where they need support and to make sure they ask for it.
How has the Resident Artist Program changed since it was established in 2005?
It’s changed in that it’s become very, very competitive. That’s probably my biggest source of pride.
When I started the program in 2005, the idea was to create a program for singers at a higher level within the conservatory and university world who had just graduated and to provide them a bridge into the professional world. It was important to me that they become part of the community and not just show up for a gig, so they would relocate to Portland for at least a two-year period.
They receive a stipend and get our health benefits. We wanted to make sure they felt we could take care of them as best we could financially so they could focus solely on training and performing.
I also wanted to have excellent singers on hand as needed for fundraising and community and outreach events, in addition to performing both supporting and leading roles with the opera.
I worked for years with gifted students; I was on the faculty of Juilliard for 12 years and I worked for Manhattan School of Music and Mannes and Yale and Wolf Trap for many years. I’ve worked with gifted young singers, so I always dreamed of what would be an ideal Young Artist Program based on what I saw as the needs of singers leaving the conservatory world.
Those were the goals with creating the program in 2005. I’m happy to say it’s become very competitive. This past season alone we had one opening, and we got over 500 applicants for that one opening.
I also wanted to limit the program to no more than four or five singers, because I wanted those singers to get one-on-one and detailed attention. It was important to me that it not be a program of 10 or 12 singers. Unlike other opera companies that use young artists for their chorus, we have an excellent chorus of local singers here, so we didn’t need to bring in 15 or 20 or 30 young singers to be our opera chorus. We wanted to bring in singers who could be future soloists.
What’s been great is that we’ve now invited back a number of former singers to do lead roles in our productions. This past year, we brought tenor Matthew Grills back to do his first Nemorino in The Elixir of Love. We’re bringing back soprano Jennifer Forni to do Tatiana and baritone Alexander Elliott to do Onegin in next season’s Eugene Onegin.
So, part of the idea was we would create a program and invest heavily in the training and the lives of these singers and form a relationship with them and continue to stay connected with them when they leave the program and continue to be involved with their careers as they developed. Because it’s a 10-year-old program, now we’re seeing the fruits of that labor. Each season for the past three or four years, we’ve been inviting back those young artists for roles on the mainstage, and that’s been very satisfying and very exciting.
What does having resident artists mean to the Portland community?
For some, it means everything. That’s been a very pleasant and wonderful discovery over the years. Because these singers move here, they’re in the building every day, they’re in the theater every night, they’re at board meetings and fundraising events, and they’re at the homes of our patrons, they have been totally embraced by a part of the Portland community that has been very touching and just really very wonderful to see.
Many patrons feel ownership of the young artists and have stayed in touch with them after they leave the program. It’s been particularly satisfying to see the way in which those singers have been embraced by the community and how much the community looks forward to the new crop of singers entering the program every year.
Whether for a resident artist position or mainstage, what do you look for in a singer?
Well, call me old fashioned, but first and foremost, I’m looking for a voice. I think young singers get a lot of mixed messages. Part of me doesn’t care what a singer looks like or about their acting ability.
My first concern is always “Is it a healthy instrument and is it an instrument we want to invest in for our mainstage and our Young Artist Program? Is this a voice that is, to my ears, unique? Is it a voice that is capable of singing music in a fully professional and an expressive and special way?”
Everything else we can address as stage directors and conductors. But first and foremost to me, it’s the health and the quality of the instrument.
We live in a very visual culture, and I see a lot of young singers that are very concerned about whether they look the part or whether they’re young enough or old enough—and I always encourage them and remind them that the things you have control over [are] your instrument, your ability to keep training and improving your technique, your language, and your musical skills.
You don’t have control over what people think of your voice or how they’ll react to it. That is a purely subjective notion. I always encourage singers to focus on improving their instrument.
Sure, do what you can to improve your acting, take yoga, take dance, take good care of yourself physically, make sure you have other things in your life outside of opera—this is the teacher in me that’s talking now—but our art form is opera, and that’s about great singing, so I want to cast the best voices I possibly can.
What were your thoughts when you programmed Sweeney Todd?
The company has a history of doing classic works of the American music theatre. Robert Bailey, prior to my arrival, programmed works like Carousel, Sweeney Todd, Man of La Mancha, My Fair Lady, and Candide, so we do have a history of producing those great works that benefit from being sung by fully trained lyric voices in a theater without amplification.
Why does the unamplified voice need to be heard in that repertoire?
These works for years were performed in small theaters without amplification, and I’m very concerned that our audience is getting trained and accustomed to hearing amplified singing in the musical theatre world and on Broadway. We’re losing sight of the beauty of the unamplified human voice.
I feel like the works of Richard Rodgers, Kurt Weill, and Stephen Sondheim benefit enormously when they’re sung by well trained singers without amplification in the original orchestration. It’s a revelation to most audience members.
Those works have entered the rep—Porgy and Bess and Show Boat and the works of Richard Rodgers—they’re now considered the great American operas in my mind. That’s why we treat them the same way we treat Mozart and Verdi and Wagner. These are great works by master composers that need great singing.
