OI Insights | Why Santa Fe Opera’s New Hire is Seismically Good News

(Santa Fe, NM) - On February 12th, The Santa Fe Opera announced that it had hired The Dallas Opera’s David Lomelí as its new Chief Artistic Officer, consolidating the roles previously held by Artistic Director Alexander Neef (now leading Opéra de Paris) and Director of Artistic Administration Brad Woolbright, who retired in December 2020.

Santa Fe Opera Appoints Chief Artistic Officer

By Mark Tiarks for The New Mexican (13FEB2021)

Read The New Mexican Story

Lomelí’s years of artistic and artistic administration success, which includes a robust, globally-recognized singing career and the founding and exponential growth of The Dallas Opera’s wildly successful, YouTube-based TDO Network (boasting 28 weekly shows and 90 million views) is complimented by international marketing and computer science engineering degrees from Spain and Mexico, respectively. A seismic new hire, in our opinion. Lomelí, a quadruple threat rarely seen in opera, arrives in Santa Fe at a pivotal and eventful moment in the company’s history.

Santa Fe is a unique house with a unique story. A summer festival that functions more like a full-season, A-level house, we branded Santa Fe as the Davos-Sundance of Opera, based upon where it sits, literally and figuratively, in the global opera universe. For most opera companies and professionals, 2020 was a shared annus horribilis. But, Santa Fe punched well above its weight, pivoting to a hybrid, digital summer apprentices program, as well as the Songs from The Santa Fe Opera series, which celebrated 2020’s five (5), originally scheduled operas from its high desert stage with remote performances and interviews from around the world, notably before Metropolitan' Opera’s Met Stars Live debuted.

In the fall, stunning Opera For All Voices programming arrived. “Is This America,” a film showcasing Chandler Carter and Diana Solomon-Glover’s “This Little Light of Mine,” a one-act opera portraying key events in the life of voting rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer, screened in partnership with CCA Santa Fe just before the November election. In February, OFAV’s Key Change, one of the country’s best podcasts, began its third season exploring the development of new OFAV works while keeping a finger on the pulse of social justice, immigration and the state of our union (more on this breakthrough podcast soon).

With an eye to the coming summer season, General Director Robert K. Meya shared that Santa Fe Opera is heavily invested in a COVID-safe 2021 season, having created a new position - COVID Compliance and Safety Officer - to manage new protocols developed with CHRISTUS St. Vincent, partnering with Production Safe Zone “to conduct testing and help maintain performer and worker social distancing protocols.”

Santa Fe Opera is effectively in the process of creating the world premiere of a proprietary, safety-first opera brand experience - a thrilling business, health, science, performing arts and human interest story like no other, and just in time for Mr. Lomelí’s arrival. We’ve no inside information on Mr. Lomelí’s full Chief Artistic Officer responsibilities or his specific plans, but OI Insights would like to the first to highlight some clear, additional business wins. Full disclosure: we’ve not yet had the opportunity to formally meet Mr. Lomelí and these thoughts are based upon publicly available information.

Optics

I’m hard pressed to think of another US-based, Latinx person at Mr. Lomelí’s level of artistry, artistic leadership and experience in the business of opera (this Mexican-American cheered when he heard the news). Santa Fe Opera is an increasingly diverse place to work, especially when fully staffed during the season, but leadership positions haven’t always been as representative of multicultural New Mexico. Given this, Mr. Lomelí’s arrival is right on time; he will not only build upon his success at The Dallas Opera and abroad, but bring critical diversity insights and best practices with him. Per Opera News:

“His tenure at The Dallas Opera marked the first time in the history of an American opera company that a Latino has held a top position at a Level 1 opera company. Lomelí serves as a Strategic Committee Member with OPERA America’s ALAANA (African, Latinx, Arab, Asian and Native American) Steering Committee and is committed to enhancing opera and the opera industry through increased diversity and equitable practices.”

- Opera News, February 12, 2021

Mr. Lomelí’s standing in the industry as a Latinx person, coupled with the aforementioned OPERA America service, it would not be a stretch to say that he could be Santa Fe Opera’s de facto Chief Diversity Officer. At the very least, he will be able to provide fellow members of Santa Fe leadership, his Human Resources colleagues (as well as board members and staff) with on point guidance, based upon his experience with these best practices in the opera space, which every American company worth its salt must actively engage, embrace and grow.

Expertise

As detailed in various articles written about Mr. Lomelí’s impending arrival, he brings a diversified portfolio of experience, credentials and business success to the table. But no two companies are the same and Santa Fe Opera presents unique opportunities.

Over the course of his career, Lomelí appears to have taken calculated risks and forged new paths. Based upon his use of TDO social media, he’s effectively become one of its most recognized faces, and his clear understanding of public relations - his use of personal PR as well as a publicist - demonstrates the importance he places on telling a compelling, real-time story not only for himself but for his brand. Applying this to TDO Network’s raison d’être, the initiative was born due to a lack of substantial TDO video archives and a reluctance to begin creating expensive digital opera. Given these realities, Lomelí and his team ideated and executed a programming vision that not only employs talented creatives, many of whom are out of work opera singers, but also creates real-time space and conversation around some of opera and American culture’s hot button topics - equity, inequality and race - during one of our nation’s most hot button times (cue the OFAV Key Change synergies).

Shockingly, there are only a few other regularly-seen ‘face of the brand’ individuals in opera. Some who come to mind are San Francisco Opera’s Matthew Shilvock, Fort Worth Opera’s Afton Battle, Glimmerglass Festival’s Francesca Zambello and a certain gent in New York City. As General Director, Mr. Meya appeared throughout 2020’s digital programming and is regularly identified as Santa Fe Opera’s chief executive. However, given Mr. Lomelí’s regular #FOTB appearances across the TDO Network and his deft use of social media and public relations for himself and his brand, SFO is almost certainly considering how to harness the success of this opera world influencer, recreating and growing the global digital success first born in Dallas .

Even with high-dollar investments in a COVID-safe SFO brand experience this summer, there’s every reason for the company to also invest in its digital capabilities now that the pandemic has forever changed how we consume - and accept - alternatives to live performance. Leveraging Lomelí’s global network, SFO could digitally introduce itself into new homes, regions and spheres of influence (i.e. global business), elevating itself to the worldwide omnimedia prominence and resonance it deserves, while still remaining place-based and fully associated with The City Different. If, of course, Santa Fe Opera wants this, as we stated in our 2019 blog. The results could be on par with TDO Network and Met Opera, making Santa Fe Opera a Top Five, globally-recognized opera brand with the ability to monetize its prominence (today’s Scott Galloway-esque prediction). We’re hoping SFO is audacious enough to consider and make it a reality.

Vision

Continuing in the spirit of the last section and based upon his reported global consulting, Mr. Lomelí undoubtedly sees the world as his operating environment, not just New Mexico, the Southwest or even the United States. Santa Fe Opera has been steadily building its working relationships with Europe since Mr. Meya became General Director, which has been exciting to watch and critical to the growth of SFO’s global footprint. In addition to key European relationships, Mr. Lomelí’s ready access to and standing in the Spanish-speaking opera, business and cultural worlds means that Santa Fe Opera could become The Americas’ most influential opera company. A thought: Monocle Magazine’s annual soft-power issue ranks “how well countries project themselves abroad.” In the same way, with a bilingual digital network, Santa Fe Opera could create indelible velocity of message, projecting its own brand of soft, multi-cultural power around the world, but specifically across North and Latin America, becoming a unifying force for American opera and, more critically, Opera in the Americas. Our recent, frank assessment of this country’s flagship opera company makes this a strategic objective worth considering and most certainly a goal that’s within reach. If I was formally advising the company, this would be the hill I’d jump up and down upon.

Mr. Lomeli from a recent ABC News article, speaking to opera generally and The Dallas Opera Network:

"It's a business that doesn't have a lot of clues on how to do this," Lomeli said. "We debunk myths, and a lot of people who are following us are around the globe…singers or people who are just starting (to watch)."

Mr. Lomeli probably recognizes that the opera world is watching and studying his particular approach to opera innovation (as they should), while he continues to write the book on building a dominant, glocal brand, perhaps even beyond opera-world recognition. As suggested above, the bilingual or multi-lingual expansion and exportation of Santa Fe Opera’s one of a kind ethos, with emphasis on multi-cultural New Mexico, could power connection through bold performance, pop up experiences, brand partnerships and omnimedia, scaling the brand to new and dizzying heights.

A clue: how do national tourism efforts work in the global travel market?

JM for OI Insights

Opera Innovator: Grammy-Winning Librettist Mark Campbell Keeps Creating in the New Now

Librettist Mark Campbell, photographed on Fire Island, New York.

(Santa Fe, NM) - When news of Mark Campbell’s librettist prize with OPERA America hit the internet, I sent him a congratulatory Facebook DM. What ensued was a weeks-long conversation that resulted in the wonderful Q&A below. In addition to The Campbell Opera Librettist Prize (COLP), Mark is a man who’s remained just as prolific as he was pre-pandemic, making his ongoing flight into artistic headwinds seem absolutely doable, an inspiration to all of us during these difficult times. With the arrival of new collaborations, operas and another well-deserved 2021 Grammy nomination, this time with composer Paul Moravec for their Sanctuary Road oratorio, we thought a Q&A format would be best, no pun intended. We’re also honored to break some exclusive opera news: Mark’s currently writing a new theatrical song cycle with young, gay composer Matthew Ricketts, inspired by Derek Jarman's book, Modern Nature. Per Mark: “You probably know Jarman as a filmmaker, but he wrote this memoir in 1989-1990 after he’d purchased a fisherman's cottage in a desolate location on the English Channel, soon after he was diagnosed with AIDS.” All this and more revealed below via Mark’s trademark warmth, feeling and humor. JM

---

OI: How did you and Matthew Ricketts come together to begin creating this song cycle based on Derek Jarman's memoir? Given the context of Jarman's writings, an AIDS pandemic that's never gone away and the magnitude of our current public health disaster, this is a timely if not extremely real brief. You mentioned that this project would be an opportunity to write "more poetic text." Could you expand on that?

MC: When my husband and I moved into our modest home on Fire Island earlier this spring,  I began imagining my little garden here. Around that time, I read a beautifully written article in The New Yorker by Rebecca Mead about filmmaker and gay activist Derek Jarman and the remarkable garden he created at Prospect Cottage, a scrappy fisherman's shack in Dungeness that he had purchased soon after his AIDS diagnosis. Jarman captured his experiences in 1989 and 1990 at this cottage in his very moving memoir, Modern Nature, and as I read the book, I felt inspired to write a song cycle about it. It sings.

Matthew and I had been "courting" each other as composer and librettist for a little over a year, I proposed the idea and he loved it. (By the way, Matthew who received a Guggenheim Foundation Award last year, is a composer to watch!)

Composer Matthew Ricketts. Photo credit: Michael Kuhn

I had originally thought of the work as a short (4 or 5 songs) song cycle, but the more I write the text, the more I see it as a complete theatrical evening, a contemplative structure similar to the libretto Kimberly Reed and I created for As One. I generally shy away from overt poetry when creating text for operas or oratorios—it tends to call attention to itself and distracts from the music. But with this piece—tentatively titled Unruly Sun—poetry seems right. Of course, I feel many strong personal connections to the story—moving away from a city to escape a pandemic, mortality and the garden, the need for a legacy, a gay man who lost many people to AIDS…the list goes on and on…and the more I enumerate these connections, the more I wince at the obviousness of them.

OI: Let's change directions a bit and talk about West Edge Opera's Aperture program. We love the real-time BTS aspect, tracking almost two dozen original works from the ground up. You're working with composer Kamala Sankaram, breathing life into My Own Country, a longtime dream project that chronicles an immigrant doctor's experiences in Johnson City, Tennessee while caring for people with AIDS during the early years of the crisis. I will sign myself up tout de suite, but what can you share with us about the process thus far? 

MC: As you know, opera companies around the country are trying to find ways to remain connected with their communities during the pandemic. Mark Streshinsky, General Director of West Edge Opera, and his smart and mighty team, came up with the ingenious idea of spending more significant time exploring the process of composers and librettists when they create new operas. They audaciously chose 22 projects to feature and I'm flattered that my name appears on a roster with so many composers and librettists I respect and admire. 

Composer Kamala Sankaram.

My Own Country, which I'm creating with the brilliant (and deservedly overworked) composer Kamala Sankaram is a piece I've been dreaming about creating for 25 years. It's based on Dr. Abraham Verghese's 1994 memoir (another memoir!) of the same name and chronicles his experiences as a doctor and an immigrant in Johnson City, Tennessee as AIDS begins to enter the community. Two years ago, New York Theatre Workshop gave Kamala and I a residency to begin work on the opera and I created an outline and she and I wrote a few songs. If WEO awards us a full commission, we would be able to complete this work.  

OI: Several weeks ago, we started talking about your latest world premiere film project with composer Joe Illick and Fort Worth Opera, based in the now familiar universe of zoom. We've seen the extra Broadway World piece, so we'll have extra popcorn on hand as we watch your A-list cast navigate the "virtual comedy" of an online book club discussing The Handmaid's Tale. This sounds delicious and oh so you. 

MC: Oh, I love working with Joe. We wrote two children's operas which are entering the repertoire very quickly. He asked me for an "adult" libretto and I came up with a story about a mean little book club that meets on Zoom for the first time at the end of April, 2020. It's a pretty bleak view about our country during this crisis and the threat of totalitarianism (expressed in the mute button), but I hope you won't notice that with the work of our director Cara Consilvio, our conductor Andy Whitfield and our crazily stellar cast (Brenda Harris, Bill Burden, Donnie Ray Albert, Joyce Castle and Gabrielle Gilliam).  

Composer Paul Moravec and Mark Campbell worked for three years to adapt Stephen King's The Shining. Photo credit: Euan Kerr | MPR News (2016)

OI: In 2019, we were thrilled when you and Mason Bates won Grammys for The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs. It was also excellent to see you at Santa Fe Opera last summer to congratulate you in person. Interestingly, I watched the 2021 Grammy nominations via Twitter and didn't realize that you and Paul Moravec are nominated for Sanctuary Road, performed by Oratorio Society of New York (librettists not mentioned in Grammy noms, had no idea). Getting the full memo via Facebook (big congrats to you), I realized that it's impossible to keep up with opera's most prolific creative. In addition to a new, third oratorio with Mr. Moravec focused on voting rights, you mentioned a secret opera and The Secret River at Opera Orlando?

MC: Yeah, it's pretty ridiculous that the Grammys fail to credit the librettist for operas or choral works. (The Pulitzer does the same dumb thing, by the way.) Whining aside, I am very pleased with this nod from the Recording Academy for Sanctuary Road, a work I am very proud of. Paul is a master of musical drama and a fantastic collaborator and, yes, we are about to begin work on our third oratorio to complete a trilogy of operas about freedom. (Our second, A Nation of Others, set in Ellis Island in 1921, was to premiere at Carnegie Hall in May, again with the Oratorio Society of New York.)  By the way, we are turning Sanctuary Road into an opera with stage director Dennis Whitehead Darling, who will also be directing The Secret River (music by Stella Sung) at Opera Orlando. The "secret" opera still hasn't been announced but I will say that it is for Des Moines Metro Opera and is a many-acred thing. Other works waiting to premiere are A Sweet Silence in Cremona (composer: Roberto Scarcella Perino); Supermax (composer: Stewart Wallace, co-librettist, Michael Korie); Edward Tulane (composer: Paola Prestini); again and again. and again (composer: Conrad Cummings) and This Lingering Life (composer: Anne LeBaron, co-librettist Chiori Miyagawa).

OI: The Campbell Opera Librettist Prize (COLP) was announced in late July 2020, in association with OPERA America. The competition opens up December 15th, with the winning librettist selected by a panel of independent experts in May 2021. We did the "opera librettist award" Google and 95% of the entries on that first page were for this award! So, in addition to brilliant branding, what was the inspiration for this nearly only one of its kind recognition for opera librettists? 

MC: I've been very fortunate in that a number of my works (Silent Night, The Shining, The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, Sanctuary Road, Elizabeth Cree, As One—and more) generate decent income in royalties and will continue to do so after I'm gone. As I was preparing my will about a year ago, I thought about what I might be able to contribute to the future of American opera. It's no secret that I've been and continue to be an advocate for librettists through the Dramatists Guild's Librettist Initiative, which I co-chair with librettist Michael Korie. It was probably through my work there, that I identified that there are no awards specifically for opera librettists. So I decided to create one. And fund it. Our industry has some truly brilliant librettists working in it now; I view the COLP as a way for opera to build on that by continuing to attract the best theatre writers. 

---

Learn more and apply for OPERA America’s Mark Campbell Opera Librettist Prize.

Tickets now available for the 14-24JAN digital streaming of Bernadette's Cozy Book Nook.

Press Contact: Barbara Hogenson | (212) 874-8084 | BHogenson@aol.com 

Visit markcampbellwords.com

CCA Santa Fe Brings "UnShakeable" Hope to Our Pandemic Lives

Santa Fe Opera illustration; renderings by Wilberth Gonzalez | The Santa Fe New Mexican, April 8, 2016

(Santa Fe, NM) - We’re coming into our seventh month of an out of control American pandemic. When the reality of COVID-19 became clear in March, one of the very first things that came to mind was composer Joe Illick’s and liberettist Andrea Fellows Fineberg’s opera UnShakeable; I had the opportunity to see its 2019 production at SITE Santa Fe. The global pandemic in Illick and Fellows-Fineberg’s opera is different, but just as devastating; “Erasure” leaves an indelible mark, robbing human beings of their memories, identities and shared experiences. The same is true for COVID-19, but with the added possibility of death. In both cases, human history is impacted, altered, redirected.

To say I’m “thrilled” that the Center for Contemporary Arts in Santa Fe is screening UnShakeable as part of its pay-per-view “Living Room Series” tonight isn’t exactly right. “Grateful” is a better word, but hold that thought. From The Santa Fe Opera’s press release:

“Set in an abandoned theater in New Mexico 25 years in the future, UnShakeable is the story of Wyatt and Meridian, Shakespearean actors and former lovers who have varying degrees of memory loss due to Erasure, a viral pandemic resulting in memory loss. Separated from Meridian at the start of the viral pandemic, Wyatt has been searching for his love ever since. Exploring themes of memory, connection, and the power of story, UnShakeable incorporates language from some of Shakespeare’s iconic works to create a modern romance.”

In 2019, when I saw UnShakeable with good friends soprano Adelaide Boedecker and baritone Calvin Griffith singing the roles of Meridian and Wyatt, I was blown away its simplicity, complexity, music and story. All elements came together for this operagoer. Now, many months into the pandemic, the recollection of watching Addie and Calvin bring the piece’s themes to life makes the real-time weight of COVID-19 all too palpable.

Erasure.
Without fanfare.
Erasure
The game is up.
All that mattered,
Memory shattered.
All of the people I knew
Have vanished from my mind,
Vanished into thin air.
Who were my father and my mother? Did I have a sister or a brother?
All of my memory has faded away
And left no trace behind.
Did I have friends?
Was I ever in love?                                                                                                                             

Given ongoing coronavirus disease, death and resurgence, as well as the en masse loss of personal histories, experiences and interactions, our 2020 version of Erasure seems to have arrived.  Adding in socially-distant everything and a sometimes overwhelming fear of others, shorter, impactful operas like UnShakeable may help us collectively heal - or provide temporary, necessary respite - from the endless emergency. But I also try to remember that when I departed my 2019 UnShakeable experience, I did so with an overwhelming sense of hope and joy.

When I shared the development of this blog with Kathleen Clawson, UnShakeable’s Dramaturg and Stage Director, she wrote to share that the experience “remains one of my proudest artistic achievements and the happiest of collaborations.” UnShakeable’s Librettist Andrea Fellows Fineberg went to the heart of the piece. “When contemplating writing an opera in commemoration, you are in the domain of memory. Add that it is Shakespeare and the opera could become many things. What it became, though, is a love story.”

I’m beyond thankful that Ms. Fellows Fineberg sent me the UnShakeable libretto this week. I’d forgotten some of the most pivotal words and powerful moments she’d created, which echo something I’ve been doing since pandemic began. Every clear evening, I step outside to look up at the New Mexico stars, wishing for something good to come out of this, usually finding some hope before I go to sleep. Lately, I’ve started doing this while listening to a fave pop song on repeat, now my pandemic mediation.

“‘Cause love is love, it never ends. Can we all be as one again?”

So, yes. Love. Once you’ve seen UnShakeable, let’s follow Wyatt and Meridian’s good example, connecting as one through our personal “wishing stars.” They matter and they work. - JM

---

Opera Innovation asked several individuals involved with UnShakeable and this screening for their thoughts.

Jason Silverman, Cinematheque Director
Center for Contemporary Arts, Santa Fe

Why is this screening of “UnShakeable” especially important right now? Please also expand on the critical role CCA Santa Fe plays in the community.

“A functioning society depends on humans connecting with each other. That’s true in good times and bad. I believe cultural institutions in this difficult moment, as always, must continue to find innovative ways to bring us together, across boundaries, in ways that give us hope and energy. We’ll need that hope and that energy as we confront the enormous challenges we must face. The CCA and The Santa Fe Opera are just two of many cultural organizations that are finding new methods of connecting us. The work being done is, to me, essential, as artists and other deep thinkers hold many clues to solving our problems.” 

“The UnShakeable event is the 41st event in the CCA’s Living Room, and our second collaboration with Santa Fe Opera, and through these programs we’ve been able to create, I think, a new virtual gathering space where important ideas, expressed by passionate and committed artists, educators, activists and others, can be shared.” 

Could you speak to CCA Santa Fe’s mission, vision and history of collaboration with The Santa Fe Opera?

“The CCA and The Santa Fe Opera have been collaborating for most of my 16 years at the CCA, and these collaborations remain a highlight for the CCA family.  Andrea Fellows Fineberg and The Santa Fe Opera team are visionary and generous, and they are brilliant at executing programs that move audiences. Together, we’ve produced shows with live music, deep and meaningful panel discussions, family programs, strange opera films from around the planet … and we even celebrated Igor Stravinsky’s birthday with a giant cake!”

Jacquelyn Stucker, Soprano | Intermusica Artists

“I am so honored to have created the role of Meridian, and I look back on the premiere and revival with fondness and nostalgia. Memory diseases run on both sides of my family, and my experiences with an aunt, and uncle, and multiple grandparents with either Alzheimers or FTD made my involvement in this project deeply meaningful for me on a personal level. The Santa Fe Opera’s strong track record when it comes to producing new American works is unparalleled, and I love that they’ve combined their hallmark artistic integrity with the realities of memory disease, an important and complicated aspect of modern life.” - Jacquelyn Stucker, Soprano

Soprano Jacquelyn Stucker as Meridian in UnShakeable (2016) | Ms. Stucker represented by Intermusica. Photo: CCA Santa Fe

Jarrett Ott, Baritone | IMG Artists

“Illick and Fellows Fineberg’s work holds a deep place in my heart. Years later, I find myself still humming or singing parts of Unshakeable. It triggers the emotions of dealing with the current circumstances we’re facing, but also provides hope that as a community we can find each other again. We need to keep searching diligently for our own new realities and creative selves. Hopefully our post-pandemic reality can be half as beautiful as Meridian and Wyatt’s.” - Jarrett Ott, Baritone

Baritone Jarrett Ott as Wyatt in UnShakeable (2016) | Mr. Ott is represented by IMG Artists

Soprano Adelaide Boedecker | Stratagem Artists

Bass Calvin Griffin | ADA Artist Management

“UnShakeable is near to my heart, because I was able to work with Joe (Illick) while it was being workshopped. It was such an honor and a thrill! As a result, it had even more of an impact on me, especially when Santa Fe (Opera) asked my husband Calvin Griffin and me to perform Joe and Andrea’s piece for the Spring 2019 tour. Being able to delve into a work that explores memory loss with a significant other was powerful, to say the least. Now, as we’re separated from loved ones due to COVID-19, we can identify with the loneliness that Wyatt and Meridian must’ve felt. What a poignant and beautiful story, showing us how love and music truly are essential in helping humanity heal and connect.” - Adelaide Boedecker, Soprano

Bass-Baritone Calvin Griffin (Wyatt) and Soprano Adelaide Boedecker (Meridian) in UnShakeable (2019)

WATCH UnShakeable

with Jacquelyn Stucker and Jarrett Ott

TONIGHT ONLY | FRI 28AUG via CCASantaFe.org

• WHAT: Online screening of UnShakeable and a panel discussion with notable New Mexico poets presented by the Santa Fe Opera, Fort Worth Opera and Center for Contemporary Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

• WHEN: TONIGHT, Friday, August 28 at 7 pm MDT / 9PM EDT.

• HOW: Interested parties may register via the CCA’s website. The cost of admission is $12.00.

---

If you’d like more UnShakeable, or miss tonight’s CCA Santa Fe performance, watch Adelaide Boedecker and Calvin Griffin’s UnShakeable (2019) performance at SITE Santa Fe.

Parea Virtual Recitals: Contactless Personal Connection In Action

Parea Virtual Recital Series Co-Founders Will Meinert and Emily Misch.

(Santa Fe, NM) - As the pandemic continues to interrupt our ability to gather for live performance, opera singers around the world are actively meeting the moment. Over the last six months, many have applied their energies and imaginations to various virtual initiatives that, in no uncertain terms, pave the way to what could become standard across the performing arts - equally-weighted live and virtual programming running side by side. The Santa Fe Opera’s General Director Robert K. Meya said as much in a recent Associated Press article, highlighting the company’s well-received Songs from Santa Fe virtual opening nights.

Two singers who’ve taken up this digital / virtual challenge are soprano Emily Misch and bass Will Meinert. Based in Herndon, Virginia, Emily was set to be a Glimmerglass Festival young artist this summer, while Will was scheduled for his second season as a Santa Fe Opera apprentice artist. As their summers and lives changed, they began executing an ambitious plan. The results thus far are impressive; as of this writing, the Parea Series format appears to be the only one of its kind online. Viewers are treated to wonderful, longer form recitals with expert guest conversation around a given topic. Parea’s shorter form Instagram promotional videos also deliver maximum interest - and bang - at around three minutes (see below). If you’re seeking classical music entertainment with interesting, connected conversation in uncertain times, look no further. - JM

---

By Emily Misch and Will Meinert

How do we maintain personal connection without personal contact? 

As opera singers, my partner Will and I have become experts at nurturing connections over physical distance. Our biggest success story may be our relationship: we met while performing Derrick Wang’s Scalia/Ginsburg together in 2018, then spent most of our first year as a couple on opposite sides of the country in different opera residencies. But we stayed connected.

Musicians get to be very good at this. One of the most maddening but also wonderful aspects of our profession is how we’re constantly traveling and forming new communities. It’s maddening because these communities are physically fleeting—at the end of a production, we generally go our separate ways—but wonderful because the ties we create often grow and strengthen over years of working together in different contexts. 

However, with the current public health crisis, those same ties can feel stretched thin. We no longer have the promise of “see you next season,” because none of us know when we’ll really be back in the theater. As the distance settles in and begins to seem more permanent, how do we nurture these personal connections? 

For Will and me, the answer was to create something new: virtual recitals in a unique format that allows us to look deeply and differently at the music we perform, safely collaborate, and strengthen our connections with musical friends.

In our Parea Series, Will and I perform music and then discuss it with expert Guest Artists in short video interviews. Our full-length recitals put these different perspectives in conversation to create a concentrated fusion of music and discussion available on a “pay what you want” and “watch when you want” basis. No in-person contact is involved in our work; our productions are completely COVID-safe for both audiences and artists. 

We believe that the personal connections involved in making music are just as interesting and important as the music itself, and that these ties bring us closer together, even while we’re physically apart.

CLICK IMAGE TO WATCH: Parea Series’ “Crisis as Catharsis” virtual recital promo and preview via Instagram.

Our Guest Artists are friends and mentors from a wide variety of our musical communities; while it would be rare for these people to all meet in person, our remote format allows us to have deeper conversations with a wider range of perspectives than would be possible at an in-person recital.

In case you’re wondering, we’ve taken our name from the Greek word parea, a concept deeply rooted in Greek culture. Parea suggests that personal connections and lively conversations with circles of friends are meaningful, valuable, and indispensable parts of life. In our work so far, this has proven to be very true. 

In our first recital, we performed music centered around themes of despair and hope, defiance in the face of oppression, and humor—all ways one might seek relief during a maddening and confusing time. We interviewed five of our musical friends: director Alison Moritz, Yale professor Richard Lalli, opera factotum Rob Ainsley, and coaches Vera Danchenko-Stern and Ken Weiss. For our second recital, we’re performing Menotti’s The Telephone, a short comic opera that, at its core, is about the ways that people communicate, connect, and adapt to reach each other. We’re interviewing friends old and new: composer Bruce Adolphe, pianist Anna Betka, baritone Trevor Neal (Artistic Director of Newport Music Festival) and, of course, our director—the phenomenal Audrey Chait, who directed us in that production of Scalia/Ginsburg two years ago!

Although we’re physically separated from our musical communities, our ideas about and passion for the music we perform keeps us in conversation, and deeply connected to each other. With the Parea Series, we invite you to join our circle of friends, and experience the personal connection that music—making it, talking about it, listening to it—can bring.

Visit Emily and Will at Pareaseries.com

Follow Parea Virtual Recital Series on Instagram.