When I began my work as a consultant with Cincinnati Opera in the fall of 2004, I had a fair sense already of the reputations of both the Opera and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Our flagship musical institutions have rightfully earned their positions of esteem within the international classical music community. For nearly all of my professional life, I've been fortunate enough to live and work in major cities with rich and diverse arts activities--Chicago, Boston, and London. In addition to world class opera and symphony orchestras, all of them also have rich theater cultures and museums for every taste. So, when I was appointed Artistic Director of Cincinnati Opera in the summer of 2005, I made it my priority to get to know the rest of the local arts scene.

What I was not prepared for was the depth, variety, and passionate commitment to the arts that exist in this city, one that is half the size of any other place I've lived. It didn't take long for me to become enamored of something uniquely Cincinnatian—I call it the "box above your weight and bat above your average" phenomenon. If you look at the population statistics, we have no business supporting such an array of arts institutions and at such a level of accomplishment as we do here. What makes this possible is a large group of supporters who take intense pride in Cincinnati, its cultural heritage, and the importance that the arts can have for the overall quality of life in a town. We're also blessed with major educational institutions in the Tristate area, led by UC's College-Conservatory of Music, which act as a magnet to talent from all over the world.

What else did I find?

Three major art museums, each of which is a model of its type of institution: the grand and beautiful Cincinnati Art Museum, a cutting edge architectural marvel in the Contemporary Arts Center, and one of the finest "family" collections in The Taft.

An impressive tradition of classical and contemporary dance, spearheaded by Cincinnati Ballet.

A professional theater scene whose largest constituent, Playhouse in the Park, creates Tony Award-winning theater. (Is there any more canny theatrical impresario in our country today than the Playhouse's Producing Artistic Director Ed Stern? I doubt it.) The Fringe Festival, Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati, Children's Theatre, Cincinnati Shakespeare Company, Know Theatre … and the list goes on.

And talk about support. We are truly fortunate to have the Fine Arts Fund, a model enterprise that raises millions of dollars (mostly in the workplace) for arts institutions large and small.

If this sounds like a love letter to this town, it is.

Do we have our problems? You bet. Everyone does. There is never enough money to make all our dreams come true, and the present economy has caused all of us who work in the arts to have sleepless nights and nail-biting budget meetings.

But the arts in Cincinnati are here to stay. Those wonderful German and English early settlers brought with them the belief that music and art and theater in particular are simply as important as a strong work ethic and a vibrant life of the spirit. And while our city is now hugely more diverse than in the 19th century, that ethic prevails in the ever-developing and renewing Cincinnati of today.

As I said from the stage of the Aronoff Center just a few weeks ago on the night of our first ever Opera Idol competition, a contest which brought an astonishing amount of accomplished amateur singers to the theater that night: Cincinnati's got talent!

Opera can change your life.

A bold statement, I know--but I believe it is absolutely true. I’ve been attending opera since I was in college, so that’s nearly four decades of opera-going so far. And while I attend now in my role as an arts professional as much as that of an opera lover, I still can leave the theater with a changed perspective on the world around me.

I think some of this for me may have something to do with my ethnic heritage. My ancestors came from Greece. From what we read about ancient Greek tragedies and comedies, it is clear that they were more like modern-day operas than what we would call today ‘straight theater.’ There was singing and dancing, choruses, solos and instrumental accompaniment. This coming-together of so many performing arts is at the heart of the operatic experience, and an ecstatic sense of shared experience is palpable in Music Hall when the stars align (both onstage and in the skies!).

But opera is not just for Greek-Americans! Opera is relevant for anyone today who wants to have their lives enriched by an experience that takes them out of their everyday routine.

Likewise, attending live opera is a community experience and a social event, as it was for the ancient Greeks. The pre-performance crowd at Music Hall is evidence of this. People dress up (or not). Date night is often in full effect for couples of all ages. High school and college students home for the summer flock to the contemporary offerings as well as the famous titles. This year in particular, we’ve worked to make connections with the LGBT and Spanish-speaking communities, and we’ve focused our education and outreach efforts to furthering a company-wide commitment to openness and inclusion.

At its heart, opera is about our life experiences writ large. Take the four operas we’ve presented this summer. They are all set against a backdrop of tremendous political upheaval or on the cusp of dramatic change. Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro is based on a French play that was originally banned by Louis XVI as being subversive. Don Carlo, Verdi’s grand and glorious tragedy, is set during the Netherlandish Wars, a conflict that rocked Europe for more than 80 years. Ainadamar tells the true story of the murder of the poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca, during the Spanish Civil War of 1936. And Carmen takes place in a highly militarized Seville, Spain, crowded with soldiers and peopled by gypsies and smugglers trying to circumvent the repressive regime of King Ferdinand VII.

But deep beneath the momentous events surrounding these stories are masterworks of human relationships: a brilliant and humane comedy, a titanic clash of wills between father and son, an undying love between performer and creator, and a love that was doomed from the start.

That’s the secret, if there is one. Take away the fancy costumes of the 18th and 19th centuries, strip the gods an goddesses of their supernatural powers, and they are all acting out our problems and celebrating our joys, but in such a way that the essence of the experience, whether it is happy or sad is magnified in such as way as to make it ‘super real’ for any of us. If we allow ourselves to be open to it, we too can walk away transformed.

Evans Mirageas
Soapbox Blog 1:

So you've decided to take the plunge and come to an opera for the first time. Let's also suppose you've made a brilliant choice and it's going to be Carmen this week at Cincinnati Opera. You may have asked yourself a few questions regarding what you're about to experience.

Let me put myself in your shoes, because I was there once too. It was a long time ago, in May 1978, when I had the chance to see The Metropolitan Opera on tour in Detroit, Michigan.
 
The title was an unusual choice: Boris Godunov, by Modest Mussorgsky. Since it wasn't something mainstream like Carmen, I’d decided to brush up on the plot beforehand by reading the story at the library (no Wikipedia back then). Even so, I was totally unprepared for the spectacle, the sound of a live orchestra in the pit, and the grand voices singing about love, power, death, and treachery.

Boris Godunov is the story of the tortured Russian Tsar Boris, who got to the top by murdering his competition - in this case, the child Tsar Dmitri (who, in true dramatic opera fashion, comes back to haunt him and eventually causes Boris’ downfall and death).

Near the beginning of the opera, there is a scene where a large chorus (representing the ever-oppressed Russian people) is waiting for the arrival of the newly ‘elected’ Tsar Boris. It came time for the moment I knew Boris should make his entrance, but nothing happened. The colorful set, depicting the exterior of a monastery, had a grand staircase leading to an archway. Surely, Boris was going to appear there in all his Tsar-ish finery any moment.

Nope.

The stage floor dead center was covered with a sumptuous brocaded carpet, fit to be trod on by a new Tsar. The music stopped, followed by what I felt was an eternity of silence. Surely something was wrong? Then a lone chord sounded in the orchestra, and the carpet began to rise. All along, Boris had been there prostrate on the ground praying, and he finally stood up. The ‘carpet’ was his incredible imperial robe. You could hear the entire audience gasp in surprise.

At that moment, I knew I was hooked on opera.

Though I went for the first time with what I believed to be some sense of what to expect, it was the grandeur, the outsize emotions, and the overt ‘non-reality’ of the opera experience that overcame me. I realized pretty quickly that even though there are operas about real life and real people, all opera stories are told in such a way as to be fables or fairy tales. In other words, much of the thrill of going to the opera is to experience emotions on a larger than life scale.

Whether it’s the comedy of Mozart and Rossini, or the tragedy of Verdi and Bizet, I still go to the opera 31 years later to get goosebumps, to laugh out loud, and to cry. (It’s ok - the theater is dark, so only your date can see the tears.) It’s a great catharsis if you’re feeling down, and the sheer visceral thrill of hearing all those people singing and playing together—at the height of the action, Carmen will have over 150 performers onstage--is like nothing else one can experience in a theater.

Whatever fears you may have about opera as being elitist or inaccessible, they can be checked at the door of Music Hall. The experience that awaits any first time operagoer can be as intellectual as you wish to make it, or it can be as direct as the raw emotions that come hurtling over the footlights. In any case, we hope you enjoy the show!