Vancouver Opera’s tumultuous decade
Much has changed since Opera Canada last profiled Vancouver Opera (VO) just over a decade ago in Robert Jordan’s 2009 article entitled “Vancouver Opera at fifty: celebrating a half-century of innovation and growth.” Unlike then, this time VO company and Board officials––and a number of others in the Vancouver arts firmament––declined, or were not allowed to speak with us about what has obviously been a tumultuous few years.
All opera companies struggle, even in the best of times. The intent here is to recap VO’s past decade and offer some analysis of the path that brought it to a place where it is clearly in difficulty, but hopefully entering a new phase under newly-appointed General Director, Tom Wright. It is our fervent hope, and indeed that of all opera lovers in Vancouver and across the country, that it will bloom again as an artistically vibrant and financially viable institution.
Wright to Gaynor
This VO update picks up where our last one left off, with American James Wright continuing to build on the successes of his first 10 years as General Director. These included calming any residual financial and personal tensions within the company left by the previous regime, as well as making concerted efforts to extend VO’s reach into the community. In time, he felt the company was once again ready to venture into more daring, but also potentially more dangerous, artistic seas.
In 2010, the company mounted the highly acclaimed first Canadian production of John Adams’ Nixon in China as part of Cultural Olympiad. It also commissioned John Estacio and John Murrell’s Lillian Alling, which premiered in Oct. 2010. That commission took five years––during which period the world fell into a serious economic recession––and a whopping (for a regional Canadian company) $1.6 million to complete. But Wright told journalists at the time that he felt the company was in a good position, with a strong donor base and nine operating surpluses in 11 years.
Not good enough, it turns out.
The company bled about 900 subscribers over two seasons, and ended with an operating loss of $831,000 on a budget of $9.7 million in 2010-11. Wright later said that “We didn't help ourselves with two unknown works,” having programmed Lillian Alling in the same four-opera season as Mozart’s La clemenza de Tito (The Globe and Mail [G&M], 24 July 2012). “We know that people are going to think twice about spending $250 for a pair of tickets for something they’ve never heard of.” (Which of course raises the question: if they knew it, why did they do it? But sniping is easier in retrospect.)
In 2011-12, after some layoffs, a move to a consolidated work and rehearsal space at the new Michael & Inna O’Brian Centre, , and ––a last-minute Verdi switch from the bigger-risk ) with a Broadway hit (, which sold more single tickets than any other show in the company’s history), VO bounced back into the black, but it has been a seesaw ever since, both in artistic direction and revenues.
