Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (July 26, 2024) – Pittsburgh Festival Opera launches its season with a Spanish-themed fundraiser at the National Aviary.
In the arts, when the curtain falls on one show, it rises for another. And while one Pittsburgh opera company is reducing the number of shows next season due to financial pressures, another is making a triumphant return to the stage.
The change could have implications for the fine arts scene in Pittsburgh overall, which like many cities around the country is experiencing turmoil due to inflation and evolving audience behavior patterns.
Pittsburgh Festival Opera is the smaller of the Steel City’s two opera companies. It used to host a training program for young singers and stage several low-budget productions in the summertime.
The company went dark during the pandemic and has since mainly hosted workshops, recitals and fundraising events — including one last Sunday at the National Aviary — as it reevaluated its mission and purpose after multiple years of “dismal” attendance and decreased foundation funding, according to leadership.
That chapter has closed, however. Pittsburgh Festival Opera announced in June that it would put on a performance Sept. 8 of the opera “Adriana Lecouvreur” by the composer Francesco Cilea at the newly renovated Carnegie Music Hall in Oakland. (If that doesn’t sound familiar don’t worry — even among opera buffs, that’s not an especially well-known title.)
Opera is notoriously expensive to produce because of how much work it takes. A full production with soloists, chorus, orchestra, sets and costumes can cost upwards of $1 million.
So how is Festival Opera producing an opera given that the company’s entire annual budget is under a $1 million?
Two words: “concert opera.”
Pittsburgh Festival Opera’s is investing all of its limited resources in its musicians rather than the traditional trappings of a large set and glitzy costumes.
The company’s director, Marianne Cornetti, is herself a world-renowned singer. Cornetti is a Pittsburgh-born mezzo soprano who has performed at all the world’s great stages. She took over Festival Opera in 2019 and has struggled to move beyond the pandemic turmoil ever since.
She believes that prioritizing musical quality above all will carry Festival Opera into its next phase as an opera company.
“I can’t produce major productions. I don’t have that kind of money,” she said. “But I can put on a truly excellent concert opera, the kind of opera we wouldn’t normally experience here.
“‘Adriana Lecouvreur’ has the most glorious music. Everyone must hear it!”
The production will not be “staged” like a piece of theater. Singers and orchestra will perform on stage together with minimal blocking. Joining Cornetti will be singers Csilla Boross, Victor Starsky, Michael Chioldi, Joseph Frank and Brian Kontes, most of whom have sung at the Metropolitan Opera and other great opera houses around the world.
Spanish kickoff
Pittsburgh Festival Opera’s recent fundraiser, “An Evening in España,” saw Cornetti shaking maracas and flashing a wide Cheshire grin as she ushered about 140 guests from the packed foyer of the National Aviary on the North Side to the atrium for a seated dinner. Opera singers and members of Pittsburgh’s dance communities provided entertainment.
There were Spanish arias, a Spanish-themed buffet, a tango showcase and salsa and flamenco. There was also a live brass band that saw guests dancing late into the night.
“I thought it would be fabulous to connect with Pittsburgh’s Spanish community and bring everyone together for an evening of art,” Cornetti said.
There is compelling recent research, including a $52 million report from the Wallace Foundation published earlier this year, that supports the idea that arts organizations that prioritize these sorts of community relationships stand a better chance of building audiences than those pursuing traditional audience-building strategies like outreach performances.
“We’re embracing this sort of scrappy, tenacious focus on the actual and reaching out to some of these community organizations like the Spanish groups to build partnerships,” Cornetti said.
“I think this is the only way forward for a lot of places.”
The event, which brought many new faces to Festival Opera, raised about $15,000 total. Many of the guests were brand new to the company.
It was a far cry from some of the big-budget black-tie galas at other fine arts organizations like the symphony or the ballet. But Festival Opera isn’t trying to imitate these larger companies. It’s carving its own more nimble niche, prioritizing creativity and quality of experience and adaptability over tradition.
“I want to change things up and make everything about the voice,” Cornetti said. “That’s what I want this company to be known for.”
For “Adriana Lecouvreur” to be successful, then, Cornetti said she’d hopes to sell between 750 and 1,000 tickets.
Building back
Nonprofit arts organizations around the country are still in a state of flux. Theaters, ballets, symphonies and operas are all seeing diminished or less predictable attendance, and many reductions in revenue. This has caused some reductions in productions for companies nationwide.
For example, Pittsburgh Opera, the city’s larger opera company, has reduced its production count from six shows to five for its 2024-25 season due to inflation and rising costs. The company hopes to restore that sixth show in future years.
Fine arts organizations have always survived on a combination of donations and ticket sales, but in recent years, ticket sales are accounting for less and less of these companies’ budgets. Most major performing arts groups in Pittsburgh earn only about 20-25% of their revenue from tickets, with the rest coming from donors and foundation support and public funding.
But audience behavior has become harder to predict. Arts organizations overall are largely seeing decreasing subscription purchases as attendees’ buying patterns become more spontaneous. This is making it more difficult to budget and forecast finances and putting more and more pressure on individual shows to sell well.
Companies are looking for ways to trim costs and maintain excellence. Cornetti estimated that “Adriana Lecouvreur” would cost about $65,000 to stage, and she’s banking on the idea that word will spread about the quality of performers she’s bringing to the Steel City.
Her ultimate goal is to build to two concert operas a season, working around Pittsburgh Opera’s established schedule so as not to conflict with the larger company.
“I want to take what I’ve done and seen and hear on the world’s great stages at that highest level and bring it back to my home city,” she said.
“Pittsburgh deserves to hear this.”