Opera Tampa gathers its forces

[Publicity photo] Opera Tampa performs Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana, above, and Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci, two short works invariably paired together.

TAMPA -- Anton Coppola was discouraged. On Monday, the venerable conductor for Opera Tampa voiced his dismay at slow ticket sales for this weekend's production of Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana and Leoncavallo's Pagliacci.

"There's something about this town that just will not absorb opera," Coppola said. "Why do they have reasonably healthy seasons going on in Miami and in Palm Beach and in Orlando and even in Sarasota but not here?"

The question also bedevils Judi Lisi, president of Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, where the operatic double bill, dubbed Cav and Pag, has performances tonight and Sunday afternoon. Several days ago, she said ticket sales were hovering around 60 percent of capacity in 2,500-seat Morsani Hall.

"I'm at a crossroads, I think," said Lisi, a onetime singer, who founded Opera Tampa seven years ago as a means to bring top-level opera to the center.

Because opera is such an expensive effort -- this weekend's production likely costs at least $200,000 to stage and market -- for TBPAC, it's hardly worth doing if performances don't draw full houses.

"My board has been wonderful," Lisi said. "They understand that it's important to have opera on a major scale. But it's hard for me to justify spending the kind of time, energy and money to put on something if we can't get the support for it."

[Times photo: Thomas M. Goethe 2001] Anton Coppola

In 2001, Opera Tampa had an artistic breakthrough when it premiered Coppola's Sacco and Vanzetti in an impressive production that gained international attention. Attendance was strong, but even those high-profile performances were not sold out.

Actually, Opera Tampa productions in the winter or spring, when Sacco made its debut, tend to do pretty well at the box office. The problems mainly have come since Lisi expanded the season by putting on opera in the fall, when productions of Hansel und Gretel, The Marriage of Figaro, Die Fledermaus and now Cav and Pag all had lukewarm sales.

"The spring opera seems to do very well," Lisi said. "I'm not sure if it's because there are a lot more snowbirds down here who are used to opera. But the fall one, I can't bring out an audience for it no matter how hard we try. I've tried it now for four years. If it's not going to work in the fall, I'm not going to push it anymore."

It probably doesn't help attendance for Cav and Pag that there are at least four other opera events going on this weekend. Orlando Opera is opening its season with The Magic Flute. A tour of La Boheme is at Van Wezel Hall in Sarasota. The University of South Florida's opera program is staging a pair of short operas, Ravel's L'Enfant et les Sortileges and Barab's A Game of Chance on the Tampa campus. At Tarpon Springs Performing Arts Center, Florida Lyric Opera is presenting scenes from The Barber of Seville.

Mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves

Having this much opera going on at the same time divides an already limited audience for the art form, Coppola acknowledged. "But the point is, if Tampa takes pride in anything operatic, the focus would be on what's going on at the performing arts center."

In addition, the Florida Orchestra is playing three masterworks concerts in Tampa, St. Petersburg and Clearwater. Obviously, if any group of people were inclined to attend an opera, it would include masterworks subscribers. Some probably will get to Cav and Pag as well as the orchestra, but not every music lover is able or wants to go to two performances on a weekend.

San Francisco or Chicago are able to accommodate their local opera company and symphony orchestra performing on the same weekend, but it's a bit much to ask of an area the size of Tampa Bay.

For most previous Opera Tampa productions, the Florida Orchestra was in the pit, but this season, Lisi has contracted with a pickup orchestra. "The Florida Orchestra is just way too expensive for me," she said. "And this orchestra we're using is terrific."

For the first production or two by Opera Tampa, not only did the Florida Orchestra play but the opera was also marketed to orchestra subscribers. That was a huge help to the initial effort to build an audience for opera, but the orchestra and TBPAC have parted ways in recent years.

Soprano Renee Fleming

There have been conflicts between the two over scheduling in Morsani Hall -- the orchestra played Friday in TBPAC's too-small Ferguson Hall -- and the cost of hiring the orchestra. The orchestra, which is subject to union regulations, can be difficult to work with.

"It's just possible that the orchestra shot themselves in the foot," Coppola said. "Orchestras have a tendency to do that. They get so demanding that they just demand themselves out of business."

The opera orchestra this weekend includes some fine musicians, but it's not in the same league as the Florida Orchestra, whose members enjoy playing under Coppola. Leonard Stone, the orchestra's executive director, has said he laments not doing any opera this season and hopes to get it back.

Lisi said she's open to revisiting Opera Tampa's relationship with the orchestra, including the idea of making opera part of an orchestra subscription.

"We started out in concept that way. I think it would be absolutely wonderful."

Opera Tampa has made some progress in developing its own subscription package, with help from Danny Newman, a marketing consultant who is something of a legend in performing arts circles for building the subscription base of the Lyric Opera of Chicago. The Lyric has performed to 100 percent capacity for years.

Newman visited TBPAC last March and urged Lisi to boost subscriptions, even though many performing arts organizations find ticket buyers increasingly reluctant to make that commitment. It was also his suggestion that the company reduce its number of performances of each production from three to two.

"Danny insists we should be fully subscribed," Lisi said. "We had about 300 subscribers last season, and we've almost tripled them. Our strategy was rather than do three performances, do two and try to get them to a sellout. We need to be in demand."

The subscription package includes two Opera Tampa productions -- along with Cav and Pag, the company is doing Otello in April -- a touring production of the operetta H.M.S. Pinafore in March and a concert by mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves in February. It's a good deal.

"Buy three and Denyce Graves comes as part of the package," Lisi said. "Imagine, four productions for $100 to $150. You can't buy a single ticket to the Lyric or the Met (the Metropolitan Opera in New York) for that. The subscriptions are working, but that fall slot is a hard nut to crack."

Next season, Lisi probably will forgo an opera in the fall. She is unsure if the season will include one or two locally produced operas -- "I might decide to do just one big, strong one" -- along with another touring operetta. But she thinks she has a sensational draw in soprano Renee Fleming, arguably the biggest American opera star of the moment. Fleming has been signed to give a concert at the center in February 2004.

"I hope that can be huge," Lisi said.

Despite the Fleming concert booking, Lisi is not inclined to begin casting more prominent singers in Opera Tampa productions. The casts have included excellent singers, but not big names. Lisi doesn't think the extra cost of bringing in a well-known singer such as, say, mezzo-soprano Susan Graham, is justified.

"In opera, there are the superstars, and then nobody really knows anybody after the superstars, in terms of selling points," she said. "I'll tell you, down here, Susan Graham wouldn't sell tickets. The opera people come anyway. My challenge is introducing new people to opera. That's where I'm going to build audiences."

Ultimately, Lisi said, Opera Tampa needs to become more than just an extension of the center.

"This is depending solely on me right now," she said. "I've got to get some real community leadership to embrace it. I want to develop an endowment for opera. It's not that I don't think we can keep going the way we are, but we've got to take that next step if it's really going to have roots here."

When he heard ticket sales were lagging for Cav and Pag, Coppola had an idea.

"I called Judi and said we should do some real old-fashioned hucksterism," he said. "Send a car around the whole community, up and down the streets of Tampa, with a tape of the music of Cavalleria and Pagliacci blaring out at them. Just like Barnum and Bailey, for God's sake, the circus coming to town, and wake up the Tampa doldrums."

Lisi, who has worked with Coppola for decades, was charmed but told him that radio and television ads were the way to market an opera today. She does hope the music of Mascagni and Leoncavallo will exert its allure.

"The intermezzo from Cavalleria is so magnificent," she said. "And what aria is bigger than Vesti la giubba from Pagliacci? Nothing is bigger than that."

At a glance

Opera Tampa's production of Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci has performances at 8 tonight and 2 p.m. Sunday at Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. Tickets: $24.50-$59.50. (813) 229-7827 or toll-free 1-800-955-1045 or www.tbpac.org.

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