ASo, the San Diego Opera announced yesterday that after 49 years of performing their Board of Directors had voted to close down operations at the end of this season. As the article points out, SD Opera has run in the black for 29 seasons (not an easy thing for any non-profit to do) and made this decision because they saw the handwriting on the wall that they wouldn’t be able to continue their strong fiscal history. A couple of thoughts….

First, I was a season ticket patron of the opera for 34 years, from ages 12 to 46, and saw around 200 productions. At first, I was not a willing participant. My dad and grandparents wanted to go to the opera, and at 12 I was not old enough to stay home alone, so I got to go too. I found that I enjoyed some operas and not others, but as I grew more familiar with opera, I grew to enjoy it a lot. Yes, I’ve seen La Boheme and Aida many times, but usually it’s hard to not love those operas – that’s why they are favorites. But I also saw less produced operas that I’m glad I did because they were great instances of opera, voices and production values coming together (Love For Three Oranges, Dialogues of the Carmelites, and The Passion of Jonathan Wade come to mind). By the time I was free to choose not to go at 18, I wanted to continue. Far be it for me to increase my own importance, but the loss of my patronage when I moved couldn’t have helped.

Second, in repose to the closing of SDO there have been lots of voices of sadness, with whom I agree. In addition, there have been calls for smaller, more nimble companies to take the place of these larger companies that are dying out. Up to a point, that would be great, but grand opera is called that for a reason – it’s not a small enterprise. Some operas can be produced in smaller venues with smaller casts and be perfectly great. But that does’t apply for most of cannon of great opera. Most operas have sizable chorus member requirements – 20 people at least (5 in each vocal register), some operas need a chorus large enough to split up and portray two opposing armies. And then there are the supernumeraries, some operas need 10-15 of these people. They could be done by chorus members in some productions, but that’s not as easy as it seems. And then there’s the voices-trying to put together a small opera doesn’t mean small voices. Even if you produce Aida with a cast of ten, you still need people who can perform the music. I lived through the years when Tito Capobianco ran SDO, and though he brought some very big names to San Diego to sing, he also brought his fare share of Carlo Bini’s (could sing the role, but often referred to as a ‘screamer of opera’). Ian Campbell brought us a few stars on their way to stardom, but mostly he brought a regular crop of above average voices across the board, and some real standouts. And bad opera singing is just as bad as you can imagine it to be.

Third, I’ve also heard some folks saying it is time for this ‘elitist’ form of entertainment to die. Yes, I will admit that opera is costly to produce and the tickets can seem expensive. The average ticket price at SDO appears to be $120 (I did a quick survey of their prices on the website). That’s not cheap, but there are tickets in the $45-90 price range too. Is something elitist just because it’s expensive? My water bill last month was $30, but my cell phone and cable bills were in the $150 range – are they elitist and the water is not? You might argue that I don’t need the cable or phone, but how many people have no cell phone? And that’s a bill that didn’t exist 20 years ago. Do we call BMWs and Mercedes Benz cars elitist because of their cost? No, people say they paid for ‘German Enginering’ or ‘Luxury Cache.’ I’ve never owned a car that cost more that $30,000 and only the most recent one comes close, and I have no real desire to have a BMW or MB. And the cost of an orchestra seat at a  Broadway show can easily top $200, does that make Broadway elitist? Art in all its forms is ephemeral and hard to create a cost basis for. I may love it and you hate it – that doesn’t make it less valuable.

Fourth, I’m sad for the people who will be out of jobs and those who will have reduced employment because of the demise of SDO. In addition to the employees of SDO, there are employees of the Civic Theatre (where SDO performs, but home to other production companies as well) who will miss out on 20+ days of work-box office employees, ticket takers, ushers, maintenance people, parking attendants, bar tenders and refreshment sellers, and others I can’t think of.  Musicians who won’t be playing in the pit, local restaurants who will not feed patrons before and after the show. And the patrons. You may think the everyone coming to the opera had furs and diamonds, but as someone who went for many years, there were buses from most of the local senior citizen living facilities outside picking up people after the performances.

Opera isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, I see that. Oddly enough, I have almost no interest in going to the symphony. I’m not a classical music buff, I enjoy the theatricality of opera. In fact, opera is the most complicated form of theater, bringing high drama, vocals, musicianship, musical composition, and technical theatre together in one place. Here in Denver, Opera Colorado is only doing two production this year because they have financial issues. And yes, I’m planning to go to see Carmen, an opera I can almost sing along to because I’ve seen it so often. But the only reason for that is that I went to SDO for so many years. Tomorrow night SDO will perform a sold out performance of Verdi’s Requiem, seems appropriate. RIP, SDO we  will not see your like again.