Another successful season -- that's something we've been saying every year since Cincinnati Opera Artistic Director Nic Muni arrived. But the praise isn't limited to the performances themselves, as the company is experiencing amazing growth.
On the morning after its sold-out weekend of Aida, Cincinnati Opera Managing Director Patty Beggs spreads the good news: The Opera broke all previous records in the number of subscribers, ticket sales, donor contributions and gift shop sales. Overall attendance for the summer's nine performances reached 98 percent.
More importantly, on the weekend of July 13, 14 and 15, the Opera offered audiences their first taste of festival programming by presenting Pelléas et Mélisande along with a Friday performance of Aida. Like I said, there's a lot of good news.
The company's growth will continue. Its programming will expand. Sooner or later, it will need a second home to host a festival format.
Basically, Cincinnati Opera needs a renovated Emery Theatre with an expanded stage house appropriate for opera. The problem is that the Emery Center Corporation (ECC), the non-profit group heading the effort to restore and redevelop the Emery, needs $2 million to continue necessary stage house restoration. A further problem is that nobody's exactly sure how to raise the money.
"So far, we have not received the money in the current year, but that doesn't mean it can't still happen," says Cincinnati Preservation Association and Emery Center Corporation Director Beth Sullebarger.
The ECC plans to release an updated strategic plan by Sept. 7. It hopes to be included in the city of Cincinnati's 2001-02 budget.
Sullebarger wants to be careful not to create any doubt over the Emery project. She realizes that being shut out of the upcoming state of Ohio budget was a setback, but the ECC already has $2 million in private pledges. In her eyes, the Emery is a "pivot" in a proposed T-shaped arts district that could connect at Walnut and 12th streets.
"I still have a great deal of optimism about the project because it's needed," Sullebarger says. "There are skeptics on the part of people who say, 'We did the Aronoff Center. So why do we need another theater?' But we don't have a mid-sized theater, and there are a lot of shows bypassing Cincinnati for Columbus and Louisville."
The Emery is being rehabbed for apartments as we speak. The complex is poised to attract other development around it -- already, the Art Academy of Cincinnati is planning to relocate nearby. All Sullebarger needs now is $2 million to keep the momentum rolling.
It sounds like the perfect moment for Cincinnati Opera -- or at least one of its core supporters -- to make a grand entrance.
"We (Opera) are a non-profit organization reliant largely upon donations from patrons, corporations and funding agencies," Beggs says. "We cannot take monies from these donors, whose intent is to support the operations of Cincinnati Opera, and pass them on to another project."
Still, Beggs wants to be clear that the company supports the Emery Theatre project in every way but its pocketbook. Beggs, Muni and Opera Director of Production Glenn Plott have met repeatedly with the ECC. Long-range plans have the Opera remaining based at Music Hall and using a renovated Emery for five performances a year and, later, perhaps expanding to 10 performances.
"We support the efforts of the hardworking Emery Theatre Committee as well as any project that has long-term benefit to our neighborhood, Over-the-Rhine," Beggs says. "The Emery is the only mid-sized seat house (1,500-1,800) that we're aware exists in the community. The successful renovation of this theater into a performance house has been and continues to be of interest to us and should be of great interest to the entire community."
Cincinnati Opera has two double-header weekends scheduled for 2001. But while the company continues to grow, the Emery Theatre's future remains in doubt. Something about this picture should worry Opera officials.
