OPERA AMERICA AWARDS $300,000 IN GRANTS TO NINE OPERA COMPANIES; Building Opera Audiences Grants Encourage Experimental, Innovative and Creative Audience-Building Activities

Opera in Hialeah

Florida Grand Opera will expand its cultural alliance with the City of Hialeah, FL, which has a large population of low- and moderate-income households, of which more than 94 percent are Hispanic. The alliance, which began in the 2014–2015 season, includes activities such as a literacy-based program that takes place in local libraries, an experiential workshop program in high schools, and a myriad of programs for adults and seniors at the Milander Entertainment Center, including Spanish-language concerts and senior dances. In the 2015–2016 season, FGO plans to increase the scope of the program by offering Hialeah residents free transportation to its productions of Il barbiere di Siviglia and Don Pasquale.

Re-Branding Opera for the 21^st Century

Los Angeles Opera will continue its campaign to promote opera to the public by placing opera and opera-related stories in popular television, film and other entertainment media. The project, which received its initial funding from a 2014 Building Opera Audiences grant, works to secure opera placements in a number of major TV and films. The second year of Re-Branding Opera will focus on developing a plan to grow and sustain the project as a lasting initiative. While continuing to secure placements, Los Angeles Opera will develop long-term sustainability by evaluating the elements of the consultant efforts that can be accomplished by in-house staff, identifying funding sources and exploring partnerships with other opera companies in order to share resources.

Audience Loyalty Development

In recent years, Lyric Opera of Chicago has created a wide range of new programming to increase the company’s relevance and broaden its civic impact, engaging tens of thousands of new audience members. Now, Lyric will implement strategic audience development research to determine what factors drive company loyalty within new populations of audiences and how the company can develop relevant and appealing loyalty programs. Lyric will study how new audiences interact with the company and how to develop activities and marketing tools to appeal to different segments of its entire audience. Through this research, Lyric will be equipped to create an informed loyalty development roadmap, which will enable the company to cultivate interest, improve customer service, address barriers to attendance and make all audiences feel welcome.

Generation Next: A Young Artist and Young Audiences Program

Through Generation Next, Opera Lancaster will engage no fewer than 10,000 South-Central Pennsylvania school children and young adults in personal opera experiences. First, the company will captivate elementary-aged children through Opera Tales: The Three Little Pigs, produced since spring 2014 in collaboration with Lancaster Bible College. Second, as part of a new joint partnership with Millersville University, the company will create a program featuring highlights from Carmen for middle and high school students. Lastly, the company will grow the younger generation’s appreciation of opera through a Come to the Show program, marketed specifically to families, which will offer free children’s tickets to opera events.

Deepening the “30 Days of Opera” Experience

Opera Memphis will increase the scope of its 30 Days of Opera program, a month-long audience development initiative launched in 2012 and presented by Evolve Bank & Trust. Each September, the program delivers 30 consecutive days of free performances throughout the Memphis area, inspiring hundreds of attendees to purchase tickets to Opera Memphis’ mainstage performances. New for 2015, Opera Memphis will embed a documentary filmmaker with the 30 Days performers. The resulting footage will provide content for a new website that will be updated daily with customized links, along with lively video segments featuring singers and audience members. The website will target 30 Days attendees with opera-related experiences that bridge the gap between thinking about attending an opera and actually buying a ticket.

Saratoga Sings!

Saratoga Sings! is designed to increase Opera Saratoga’s civic footprint, build awareness of the company in the region, and increase both loyalty and ticket sales. Through the program, Opera Saratoga will offer free monthly performance events from October 2015 through May 2016, leading up to the company’s summer festival. These programs will take place at strategically selected locations unique to the region that provide opportunities for the public to connect to opera in familiar settings. The program will leverage collaborative partnerships with historical and cultural organizations, as well as local businesses. Through the use of a customized loyalty app, the program will provide a vehicle through which the company can build loyalty, collect market research, and motivate new and expanded paid participation at summer festival performances.

Opera a la Cart

This audience development project is inspired by the mobility and ingenuity of the city’s food cart culture, which is internationally celebrated and a source of local pride. Portland Opera will create a traveling performance cart inspired by the food truck aesthetic. The cart’s foldout platform will be a performance stage and its chalkboard menu items will be the operatic specials du jour — arias, duets and ensembles performed by charismatic young singers for the crowds that will gather. Attendees will be provided with a “takeout menu” highlighting upcoming activities, the mainstage opera schedule and a new “It’s My First Time” package, which will offer specially priced tickets, a rehearsal invitation, introductory materials and a preview CD. The package will be redeemed through a dedicated promotional code, allowing the company to track responses and evaluate success.

Indie Opera T.O. — Up-rising

Twelve independent opera companies have come together under the leadership of Tapestry Opera Artistic Director Michael Hidetoshi Mori to embrace the collective power of inter-organizational collaboration and promotion. Driven by the energy and innovation of emerging indie opera leaders in Toronto, the initiative will provide resources for associated companies to promote their activities to a wider audience base by building, consolidating and tracking an interactive and cross-promotional web and social media presence, effectively promoting indie opera in Toronto as a vibrant underground movement led by visionary young artists and arts professionals. Associated companies include Against the Grain Theatre, Opera 5, Bicycle Opera Project, Essential Opera, Metro Youth Opera, Liederwölf, FAWN, Urbanvessel, Loose TEA Music Theatre, The Friends of Gravity and Opera After Hours.

Creative Community

Utah Opera will collaborate with local artists in Salt Lake City’s active and diverse creative community to host innovative events that celebrate creativity and create a nexus of varied disciplines united by opera. With the goal of increasing awareness and spurring attendance for opera, events will highlight the many art forms that come together as part of the opera experience. Creative Community targets a highly desirable and potentially large pool of trendsetters and leaders in Utah’s creative class who are opera newcomers and may not be aware the natural alignments existing between opera and other forms of creative expression. Attendance results at these events and Utah Opera productions will be analyzed to determine which segments of the creative community are most likely to attend opera and which collaborations were most effective in increasing opera attendance.