When Shall We Sing Again? Opera Houses in Germany and the US in the Pandemic
The event is part of the Leonard Bernstein Festival of the Creative Arts at Brandeis University
In cooperation with the Theater Arts Department and the Department of Music at Brandeis University
Tuesday, April 27, 2021
12-1:30pm Eastern Time (US) / 6-7:30pm German time
Zoom Webinar
You can watch a recording of the complete event by clicking the button above.
About the Event
Theaters and opera houses are closed almost everywhere, and a year into the pandemic, cultural institutions are still without clear prospects for reopening. While some small theater productions have been able to move forward with socially distanced, masked audiences indoors or outdoor, such alternatives are no option for opera companies which require a large ensemble and live orchestra - a combination that is expensive under normal circumstances and unthinkable with a half-empty venue.
What can be done? How are opera houses, musicians, and singers coping? What support are they receiving? What paths forward are being discussed?
About the Speakers
Under Esther Nelson’s artistic and administrative leadership since 2008, Boston Lyric Opera has seen extraordinary growth in programming and operations, cementing its national reputation as an acclaimed producer of traditional and reimagined classic operas, and claiming its place among the nation’s important incubators of new opera works. Just as importantly, the company under Ms. Nelson has seen nearly a decade of surplus budgets, grown its audiences in number and diversity, and implemented new programs that have brought critical and industry notice.
Before joining Boston Lyric Opera, Nelson enjoyed a career with several opera companies and was a successful management consultant for a variety of companies and organizations.
Michael Csar is Director of Artistic Planning and Production for Bregenzer Festspiele, a performing arts festival in Austria that attracts over 200.000 visitors to its iconic open-air stage on Lake Constance every summer. He also serves as Deputy Artistic Director.
Previously, he was a Consultant for the Boston Consulting Group with a focus on organization design and large-scale transformation. A Fulbright Scholar with a specialization in cultural policy, Michael holds an MFA degree in Creative Producing from Columbia University, New York.
Born in Hamburg, Germany, Christina Scheppelmann is the fourth General Director to lead Seattle Opera. As the Artistic Director General at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, a position she held from 2015-2019, Scheppelmann was responsible for programming, casting, and overall artistic direction. Prior to that, she was the first Director General of the Royal Opera House Muscat (Oman), the first theater of its kind in the Gulf Region, where her mission was to present high-quality music, opera, and dance from around the world. Under her leadership, ROHM established an excellent reputation as a cultural destination in Oman and opened doors for international musical and cultural relations.
As Director of Artistic Operations at Washington National Opera, Scheppelmann oversaw the artistic planning for 11 years. She was instrumental in fundraising efforts, leading to grants for individual productions, ongoing projects and renovations. Her passion for the artform and interest to see it flourish into the future led her to conceive of and secure funding for WNO’s American Opera Initiative, offering young composers and librettists a developmental forum in which to bridge the gap between conservatory training and full-length commissions.
A long-time champion of young artists, she has led masterclasses, lectured at artist training programs, and judged vocal competitions around the world.
The artistic director of the Hannover State Opera Laura Berman was born in Boston, Massachusetts and grew up in New Jersey. She began her musical studies at an early age first at The Juilliard School and later at Manhatten School of Music where she had a first experience in opera. In her high school years she began lessons in music composition. She continued her education at Princeton University and received her masters degree in opera directing from Indiana University at Bloomington. In 1983 a scholarship from the DAAD enabled her to enroll in the music theater directing program at the Musikhochschule in Hamburg. In the late 80‘s she founded the collective „New Fragements Köln“ together with several composers and directed several experiemental music theatre productions which toured to other cities. She then expanded her work in new and experimental theatre as a member of the International Theatre Institute. She served as the president of the international music theatre committee in ITI for many years and created Music Theatre NOW a biennial competition and worldwide meeting for exchange. In the 90‘s Laura Berman served as associate director and dramaturg for the dance theatre company in Münster and later in Darmstadt. During this time she organized and annually curated an interdisciplinary festival of hybrid art forms which featured the work of artists such as Alain Platel, Heiner Goebbels, Mereith Monk, Philip Glass and Laurie Anderson in these cities. She helped create a competition for new art forms as part of her work for the dance company as well. The first winner, Stefan Kaegi went on to found the group Rimini Protokoll. As a dramaturg, curator. lecurer and author Laura Berman has worked for the Berlin Festival, The Vienna Festival, the Schwetzinger Festspiele, the Uijeongbu Music Theatre Festival in Korea, the San Francisco Opera, the Düsseldorf and Zürich Ballets. In 2007 she became the director of the series „Art of our Times“ at the Bregenz Festival, curating a program which included music theatre, dance, perormance art and concerts. She commissioned works by Benedict Mason, Morton Subotnik, Francois Sarhan and Bernhard Lang. At Bregenz she programmed the festival’s drama program and managed the orchestra concerts. In 2012 she produced Ben Frost`s first opera The Wasp Factory for the Bregenz Festival in collaboration with HAU Berlin, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden and Holland Festival.
From 2015-2019 Laura Berman was the director of the Opera at Theatre Basel. Important productions and projects there include Stockhausen’s Donnerstag from the cycle Licht, which was named production of the year in the critic’s survey oft he magazine Opernwelt, Satygraha directed by choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui und Simon Stone’s first opera production Die tote Stadt, which was later sold to the Bavarian State Opera.
Since 2019 Laura Berman is the Intendantin of the Hannover State Opera a company with its own orchestra and ballet company. She brought the internationally reknowned choroegrapher Marco Goecke to head the ballet in Hannover. In 2020 the magazine OPER! awarded the Hannover State Opera the title Best Opera House for Berman’s first season.