When I last wrote in our May newsletter, I was just on my way to Palma de Mallorca for what turned out to be a very stimulating HR forum and an excellent performance of Gounod's Roméo et Juliette. A particularly interesting presentation was on Fair Recruitment Practices with Emma Davies of the Royal Opera House. She detailed the best practices they have developed to create a diverse and inclusive environment. The Gen Z survey results were also presented at the forum. All of these documents are available in the document centre on our website.
After a short turnaround, I was off to Los Angeles with Luke and Audrey for the World Opera Forum and OPERA America conference. We were joined there by a number of our members, and you can read some personal accounts here. One of the issues that came up, and that proved quite controversial, was defining our main aim: focusing on quality and excellence as primary goals did not meet with universal agreement, as some of our US colleagues felt that diversity and inclusion should be the priority. This turned into quite a lively discussion! With our new cooperation agreement with OPERA America, the WOF was also a great opportunity for Luke to introduce their members to Operabook and OperaVision and he was always surrounded by an active and inquisitive group at the conference Opera Europa stand. What was very clear, was that the American companies are very committed to producing new works, and during the World Opera Forum, we had the opportunity to go down to Long Beach for the West Coast premiere of Ipsa Dixit by Kate Soper. This opera examined the intricate relationship between expression, ideas, and language. LA Opera offered us a great Turandot conducted by James Conlon, and Fire and Blue Sky by Joel Thompson, which was a very personal examination of the composer’s life and beginnings as an artist.
Opera Europa’s summer then started with the very exciting news that we had been awarded a European Union Creative Europe grant as a Platform for emerging artists for Opera Europa Next Generation, our ambitious initiative to develop and promote emerging talent, including through OperaVision.
Barbara Minghetti, curator of the Verdi Off festival in Parma as well as the Opera programme at the Teatro Sociale di Como, was an active participant at the WOF and the performances and panels inspired her to encourage us to create a session at our autumn conference From Monteverdi to Sciarrino… broadening the Italian repertoire. The autumn conference in Turin will have a focus on artistic forces, and we have already been able to secure the participation of many of our members for the panels to address the challenges of ballet, orchestra and chorus departments. As we celebrate World Opera Day while in Torino, we will consider the place and role of our theatres in our communities and beyond. Elena Polivtseva and Lars Ebert of Culture Action Europe will bring us up to date with a presentation on The State of Culture and the new priorities for the European Union.
This season brings on some changes in personnel, and we are pleased to welcome Gemma Coll Torra as the new Membership & Services Manager, and Hannah Griffiths as Associate Director, Development & Collaborations. Gemma has been working at Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, in the Fundraising, Young Artist development and Financial manage ment departments and participated in the Opera Management Course which we held in Zagreb earlier this year. Hannah will be a familiar face to all of you as she is joining us from her position as General Manager of Birmingham Opera Company, a Board member and a very active participant in Opera Europa conferences, and we are lucky to have her join our team.
As we were about to go to print, I learned of the unacceptable and unjustifiable actions of the Slovak Culture Minister, Martina Šimkovičová, in summarily dismissing Matej Drlička, General Manager of the Slovenské národné divadlo Slovak National Theatre. Matej has been a long-standing member of Opera Europa and has worked hard to raise the international profile of this company. I have written a letter of support which you can read here. Matej will also be a participant in our autumn conference in Turin.
Karen Stone
Executive Director