Springfield Regional Opera
Article for Springfield Magazine
As I walked into the cozy Springfield Regional Opera office in the Creamery Arts Center one Thursday, I couldn’t help but smile to myself at the familiarity of it all. The semester I spent as an intern writing their history was a long but extremely rewarding experience, and although the same pictures hung on the wall, I could tell a lot had changed. As soon as I walked in Emelia Enquist, Public Relations Coordinator, and Evan Bennett, Audience Development and Education Program Coordinator, greeted me with smiling faces.
“Would you like some coffee?” asked Emelia as she sashayed around the desks. I gladly took my cup of specialty opera Mudhouse brew and sat down.
“You just missed Tim,” mentioned Evan referring to SRO’s Managing Director Tim Caldwell. Tim took the role at SRO a year ago after owning Nonna’s Italian Café in downtown Springfield. SRO was no stranger to Nonna’s; their Operazzi fundraisers were held there, featuring singers from SRO performances.
“The one thing that Tim really wanted to do was reinvent Operrazi. It became my little project because Tim has been running the rest of the company from his shoulders,” said Evan. “I feel like the community should be apart of this. It’s about involvement.”
“It is,” Emelia cut in. “We need community members because it’s Springfield Regional Opera. We can do top quality shows, but we need the help and spirit of the community behind us.”
“I go constantly into businesses and ask who I can talk to” said Evan. “It’s getting easier as the program develops and more people want to be part of it. At the beginning it was like, ‘oh god, oh really, opera?’ Scary, scary, scary, let me run away in fear! They would have thought that I was approaching them with a giant speared horned hat.”
The new Operazzi happens in the Creamery Arts Center every month, with an open microphone, catered food from local restaurants, and Mother’s Seasonal beers.
“When it comes to food, people in Springfield like to eat. It’s exciting to see the development of Operazzi, and it’s like a mini Taste of Springfield every time too,” noted Evan.
Operazzi isn’t the only way SRO is reaching out. In October they are holding their very own Operatoberfest at the Creamery, complete with Mother’s Octoberfest beer. Lederhosen are optional.
“Sean Spyers is singing German songs, and I’m not against teaching people how to polka,” laughed Evan.
In November a read-through of Farmer’s Market the Musical, written by local Katie Kring, will be performed at the Creamery, as well as Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutti at the Springfield Art Museum this fall.
“The more intimate spaces we can perform in, the better,” replied Evan.
“And that’s beautiful because you don’t think of opera as being like that,” said Emelia. “You think Met, you think big, beautiful, far away, but with this you get so close and it makes it so different emotionally, because you’re right there.” Evan has also set up an education program with “Any Given Child,” giving college students course credit to put on “The Three Little Pigs” for all first grade students in the Springfield area.
“We should be integrating the arts into the other educational disciplines because they play off each other. People who are literary and intelligent tend to like things like opera,” said Evan.
“I think the opera has to grow,” he continues, thoughtfully. “The opera suffers from a stereotype of being elitist, and I guess we like certain elements of that, and there’s a place for it, but that can’t be everything we are because it’s easy to shut people out. I think you have to give people a way to ease themselves into opera, because it’s scary.”
While opera may be dark and scary to those of us who aren’t familiar with it, Springfield Regional Opera is showing us how to turn on the lights and discover for ourselves the beauty of the art form.