FollowQuick, show of hands, how many people have seen an opera? Yes, we’ll even let it count if you just watched something on PBS. OK. Now, how many people can name an opera? Here’s a hint—don’t overthink it. We’re not trying to intimidate you with snobbery here. It just so happens that opera is more accessible and mainstream than you probably realize.
Your first thought likely brings to mind an image of what is known in the business as “grand opera”—three-hour singing marathons with heavy costuming (and heavier sopranos!). Historically high on the cultural playlist, grand opera has suffered through some tough times of late. No less an institution than New York’s Metropolitan Opera has teetered on the brink of financial disaster for several seasons now. Tut-tut!
But that traditional notion of opera is more “then” than “now,” according to Shari Ransley, executive director of the Norman-based Cimarron Opera. “Grand opera is struggling,” she says. “When you went to see opera 250 years ago, a three-hour spectacle of singers doing amazing vocal gymnastics made your year,” Ransley relates. “That’s not who we are now.”
To attract and keep new fans, opera has had to do its own gymnastics to stay current. For Cimarron Opera (and the Met, for that matter), that often means taking old classics and putting a new spin on them. This summer, for example, the Norman-based troupe will celebrate its fortieth year on the stage by putting on a revival of The Pirates of Penzance, the classic Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera. Cimarron wants performers—and audiences—to ride the wave into opera’s future. “We prepare performers not for where opera’s been but where opera’s going,” Ransley relates.
The version staged in the metro this summer won’t be a letter-perfect rendition. That’s part of the charm of the local operatic theatre. “There’s no copyright on Gilbert and Sullivan,” explains Ransley. “It’s all lapsed into the public domain. So we can play with it a little—change costumes and characterizations to contemporize it.” Cimarron Opera’s rendition of Pirates will be staged by the adult company in July. June is Opera Theatre Camp month, an intensive, three-week plunge into performing arts for kids from 9-18 years old. The camp ends with the kids’ performance of the same program.
The summer youth movement is at the heart of Cimarron’s mission, which is to foster and encourage aspiring performers. From the company’s modest beginnings 40 years ago, access to musical theatre has been central to the mission. What is now the Cimarron Opera was founded by international opera stars, Carol Brice and Thomas Carey. Carey was recruited to the University of Oklahoma in 1969. Brice, his wife, began teaching at OU in 1974. In 1975, the African American couple started an opera company in Norman. They took their performances on the road to rural locations throughout the state. Playing mostly in local church sanctuaries, the group went by the name of Church Circuit Opera before adopting the current moniker several years later.
Brice and Carey broke artistic barriers around the state by taking musical theatre to remote dots on a map. In Norman, the couple broke racial barriers by becoming trailblazing African American instructors and community leaders in a southern college town that hardly had a reputation for racial equality. Carey, who passed away in 2002, and Brice, who predeceased her husband in 1985, left behind a cultural legacy that still touches every corner of the state.
Cimarron’s Scholastic Opera Tour takes a well-known tale and turns it into an easy to digest opera for small children. The 2014-15 run of The Ugly Duckling was the latest installment in the program, which is performed in schools for very modest performance fees. “The Scholastic Opera Tour is really engaging for kids,” says Ransley. Small groups of performers play out the action using simple sets and costumes. The effect is similar to a puppet show with live actors instead of marionettes. The circuit opera continues to stage performances around the state, and company members perform at events throughout the city. Several free public performances are also offered each year as a way of giving back to the community.
If the idea of a lengthy Romance language sing-a-thon has kept you from taking a seat at the opera, the musical theatre industry read your mind. Do yourself a favor and find a way to catch the Cimarron Opera in action. Your inner Modern Major-General would approve.
Written by Sean Becker
