Image Source: OPERA America

OPERA America has been undertaking a project that can be considered a tremendous service to anyone interested in, working in, or studying the opera industry—now and in the future.

It’s their Oral History Project, focused on American opera’s progress over the past 50 years and coinciding with OPERA America’s 50th anniversary in 2020. Supported by the Arthur F. and Alice E. Adams Charitable Foundation, the project captures anecdotes and memories from dozens of notable names in opera.

Interviewees include singers, administrators, directors, and conductors—Simon Estes, Harolyn Blackwell, Diana Soviero, Joseph Volpe, Speight Jenkins, Francesca Zambello, and Joseph Rescigno among them—in conversation with OPERA America President/CEO Marc A. Scorca. He considers it of utmost importance that these stories be preserved for historical purposes, and for people to learn from them, especially future leaders in the opera industry.

“Perhaps it is because I loved listening to stories of my Italian immigrant grandparents, or that I learned a great deal from leaders of the opera field when I started as an intern during my college years, but I believe it is important to learn from those who’ve come before us in order to have a grounding for imagining the future,” Scorca stated. “I have served as President/CEO of OPERA America for more than 30 years, and I regret not having captured the stories of some of my early mentors. It occurred to me that our 50th anniversary was a great moment to pause and hear from those people who helped shape our field and the art form in this country.”

To pull off a project of this magnitude, Scorca says that extra staff, time, and expertise are needed for scheduling, research, transcription, and editing. Thus, the Foundation’s funds were used to hire freelancers, buy additional equipment for recording and storage, and purchase software for transcription and editing. The freelancers include a transcription specialist who edits and formats the transcriptions.

Paul Guibao (“gih-bow”), Chair of Arthur F. and Alice E. Adams Charitable Foundation, said in an interview with “A Tempo,” produced by WWFM, The Classical Network, that the Foundation wanted to support OPERA America at its 50th anniversary because of “how valuable” the organization has been to American opera companies.

He also said the Oral History Project is “especially important because opera is storytelling . . . so telling our own [country’s] story is a wonderful endeavor.” Further, Guibao believes the initiative offers a wonderful opportunity to “highlight and celebrate OPERA America’s history and talk about American opera.”

The project began in 2020 as audio interviews but was paused because of the COVID-19 pandemic; the initiative was reimagined as video interviews over Zoom.

Scorca told Rachel Katz, the host of “A Tempo,” that he started with a “fairly obvious short list” of people who were leaders of opera companies, founders of opera companies, and producers, and each interview yielded more people to speak with. Scorca’s approach has been to pose standard questions to everyone, plus unique questions that are based on general research, his additional research, and his knowledge of opera history.

Interviews and transcripts from the Oral History Project are available on OPERA America’s website at operaamerica.org/OralHistory. Scorca says the organization hopes to also archive the material at the New York Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center and share the interviews with anyone else interested in linking to them. “We want the material to be as widely available as possible.”