Opera America Program to Aid 13 American Companies

Thirteen opera companies across the United States will share $300,000 in grants awarded by Opera America in the first year of its new Building Opera Audiences program. The grants, which range from $7,500 to $30,000, are for programs meant to increase first-time opera attendance, and to increase return visits.

In particular, the organization sought projects that used technology and social media, offered special events in community theaters, or sought to engage listeners in discussions about perceived barriers to enjoying opera. The winning companies were selected from a pool of 67 companies that applied for the grants. The grants are underwritten by the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation.

The projects to be funded offer a variety of approaches to building an audience. Opera on the James, in Lynchburg, Va., will use its funding for “Get Real,” a project that includes a short mixed-genre opera (also called “Get Real”) as a way of introducing young urban listeners to the form, as well as excerpts from standard repertory operas in new orchestrations, with hip-hop rhythms, spoken word and video.

American Opera Projects, a Brooklyn company that focuses on contemporary works, will  create a mobile app called “Have a Voice,” which will allow the company’s audiences - and those of several other participating organizations - to offer feedback to creative artists, as well as opportunities for discounts and prizes (including tickets).

The Arizona Opera won its grant for a program meant to find opera fans in the Hispanic community, by way of school programs and a Spanish marketing program in Tucson and Phoenix. The Los Angeles Opera’s “Newcomer Project” offers preparatory materials and discounted tickets in the hope of demystifying the opera experience - something that the Florentine Opera Company, in Milwaukee, also plans to do through its Bohème Society, which will offer film screenings, backstage tours and receptions to new listeners.

The other companies that won grants are the Madison Opera, Opera Memphis, the Opera Theater of Pittsburgh, the San Francisco Opera, the Sarasota Opera, the Seattle Opera, the Syracuse Opera and the Vancouver Opera. Opera America plans to monitor and evaluate the projects, and to share its findings with companies in the organization.