Tragic libretto: cuts of operatic proportions

This month, for the first time ever, the group cancelled a production, Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, slated for early May. In March, the Nevada Opera decided it could not afford the production. More recently, managing director Karen Haas, marketing director Zoe Rose and artistic director Robin A. Stamper were all let go.

Some were shocked. Interim General Director Carol Penterman, a consultant who works with Nashville Opera, offered her resignation after learning of the layoffs.

The cuts were a matter of survival, argued board President Joe Hickingbotham.

“It wasn’t easy to let [Stamper] or the other two people go,” said the soft-spoken arts patron. “They are loyal people. You have to tear something apart in order to put it back together.”

As the debt-laden organization finds itself in a painful restructuring process, those who would turn this budding tragedy into a comedy of operatic success are focusing on the future.

Two performances of Puccini’s opera were rescheduled for early November.

“It’s an opportunity to reinvent the organization,” said Kendall Hardin, a bright-eyed, raven-haired arts consultant who’s worked with opera companies in Seattle and Pensacola.

For 35 years, the Nevada Opera has brought high culture to a cow town. Many rising stars have gained experience with the local opera at the Pioneer Center for the Performing Arts and moved on to perform with such prestigious groups as New York’s Metropolitan Opera. About a month ago, the Nevada Opera board of directors asked Hardin to develop a plan that involved, among other things, downsizing the nonprofit’s administrative structure.

A recent grant from the E.L. Cord Foundation required the company to self-audit.

“If we had let the company run the way it was,” Hickingbotham said, “we didn’t think we could make it past June 30.”

Stamper was surprised by the move, though he understood the difficulties arts organizations face in an economic climate when individual, foundation and corporate giving are declining.

“I never had the last word on how money was made or spent,” said Stamper, who joined Nevada Opera in 1999. He spoke on the telephone from Des Moines, where he was rehearsing as a piano accompanist for two summer opera productions. “That was [the board’s] job. It’s sad. Four years, you’re a hero, then all of a sudden you’re a scapegoat.”

Stamper will teach at the University of Nevada, Reno, in the fall.

Stamper and Hardin disagreed on the company’s need for a residential artistic director. Putting on an opera—an art form which combines theater, symphony and dance, basically the 18th-century version of a “Hollywood spectacle"—is a complex operation. A coherent vision is needed, and Stamper believes it will be hard to find a general director who is equally savvy with money and art.

Hardin argued: “You don’t need a resident artistic director to produce opera. In fact, you can’t afford it.”

Finishing off her cup of java in the sunlit cafe at Barnes & Noble Booksellers, Hardin spoke of new audience development strategies, diversified fundraising and partnerships with regional opera companies to save on production costs.

“On my watch,” she said, “everything should net something.”

The company will scale back to two main stage productions per year instead of three.

Fond of acronyms and catch phrases, Hardin spoke of management “by WIT—whatever it takes.”

“There is no reason [Nevada Opera] can’t thrive and flourish,” Hardin said.

For starters, the opera isn’t making enough on ticketing, which covers about a quarter of the cost of a production. Ten years ago, ticketing covered about half of these costs, according to a former board member. The company needs to fill empty seats and take mini-productions to summer festival events, where it can build younger audiences.

The company’s numbers over the past decade reveal an organizational “disconnect,” Hardin said. Despite plenty of hard work and long hours put in, there was a lack of concern for the bottom line. The group operated mostly in the black in the early 1990s. Then fundraising efforts narrowed, as did a focus on audience development. The opera accumulated debt while increasing administrative expenses. In recent years, administration ate up a quarter to a third of its annual $924,000 budget.

The fiscal picture darkened when donations and revenues sank alongside a depressed economy. Staffers worked overtime to cut costs and increase efficiency. Former Managing Director Haas said, “Everybody in that office had two or three jobs. I did not see any waste from anyone.”

Critics question why the change took so long and whether the board acted with fiscal responsibility. Hickingbotham acknowledged that "[the company] has been in turmoil" since he arrived six years ago. He likens the operation of the company to that of a cargo tanker. "You turn the wheel, and it takes a few miles to complete the arc."