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Portland Opera To Go

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Each year Portland Opera To Go takes an opera on the road, sharing the power of opera, music, and theater with schools and communities throughout Oregon and SW Washington. It’s not necessarily the easiest thing in the world, as you might imagine. But it’s one of the most rewarding . . . for us and for the thousands upon thousands of students who get to experience live opera, many for the first time.


And this blog will give you a first-hand view from the performers themselves of what it’s like when Opera hits the road!

 

Here’s a link to more information on the tour and the program.

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Portland Opera To Go's Blog

My Favorite Excursion Yet!

Submitted by Portland Opera To Go on Wed, 03/16/2011 - 14:31

Growing up I had always been so fortunate to live in, what I considered to be, a very beautiful place. Unfortunately, this sort of circumstance can lead us to take nature’s beauty for granted. I think that Portland may be one of those places where people are surrounded by so much exquisite nature that they may not realize all the beauty the State has to offer. So to those people, may I encourage you to take the trip that POGO took last week to Bend and Prairie City to soak up some of the most beautiful landscapes I have ever seen. We took off last Sunday morning on a route that took us around the base of Mt Hood (US-26) and upon our return from Prairie City we made our way though the expansive landscapes of the US-395 (up to I-84) back north. WOW. While I could go on and on about the beauty of the drive alone, we had a job to do.
We spent our first few days in Bend on location at McMenamins Old St. Francis School, performing by day and taking dips in the semi-enclosed, and beautifully tiled, soaking pool by night! (and sometimes just taking a dip any chance we could get!) We all lived as roomies and neighbours as we shared 2 homes located on McMenamins property with a conveniently located quaint Irish pub literally in our backyard! (by the way, the McMenamins shows have been a blast and there is only one left! If you haven’t seen it yet, please join us at the Olympic Club this Friday!)
We visited Pine Ridge Elementary and Amity Creek School, both with the kids and grownups alike as delighted as ever. We are so lucky to do such a self-serving job.

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"Let the beauty of what you love be what you do."

Submitted by Portland Opera To Go on Mon, 03/14/2011 - 16:50

It never ceases to amaze me how each audience reacts differently to our opera.  We have presented The Elixir of Love to kindergartners, children, teenagers, and adults of all ages, including an audience at a senior living community.

Sometimes the reactions are predictable: adult audiences tend to react to the things we say, while young children react to the things we do.  Other times, a particularly resonant or reverberant acoustic causes the words to be less distinguishable.  And in a few cases the lighting in the venue is so low I wondered whether we could even be seen at all.  Then there is the exciting opportunity to perform in the beautiful theater at Eastern Oregon University, complete with stage lights and a hyper responsive audience. But even with without all these variables, it seems that watching an opera can mean wildly different things to our audiences.

I feel extremely fortunate to be an ambassador not only for opera, but for all the performing arts.  So often it seems that performing arts organizations struggle to encourage people to attend.  There's some sort of barrier between people's lives and a seat in an auditorium.  We create new ways to get people to buy tickets and market our productions.  But we often forget the effectiveness of going to our audience instead of asking them to come to us. 

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I belive in miracles.

Submitted by Portland Opera To Go on Wed, 03/02/2011 - 16:40

I believe in miracles. Especially the theatrical miracle. Over and over our LaGrande residency has proved that the theater owner in "Shakespeare in Love" was right when he answered the desperate question, “How will it be alright?” with, “I don’t know. It’s a miracle.”

Last week, POGO loaded up into the van on Monday morning and drove to Eastern Oregon University in LaGrande. The plan was to arrive early to mid-afternoon, check into the hotel and have time for a deep cleansing breath before I headed over to the university with David, our accompanist for our first rehearsal with the children’s choir for the second act of La Boheme. Oh, did I forget to tell you? We were going to stage the entire second act of La Boheme in just under 4 hours. As Christopher Mattaliano, our GD told me when he heard that that was my plan, “You do realize that that is the most difficult 20 minutes in all of opera to stage, right?” Well, Chris, I do now. But, then fools rush in where angels fear to tread, and, while I don’t think I am a fool, I am no angel!

Anyway, the Grande Ronde Community Choir, the children’s choir, three of the university students (thank you, Keil, Renee and Jon!), one university professor (thanks, Peter!) and the intrepid cast of POGO pulled it off. I cannot believe we did it, but we did. Granted, I pulled the principals into about 4 hours of rehearsal away from the chorus, but still. I was very impressed with the hard work and dedication that made it happen.  

And I need to give a huge thanks to Michael Frasier—he pulled together the minimal props and built me a platform so I could get some of the bodies off of the floor. His efforts were heroic, and I appreciate him more than I can say!

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