Tag Archives: Cincinnati Opera

Patricia K. Beggs.

General Director & CEO Patricia K. Beggs to Retire Following Cincinnati Opera’s 100^th Season in August 2020 

Evans Mirageas, The Harry T. Wilks Artistic Director,
Renews Contract Through 2022 

Liz Kathman Grubow Becomes President-Elect of the Board 

Search for New General Director to Begin Immediately 

CINCINNATI, OH—Cincinnati Opera today announced news of a major transition to come in 2020: Patricia K. Beggs, The Harry Fath General Director and CEO, will retire at the close of the company’s 100^th anniversary season, after 35 years at the company. A national search for a new general director will begin immediately, to ensure a smooth transition.

“I’ve had a dream job for almost half of my life,” Beggs said. “To go to work at one of the most iconic buildings in the country, to be inspired daily by the glorious music being created in Music Hall, to learn from the best and brightest people who make up the Opera’s staff, Board, Guild, and volunteers, as well as my arts colleagues, and finally to sit in glorious Springer Auditorium on Cincinnati Opera’s opening night, and know that I played a small role in making the magic happen. The best job ever!”

Patty Beggs began her tenure at Cincinnati Opera in 1984 as marketing director, following a successful corporate career. Her creative marketing campaigns helped effect Cincinnati Opera’s remarkable turnaround in attendance in the late 1980s and 1990s, becoming a leading industry standard for new approaches in audience development. She took over management of the company in 1997. Since then, the company’s operating budget has increased from about $4 million in 1997 to $9 million in 2019. Fiscal responsibility has been a hallmark of Beggs’s administration; the company has posted a balanced budget for 21 of those 22 years. Beggs has also led the charge to increase the endowment, which has doubled during her tenure to approximately $30 million. Beggs is committed to developing meaningful partnerships in the community and the belief that collaboration is fundamental to the success of arts organizations.

Cincinnati Opera’s highlights during her tenure are innumerable. The company moved to the Corbett Opera Center, a new, custom-built administrative headquarters in the north wing of Music Hall, in 2005. In 2007, Cincinnati Opera and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music formed the first official program between an opera company and a conservatory in the U.S. with the founding of Opera Fusion. In 2013, Cincinnati Opera launched the Opera Campus initiative, expanding the company’s reach beyond Music Hall and into additional venues in Over-the-Rhine, including Washington Park and the Corbett Theater at The School for Creative and Performing Arts. In the past several years, Cincinnati Opera has presented two world premieres and a U.S. premiere, all to critical acclaim, with three more commissioned new works to premiere in 2019 and 2020.

Beggs has served as treasurer on the national board of OPERA America, and was awarded its national service award, BRAVO, in 2010. In 2008, Beggs and the Opera were honored by the NAACP for their extraordinary efforts in building connections to the African American community. Recognized frequently as a distinguished leader, she was a member of Leadership Cincinnati’s Class XVII, and was named a Cincinnati Regional Chamber of Commerce WE Celebrate Woman of the Year-Non Profit in 2015, Woman of Over-the-Rhine Story of Success in 2007, 2006 YWCA Career Woman of Achievement, Woman of the Year by the Cincinnati Enquirer in 1999, and Woman of Distinction by the Great Rivers Girl Scouts in 1992. She is listed in Marquis Who’s Who in America, and is a member of Cincinnati Women’s Executive Forum and Cincinnati Woman’s Club.

“Patty Beggs has been a pillar of American opera, helping guide our art form and industry into the 21^st century with the highest artistic and managerial standards,” said Marc A. Scorca, President & CEO of Opera America, the national service organization for opera companies. “Her passionate dedication to Cincinnati Opera, skill as a general director, commitment to the larger opera community, and unflagging grace have been an inspiration to me personally and a model of informed leadership across our field.  We salute her and thank her for her tremendous service.”

“Patty’s tenure at Cincinnati Opera has been extraordinary,” said Gary T. “Doc” Huffman, President of the Cincinnati Opera Board of Trustees and Chairman and CEO of Ohio National Financial Services. “During her time here, the company has commissioned seven world premieres and presented 33 company premieres, including the U.S. premiere of Another Brick in the Wall, which set a new record for ticket revenue. The endowment has more than doubled. Music Hall is revitalized. And—thanks to Patty—we have one of the most highly regarded teams of senior managers in the opera industry. We will be sad to see Patty leave, but we are profoundly grateful for her work.”

“There’s just no one like her,” said Harry Fath, past President of the Board of Trustees. “She’s devoted, tireless, and forward-thinking. She’s built an amazing company—one of the best opera companies in the nation. While I was President, there wasn’t anyone more delightful to work with than Patty Beggs.”

“ArtsWave salutes Patty Beggs, whose 34-year tenure at Cincinnati Opera has shaped the nation’s second-oldest opera company into also one of its most forward-thinking,” said Alecia Kintner, President & CEO of ArtsWave, the nation’s largest community campaign for the arts. “Patty’s leadership has helped bring boundary-busting projects to life, such as the recent productions of Fellow Travelers and Another Brick in the Wall. Her commitment to inclusion and accessibility has manifested itself in innovative ways, such as Opera Goes to Church and the one-of-a-kind Opera Express mobile theater. Her collaborations with Music Hall neighbors, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Cincinnati Ballet, and her mentoring of smaller groups like concert:nova and ROKCincy, have made for exciting mash-ups across disciplines and inside nontraditional performance spaces. Patty has positioned Cincinnati Opera well for its second century of impact in the Cincinnati region and beyond.”

Evans Mirageas, The Harry T. Wilks Artistic Director of the company since 2005, has renewed his contract through the 2022 season. Mirageas recently stepped down as vice president of artistic planning for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, a position he had held since 2012. Mirageas’s varied career in classical music has included radio production with the nationally renowned WFMT radio station in Chicago, Artistic Administrator to Seiji Ozawa at the Boston Symphony, and Senior Vice President of Artists and Repertoire for the Decca Record Company. In addition, he is an award-winning record producer, lecturer, interviewer, presenter, and awards panelist.

“It is an honor to have the privilege to continue serving Cincinnati Opera through and beyond our 100^th anniversary,” said Mirageas. “Our first century established us as the premiere summer venue for grand opera in the USA. Our second century builds on that legacy, and moreover sees us already positioned as a leader in the creation and presentation of new works that thrill audiences here, and what’s more, go on to nationwide fame. Patty Beggs has been so much a part of making this company what it is today; she is our fearless leader and a cherished colleague, and I will miss her dearly.”

Longtime Opera board member Liz Kathman Grubow, Vice President and Managing Creative Director at worldwide brand and innovation consultancy LPK, has been voted President-Elect of the Opera Board of Trustees. Grubow’s contributions to the company began decades ago, when she worked with Patty Beggs on the highly successful marketing campaigns of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Over the past decade, Grubow has been a dedicated supporter of the company’s outreach to young professionals, both through sponsorship of YP events and contributing to the development of a young professional level of Board membership. Grubow will take on the role of President of the Cincinnati Opera Board of Trustees in September 2019, and current Board President Gary T. “Doc” Huffman will step into the role of Chairman. 

Founded in 1920, Cincinnati Opera presents a thrilling season of opera every June and July in multiple venues, including the recently renovated historic Music Hall. The company’s repertoire includes beloved classics and contemporary works brought to life by some of the world’s most dynamic performers and creative teams. 

Cincinnati Opera’s 2019 Summer Festival runs June 13 through July 28, featuring Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, Charles Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet, Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos, the world premiere of Blind Injustice by Scott Davenport Richards and David Cote, based on true stories of the Ohio Innocence Project, and The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess. Cincinnati Opera’s 2019 Season Presenting Sponsor is Huntington Bank. The 2019 season is also made possible with support from ArtsWave, Ohio Arts Council, Macy’s, The Louise Dieterle Nippert Musical Arts Fund, and many generous individuals, corporations, and foundations. 

Cincinnati Opera’s mission is to enrich and connect our community through diverse opera experiences. 

cincinnatiopera.org

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Gregory Spears, composer
Tracy K. Smith (U.S. Poet Laureate), librettist

WORLD PREMIERE IN 2020,
COMPANY’S CENTENNIAL SEASON

New work follows Spears’ acclaimed score for Fellow Travelers 

Hard facts and hopes for the future in the American South

Evans Mirageas, The Harry T. Wilks Artistic Director of Cincinnati Opera, today announced that the company has commissioned a new evening-length opera, Castor and Patience, from composer Gregory Spears and librettist Tracy K. Smith, poet laureate of the United States. Castor and Patience will premiere at the Corbett Theater in the School for Creative and Performing Arts in July 2020, highlighting Cincinnati Opera’s centennial season. It will be Spears’ second work for the company, following the extraordinary critical and popular success of Fellow Travelers, with librettist Greg Pierce, in 2016. Smith, winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for her collection Life on Mars, is one of the most lauded poets of her generation; her original story for Castor and Patience is both timeless and topical, setting a prototypical family conflict against the backdrop of recent events.

In Smith’s words, “Castor and Patience tells the story of African American cousins who find themselves at odds over the fate of a historic parcel of land they have inherited in the American South. It’s 2008, and Patience is fighting to stave off overzealous developers. Castor has a ballooning mortgage to contend with and is hoping to sell his share of the land. But if they’re going to get anywhere as a family, they must first learn to see past their differing allegiances and trust one another. Castor and Patience is the story not just of a single family or even a particular geography, but of America’s warring tensions between reckoning with the hard facts of history and racing blindly forward toward the dream of progress.”

Said Spears, “I am thrilled to be collaborating with Tracy K. Smith – one of my favorite authors and an old friend – on Castor and Patience, an opera that explores the ways in which the history of the South continues to shape the lives of modern Americans. It is a special honor that Cincinnati Opera, who so lovingly developed and premiered Fellow Travelers two years ago, has decided to commission this project. I am particularly excited that Tracy is writing an original libretto, rather than adapting a pre-existing work. Composing music in response to her words and story has been uniquely inspiring.”

“It has been an honor to watch these two young artists – already at the top of their game – develop this fascinating, important work from whole cloth,” said Mirageas. “Cincinnati Opera is proud to commission and premiere this opera, which I am confident will be both timeless and thought-provoking.”

“Cincinnati Opera’s upcoming 100th anniversary inspired us to commission a significant new work,” said Patricia K. Beggs, General Director and CEO of Cincinnati Opera. “In the tradition of our previous commissions of Margaret Garner and Fellow Travelers, Castor and Patience will speak to issues vital to our nation’s continuing cultural conversations. What is home? What do we owe our ancestors? How do we come to terms with the shameful parts of our nation’s history? The stage is in Cincinnati, but the impact will be well beyond.”

THE CREATIVE TEAM
Gregory Spears is a New York-based composer whose music has been called “astonishingly beautiful” (The New York Times), “coolly entrancing” (The New Yorker), and “some of the most beautifully unsettling music to appear in recent memory” (The Boston Globe). In recent seasons he has been commissioned by Lyric Opera of Chicago, Cincinnati Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Seraphic Fire, The Crossing, BMI and Concert Artists Guild, Vocal Arts DC, New York Polyphony, The New York International Piano Competition, and the JACK Quartet, among others.

Spears’ most recent evening-length opera, Fellow Travelers, written in collaboration with Greg Pierce, premiered at Cincinnati Opera in 2016 and was seen during the 2017-18 season at the Prototype Festival (NYC), Lyric Opera of Chicago, and Minnesota Opera. It was hailed as “one of the most accomplished new operas I have seen in recent years” (Chicago Tribune) and an opera that “seems assured of lasting appeal” (The New York Times). The premiere was featured in The New York Times’ Best in Classical Music for 2016. Cincinnati Opera released a commercial CD recording in 2017.

Other operas include Jason and the Argonauts, a work for children written with Kathryn Walat, which premiered in 2016 at Lyric Opera of Chicago; O Columbia (written with Royce Vavrek), for Houston Grand Opera; and Spears and Walat’s first opera, Paul’s Case, described as a “masterpiece” and a “gem” (New York Observer) with “ravishing music” (The New York Times). Paul’s Case will be recorded for commercial release this summer. Spears recently completed the soundtrack for the British feature film Macbeth (Kit Monkman, director). His music is published by Schott Music and Schott PSNY.

Tracy K. Smith was born in Massachusetts and raised in northern California. She earned a BA from Harvard University and an MFA in creative writing from Columbia University. From 1997 to 1999 she held a Stegner fellowship at Stanford University. Smith is the author of four books of poetry: The Body’s Question (2003), which won the Cave Canem prize for the best first book by an African American poet; Duende (2007), winner of the James Laughlin Award and the Essense Literary Award; and Life on Mars (2011), winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Her latest collection, published in April 2018, is Wade in the Water; wrote The New York Times, “Smith’s new book is scorching in both its steady cognizance of America’s original racial sins…and apprehension about history’s direction… These historical poems have a homely, unvarnished sort of grace.” She has also written a memoir, Ordinary Light (2015), which was a finalist for the National Book Award in nonfiction.

Smith was the Literature protégé in the 2009-2011 cycle of the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative.In 2014 she was awarded the Academy of American Poets fellowship. She has also received a Rona Jaffee Award and a Whiting Award. In June 2017 she was named the 22nd U.S. Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry by the Library of Congress, and in March 2018 she was re-appointed to a second term for 2018-19.

ABOUT CINCINNATI OPERA
Founded in 1920, Cincinnati Opera presents a thrilling season of opera every June and July in multiple venues, including the recently renovated historic Music Hall. The company’s repertoire includes beloved classics and contemporary works brought to life by some of the world’s most dynamic performers and creative teams.

Cincinnati Opera’s 2018 Summer Festival continues through July 31 and features the United States premiere of Another Brick in the Wall, based on the Pink Floyd album The Wall, and Laura Kaminsky’s As One. Cincinnati Opera’s 2018 Season Presenting Sponsor is PNC. The 2018 season is also made possible with support from ArtsWave, Ohio Arts Council, The Louise Dieterle Nippert Musical Arts Fund, and many generous individuals, corporations, and foundations.

Cincinnati Opera’s mission is to enrich and connect our community through diverse opera experiences. cincinnatiopera.org

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