Join us for a fascinating conversation with Vancouver Opera’s General Director, Tom Wright. Tom reflects on the past opera season, the challenges the art form faces, and the future of opera in Vancouver.
Visit VancouverOpera.ca to discover our 2023-2024 season: The Magic Flute, Don Pasquale, and Carmen.
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TRANSCRIPT
Ashley Daniel Foot:
Welcome, it’s Inside Vancouver Opera and my name is Ashley Daniel Foot, Senior Manager of Partnerships, Engagement, and EDI. Today we're talking to the Vancouver Opera General Director, Tom Wright. In a wide-ranging and fascinating conversation, Tom shares his insights and perspectives on the many changes taking place in the opera sector.
Tom Wright:
Opera is an immensely powerful theatrical and musical experience. There's nothing more exciting than hearing the human voice that's been trained for years and years and years singing the notes, performing the characters, and the storytelling of the past retold to adjust to the realities of our world today.
Ashley Daniel Foot:
Tom will also share his thoughts on the process that Vancouver Opera undertook when we programmed Bizet's The Pearl Fishers.
Tom Wright:
In today's world, we shouldn't be cancelling great art. And any singer will say that, any artist will say that. We should be having the dialogue about why we're doing it, what's wrong with it, highlight the errors of the past, and try and improve where we can make those changes.
Ashley Daniel Foot:
It's a fascinating conversation and I hope you enjoy it.
Talk a little bit about how you came to programming the season that it was, which was Pearl Fishers, Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream, and we just finished Wagner's Flying Dutchman. That's an unusual season for any major opera company, and I would argue we pulled it off with aplomb. How did you decide that that was going to be the season that we had?
Explore the past season on Inside Vancouver Opera
Bizet: Life and Times - The Pearl Fishers
Benjamin Britten: Life and Times - A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Wagner: Life and Times - The Flying Dutchman
Tom Wright:
The reason for going with less familiar repertoire was simply to continue the building of our subscriber base. To say to our subscribers, I know you've seen a million Tosca's and Butterflies, we're not going to do a season with any top tens or top twenties. We're going to do a season that we've only done a few of these productions once in our 63-year history, and one of them you will have never seen here in Vancouver, and that was A Midsummer Night's Dream. And that's something that I need the organization to continue working on. We have to try every year to present at least one opera that Vancouver audiences haven't seen here in Vancouver.
Going back to how this season was figured out, we knew that we would have to look at building this season based on two things: the current state of the environment which is getting worse and worse and worse every day, and the regional opera sector is challenged in that we rent our productions, for the most part, and usually from US companies on the East Coast. Shipping three or four trailers full of opera scenery sets, props, and costumes back and forth has a toll on the environment and has a toll on the pocketbook. So I just said, okay, we might go over budget, and we did, on production expenses but we employed local artists. We created something from scratch. We employed local artisans to create the works and we didn't wreck the environment as much. All of that money didn't go to one trucking company and the damage that those big trucks do.
Ashley Daniel Foot:
These are all the many aspects that you have to think about as you're planning a season. Of course, it's not just what is the name of the opera? What will the impact be on our infrastructure?
Tom Wright:
What will the audience appreciate? What will ticket sales garner? That is a very big aspect to how are we going to achieve ticket sales for a balanced season where it's not all popular, especially like this season. And coming out of the pandemic, relying on certain earned revenue goals that we had met in the past on similar type shows, we couldn't do that. So we set very conservative goals and we reached pretty much all those goals this year when it came to ticket sales.
More importantly, we recognized the beginning of a new audience attending Vancouver Opera. 57% of everybody who bought a ticket to A Midsummer Night's Dream was not in our database. So 57% were new to Vancouver Opera. 42% for The Pearl Fishers, and I believe 45% for The Flying Dutchman. So really significant numbers in building a new opera audience.
I know we were very successful in that our audience this season has become younger, and I see that just standing in the lobby simply watching the audience file in. We have a much younger audience coming and it's much more diverse, which is so important because we are now looking at an opera audience that reflects the city of Vancouver and the cities that surround us.
Ashley Daniel Foot:
So talk about, a little bit, I want just rewind again to The Pearl Fishers. What did we do as we examine that opera as we undertook it?
Tom Wright:
We undertook the intelligence, gathering the formation of a great committee of advisors to help us tell that story or retell it. But still the question exists in several people's mind is should we have done it or should we have rewritten it? And that's where it gets complicated, because in today's world, we shouldn't be cancelling great art. And any singer will say that, any artist will say that. We should be having the dialogue about why we're doing it, what's wrong with it, highlight the errors of the past, and try and improve where we can make those changes.
More on The Pearl Fishers from Inside Vancouver Opera
Colouring In ‘The Pearl Fishers’
Unpacking the Orientalism in Bizet’s ‘The Pearl Fishers’
Real talk on Bizet’s ‘The Pearl Fishers’
A Critical View through a South Asian Lens: George Bizet’s ‘The Pearl Fishers’
Ashley Daniel Foot:
In the sense of how we are welcoming new audiences to operate, and as we think about the conversation that's happening about equity, about justice, and truth and reconciliation, we've also been recommitting to that and looking at ways that impacts us as a company. Can you talk about why that's important?
Tom Wright:
Well, if we don't, we will die.
Ashley Daniel Foot:
Survival.
Tom Wright:
I don't look at it as survival. I look at it as opportunity. The art form... We can go back and look at the demographics of who has supported and attended Vancouver Opera over the decades, and we're going to see a consistent narrative to that. And that narrative needs to change because that audience is becoming smaller and smaller and there's no reason why opera shouldn't be for everybody. We're trying to give everybody a price point to come and attend opera.
Ashley Daniel Foot:
So talk a little bit about the work that we've been doing with the three host nations in Vancouver, and specifically with Wilson Williams of the Squamish Nation.
Tom Wright:
The work has been fantastic, albeit it's just the beginning and that's what I'm excited about. Having Wilson stand next to me on the stage and welcome our audience to the land where his ancestors lived and maintained and stewarded the city of Vancouver. Before it was the city of Vancouver, for thousands of years before colonialism began, that's important. That's important because it's all part of reconciliation. It's all a part of everybody understanding that everybody in this world has a right to exist.
Ashley Daniel Foot:
We've also been learning with Lynda Gray, the wonderful author of First Nations 101. She's talked to our staff a number of times and to our full orchestra and chorus about the history of indigenous peoples, not only in BC but across Canada. And that's been really powerful to hear that voice right on the main stage, and that's something that is important to you as the general director, but also to the company that you've articulated.
Tom Wright:
Yeah. It's important to the company that we continue this conversation, we continue this engagement, we continue to learn from, and they continue to learn from us as we present our art form, and how powerful our art form can be. And that's what I hope we, in the future, are able to do is have really collaborative experiences with the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), səl̓ílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil Waututh), and sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) Nations in developing their stories in operatic form.
Ashley Daniel Foot:
I want to talk a little bit about an event that you attended a few weeks ago. We held it in Hogan's Alley and it was at the Strathcona Community Centre. And it was a moment where we gathered arts organizations from around the city and we worked with Dalhousie professor Ajay Parasram who also worked with us on The Pearl Fishers. And it was an evening where we talked about equity, diversity, inclusion. We talked about the history of white supremacy in Canada and its historical roots. Why are those kinds of events that we sponsored with Rumble Theatre, why are they important for us to keep doing?
Tom Wright:
It's important that we continue to be a leader in that because we are a big organization. So we have the ability to staff, think about, and fund what needs to be a continuing conversation in the arts. The arts is a vehicle for social change, always has been, and if the arts just sits back and says nothing and does nothing, nothing's ever going to change. So we need to be a part of, and will be a part of, making sure that people that have different biases for whatever reasons, have all the knowledge and understanding and training and education to understand the importance of equity, diversity, inclusion, truth and reconciliation.
We're working at it at the board level, and to me, it's very important that the board begin to reflect the community that we serve. And it is happening. It is happening in the staff. We have a diverse staff. We've always had a diverse staff. Our orchestra is very diverse and our chorus is beginning to be more reflective of the community. That's the hardest one, simply because the chorus comes from an old model of channelling singers through the university process. So the university process needs to change as well.
Ashley Daniel Foot:
No question.
Tom Wright:
And they're embracing that. They are making opportunities for all entry levels into the opera programs.
Ashley Daniel Foot:
When you think about the barriers that are in place to even get into those programs.
Tom Wright:
Well, it's money.
Ashley Daniel Foot:
Yeah, it's money.
Tom Wright:
And that's where the universities need to step up and make sure that anybody who doesn't have the financial resources, but has the desire, and the passion, and maybe even the gift, have those opportunities.
Ashley Daniel Foot:
What are you hopeful about our art form and our sector moving forward?
Tom Wright:
I'm hopeful for the very reason that we are embracing and taking the opportunity of expanding our art form into the entire community that serves the lower mainland, all religions, all ethnicities, all languages that we can. It's important that our art form be there for everybody.
Opera is an immensely powerful theatrical and musical experience. There's nothing more exciting than hearing the human voice that's been trained for years, and years, and years singing the notes, performing the characters, and the storytelling of the past retold to adjust to the realities of our world today. Sometimes you don't need to change what was written in the past because it is absolutely relevant today.
Ashley Daniel Foot:
Yes.
Tom Wright:
And also, the development of new opera and the continuation of making sure that the cannon of opera is alive and well. And we will continue doing that in various aspects of our development in chamber works, in opera for young audiences. That's very key to Vancouver Opera is getting back to making sure that the grade school kids that were first exposed to opera in the '70s and '80s when Vancouver Opera In Schools was so relevant that we continue to do that, but developing operas that are relevant to the curriculum of today.
Ashley Daniel Foot:
There is one last thing I do want to ask you, and that is that I know that there's going to be young singers that are listening to this and they're going to want to know how do they put themselves in front of a general director or be considered. What advice do you have for young singers in today's new reality?
Tom Wright:
If you're going to audition for the Yulanda M. Faris Young Artist Program, we will be posting that information by the end of June. And that is the best opportunity to be heard by myself and by my colleague Les Dala who's the program director, because we will be auditioning for the future of the Young Artist Program. That's one way. You can always send us your resume, that information is on our website. We haven't scheduled auditions in the past few years because of COVID, but we are going to start doing more open calls for young artists, whether managed or not. Also, we had the great success of hosting the Association for Opera in Canada conference last year, and we made part of that two days of auditions for young singers, which was so successful.
Ashley Daniel Foot:
So cool.
Tom Wright:
That is coming back next year to Winnipeg. So this is a great initiative that started here and it was a great opportunity for managed and unmanaged singers to be heard by pretty much all of the casting directors, general directors, director of artistic planning personnel across Canada. And we will continue to make sure that those opportunities exist.
Ashley Daniel Foot:
Well, there we have it. I'd love to thank Tom for being so generous with his time in sharing his insights in that conversation. As always, I'd like to thank our editor Mack McGillivray and invite you to check out VancouverOpera.ca to discover our 2023-24 season: The Magic Flute, Don Pasquale, and Carmen. Tickets are available now and I'll see you at the opera.
About Tom Wright
In Tom Wright’s 15 seasons at Vancouver Opera, he has overseen the creation of more than 50 opera productions. He has stewarded the creation of new opera commissions, assembled the creative teams and development of VO’s new productions of Eugene Onegin (2009 & 2018), Nixon in China, West Side Story, The Barber of Seville, Don Carlo, Hansel & Gretel, Evita, The Overcoat – a musical tailoring, Orfeo Ed Euridice, and The Pearl Fishers.
Early in his tenure he oversaw VO’s Education and Vancouver Opera in Schools tour programs. He has also been responsible for facilities oversight and was instrumental in the creation of the Michael & Inna O’Brian Opera Centre that is now a cultural hub in East Vancouver. His biggest achievement has been the creation of the Yulanda M. Faris Young Artist Program, now in its 11th season of assisting young singers to bridge the gap from post-secondary schooling to a professional career.
Previously, Tom was the Director of Artistic Planning for Arizona Opera and the Director of Production at Calgary Opera. He was secretary/treasurer of Opera.ca, the service organization for professional opera in Canada, from 2001-2018. Tom trained at the Banff School of Fine Arts, apprenticed at Western Canadian Theatre and Opera companies, The Citadel Theatre, Edmonton Opera, Arts Club Theatre Company, Vancouver Playhouse Theatre Company, and JV Theatre Productions in Calgary.
Tom grew up in North Vancouver and is thrilled to be living and working in the Lower Mainland. He now resides in Coquitlam with his wife Denise.
Tom was appointed General Director of Vancouver Opera in April 2020.
Credits:
Host - Ashley Daniel Foot
Guest - Tom Wright
Editing - Mack McGillivray