Idaho
Mark Junkert General Director
Two years ago in this space I wrote of transitions. Opera Idaho had moved up to a new budget category in Opera America’s listing with a budget of over $1 million dollars; we were in a period of increasing attendance; we’d added staff; we’d undergone a major rewrite of our bylaws. As the 2019/20 season began, we looked forward to an exciting season with continued growth. For a while that happened. We opened our season at The Egyptian Theatre, first with Manon starring Cecilia Violetta López in the title role, then Handel’s Acis and Galatea in collaboration with Boise Baroque Orchestra. La bohème, produced at The Morrison Center in February 2020, achieved the largest attendance and sales revenue in our then-47 year history. And then the performing arts world came to grinding halt, as did most of everything in the world. The 18 months since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic have been beyond difficult. We managed to produce smaller events: Operatinis, recitals, fundraising events and outdoor Christmas caroling. Then there was our highly successful Opera in the Park in July, the first of what we hope will be the major cultural event of the Boise summer for years to come. There were no mainstage operas in front of live audiences, here or mostly anywhere.
The pandemic is not over. But if you’re reading this in a theater, it’s likely that we’re back performing fullystaged operas again. The 2021/22 season has plenty of them, all rescheduled from previous seasons. From the frolicsome Merry Widow to the heart-wrenching Dead Man Walking, from the fiery Carmen to the soul-searching An American Dream. Our first-ever collaboration with Boise Contemporary Theater, All Is Calm, comes this fall. Our Children’s Choruses, Critical Mass Vocal Artists, and Emerging Artists programs return as well. A wide array of emotions, topics, artists, and venues … all to get us back to art in its role of elucidating the human experience. It’s an experience almost all of us will approach now in different ways than we would have two years ago. Good art is timeless – the messages will fit us today just as much as they did pre-pandemic. Thanks to the continued financial support of our patrons, an influx of government money and greatly reduced expenses from not producing operas, Opera Idaho is in a strong position to move into this and future seasons. We’ll adapt as needed, of course. I suspect we’re not done with that for a while. Thanks for bearing with us as we do. Enjoy the opera!
2021-2022 SEASON
Opera
The primary mission of Opera Idaho is to fund and produce opera of the highest possible professional standard, in Boise and throughout the State of Idaho, and to foster wider acceptance, appreciation and enjoyment of opera and related art forms in young people and adults of all social and economic backgrounds, through diverse educational and outreach programs. Opera Idaho Staff Mark Junkert General Director KristinAnn Janishefski Development Director Fernando Menéndez Marketing Director & Education Manager Kerri Calverley Director of Children’s Choruses Michael Porter Director of Critical Mass Vocal Artists Kelly Kaye Director of Rising Stars, Chorus Master, & Children’s Choruses Accompanist Amber Ellis Production Manager Nik Dumas Artistic Administrator Merri Carr Administrative Coordinator Megan Neumann Bookkeeper Betsi Hodges Staff Accompanist Sue Patchell & Brett Hamilton Teaching Artists Jonathan Collins Staff Photographer Opera Idaho 513 S 8th Street, Boise (208) 345-3531 www.operaidaho.org
3
