St. Pete Opera: Shining Bright in Season 14

ARTS & CULTURE

St. Petersburg Opera

The colorful opera company is anything but old school

PHOTOS/JIM SWALLOW

Artistic Director Mark Sforzini

BY MARCIA BIGGS

In the basement of the Iberian Rooster restaurant one evening in May, a crowd of mostly middle-age people fills the room. It’s a subterranean cave of coolness, with living room furniture and folding chairs and tables scattered about and a bar on one side. A small stage lies empty, but at 6 pm promptly the lights go down and Mark Sforzini, artistic director and maestro of the St. Petersburg Opera, jumps on stage in a red plaid suit and a smile to beat the band. “How many of you are afraid of opera?” He asks for a show of hands. “Don’t be embarrassed, many people are. That’s why we are here tonight, to show you that opera is nothing to be afraid of!”

Cocktails With the Maestro takes off with two hours of drama, singing, fun, and learning as cast members perform 10-minute snippets from the next opera production. Seated in the audience with his score on a stand and baton in hand, Sforzini thoughtfully describes each scene, the characters and the music. He sips a martini, he cracks jokes, the room fills with laughter. The evening is intimate, engaging, and educational, to boot. If this is opera, sign me up.

Mark Sforzini has been around to see the cultural arts in the city develop – and to make change happen. As a classically trained musician working with the Florida Orchestra in the 1990s, he embarked on a challenge: produce a single opera production for St. Petersburg. He grabbed it and ran.

“My first opera was Madama Butterfly in 2005 at the Palladium,” he recalls during an interview in his office at Opera Central in the city’s Grand Central District. Just weeks before, his latest production of Madama Butterfly filled the Palladium, a sweet coincidence. “ Two performances sold out so they asked me to do an opera the following summer. Again we had full houses. I produced Die Fledermaus six months later and it was very well attended which indicated to me that the community would support a high quality opera.”

With the help of major funder Doyle McClendon and others, Sforzini decided to make the opera official and in February 2007 St. Petersburg debuted its own opera company.

14th SPO Season

Flash forward to 2019. Sforzini has been a tour de force as artistic director and maestro for the St. Petersburg Opera starting his 14th season this fall. Performances are still held at the 830-seat Palladium Theater. After jumping around from rented space to rented space for rehearsals, the opera finally found a home five years ago at Opera Central. The 10,000-square-foot former industrial space now serves as administrative offices, rehearsal and event space, with a small set workshop and costume shop, and an art gallery.

It’s the calm before the storm, so to speak, as the small staff prepares for the new season with rehearsals starting in September for an October production of The Merry Widow. The principal singers for the entire season have already been selected after auditions in New York in April, the program has been printed and now the tedious task remains of auditioning and selecting the understudies and chorus for each performance. A board room table is filled end-to-end with folders, photos and resumes. There are costumes

Madama Butterfly

Photo/ Jim Swallow

and sets to be ordered, promotional events to be arranged, a web site to be updated, and fundraisers to be planned.

Which leads one to ask the annoying question: Is the opera still popular? With a younger demographic moving to the city, and so much competition from theater and movies, festivals and concerts, does a late 16th century performance art still draw an audience?

The answer is a resounding yes. Younger people are coming to performances, insists Sforzini. But the opera is so much more than – well, opera. In addition to three full-blown operatic productions each year, there are cabarets and cocktails, family productions and holiday extravaganzas.

For a great night out on the town, Broadway Cabarets (January 18 and May 23 this season) are nightclub style evenings at Opera Central filled with show tunes from Sondheim, Berlin, Oscar & Hammerstein, and others. There’s a pastry and cheese buffet and a cash bar, and the place is packed. A steady stream of talented singers take the stage to belt out their best to the delight of an adoring audience.

Something for everyone

With a $1.5 million budget, a full board of directors and committed sponsors and volunteers, Sforzini is excited about the coming season.

Don Giovanni

Photo/Jim Swallow

Operas on tap are The Merry Widow, Rigoletto and La Fille du Regiment, eight Holiday Sparkle concerts, a Pinocchio production which will be performed for some 700 Pinellas County third graders, two Broadway Cabaret evenings, and a special Pops Spectacular over the July 4 weekend. The maestro is particularly excited about the holiday concert.

“This will be the first time for the July 4 concerts and it will really be spectacular,” he says. “It will feature a 45-piece orchestra and guest singers performing American holiday classics, patriotic music, Broadway and more. A real fun family event.”

As usual, there will be the Cocktails with the Maestro at the Iberian Rooster and Mornings with the Maestro at the Museum of Fine Arts, to reach out to newbies or those needing an opera primer before each Mainstage production. “Programs like Cocktails with the Maestro and the cabarets are so fun and accessible and a great introduction to the opera,” says the maestro.

Sforzini in the Opera Central costume room.

Sforzini feels fortunate there is such a wealth of performers and musicians locally. Indeed, young singers are auditioning constantly with many in their 20s and 30s, and SPO’s Emerging Artists program is providing a training ground. Mostly local talent makes up the choruses of each production. “I am very proud of our Emerging Artists program,” says Sforzini. “Nurturing emerging artists has been an important part of our mission from the beginning. We started it back in 2007. We feel our program is much more interactive than others … understudies get musical rehearsal time, vocal coaching, time with stage directors, they get out and do some promotional events.”

And the orchestra is top-notch, too, comprised of professional musicians from around Tampa Bay who perform with Florida Orchestra and other regional groups.

Sound like fun? It’s obviously not your Grandpa’s opera.

Holiday Sparkle

Photo by Jim Swallow

UPCOMING SPO SEASON For the cost of a dinner for two at a high-end restaurant, you could be enjoying the opera! Give it a try. All performances at The Palladium, 253 5th Avenue N., unless otherwise noted.

Oct. 18-22 The Merry Widow Learn all about it at Cocktails With the Maestro, 6-8 pm on October 3 at SubCentral at Iberian Rooster, and Mornings With the Maestro, 11 am to 1 pm, October 4, at Museum of Fine Arts. Nov. 16, 22-23 Family Series: Pinocchio at Opera Central Dec. 12-15, 19-22 Holiday Sparkle at Opera Central Jan. 24, 26, 28 Rigoletto (Verdi) Learn all about it at Cocktails With the Maestro, 6-8 pm on January 9 at SubCentral at Iberian Rooster, and Mornings With the Maestro, 11 am to 1 pm, January 10 at Museum of Fine Arts. March 13-14 Creative Collaborations at Opera Central May 29, 31 June 2, 5, 7 La Fille du Regiment (Donizetti) Learn all about it at Cocktails With the Maestro, 6-8 pm on May 14 at SubCentral at Iberian Rooster, and Mornings With the Maestro, 11 am to 1 pm, May 15 at Museum of Fine Arts. July 3-5 Pops Spectacular

For tickets and more information , go to www.stpeteopera.org or call (727) 823-2040. Want to get involved? The opera is looking for volunteers and home hosts for visiting singers.

Fresh Faces of St. Pete Opera

Sarah Hageman, at 31, knew opera was in her future from a young age. She started singing in high school chorus and went on to become a music major at St. Pete College and graduated a music major at USF. She says she first auditioned with the St. Pete Opera at age 21. She auditions and sings in various choruses and theater groups around Tampa Bay. She actually performed in the chorus as a geisha in both Madama Butterflys with the St. Petersburg Opera. “I love opera because I feel it expresses all human emotions,” she says. “And it encompasses everything — singing, orchestra, acting, dance, costume, scenery.”

Joseph Miranda, 31, studied dance in high school and “fell in love with performing” during college, performing in some musicals in his hometown of Santa Rosa, Calif. “It was easy for me to fall in love with opera because of my Spanish background,” he admits. “I love ballads and love songs. The music captures every emotion... it is beautiful.” Joseph moved to the Tampa Bay area just a year ago to be with family. He won a chorus role in Madama Butterfly and was thrilled to learn he will be an understudy in the upcoming Merry Widow.

Sarah Hageman

Joseph Miranda

12 StPeteLifeMag.com September/October 2019