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THE PLAY’S NOT THE THING
Curtain closes on Aida on the Common
BY DEIRDRE FULTON

Three years ago, I was one of 140,000 people who flocked to Boston Common for the Boston Lyric Opera’s two performances of Carmen on the Common. I was a junior in college, sitting on a blanket with my boyfriend, some friends, and a jug of Carlo Rossi red table wine — and like many Boston-area students, I was thrilled by the idea of a free, BYOB, outdoor showing of the passionate, tragic love story. It was a welcome change in a city full of art, theater, and music offerings that often seemed either prohibitively priced, inconvenient to attend, or both.

"Just as impressive as the size of the crowd was its diversity in ethnicity and age (when’s the last time you saw so many people under 30 at a classical-music event?). A multicultural (Hispanic, Asian, African-American) and largely youthful cast didn’t hurt," Phoenix music critic Lloyd Schwartz observed at the time. He added: "[U]nlike many Boston Lyric Opera productions, this Carmen was actually fun."

BLO organizers — who had prepared for a crowd of just 10,000 in 2002 — were so blown away by the success of Carmen (which was originally meant to be a one-time deal to honor the BLO’s 25th anniversary) that they began planning Aida on the Common for 2005 (which they then pushed back to 2006). It’s safe to assume that the operatic telling of an Egyptian-Ethiopian love triangle would have been a smash hit.

But on Monday, the BLO announced that they canceled Aida. It seems Carmen’s great success was both a blessing and a curse. "The very size and scope of it have raised our costs," says BLO general director Janice Mancini DelSesto, referring to the fact that larger crowds equal higher costs for things such as police patrols, liability insurance, and video screens. This time around, fundraisers were trying to collect more than $1.4 million — a big jump from the $900,000 spent to produce Carmen. Even after postponing the event one year, to September 2006, the BLO was short by about $300,000 at their annual meeting this fall, with corporate sponsors either delaying their decisions or committing to less than the BLO had hoped.

"These are harder times to find those kinds of dollars," DelSesto says. "We felt that it would be irresponsible to move ahead with that big a gap in the budget. It’s a big disappointment."

The money that’s already been collected will be reallocated to various BLO education and outreach programs throughout New England — including two free productions at the Strand Theater for Boston Public School students in April, and the expansion of the student rush-ticket program, which gives college and high-school students the chance to get last-minute, cheaper tickets to main-stage productions.

"That was really what this program was all about," DelSesto says.

Perhaps smaller-scale, more individualized outreach is more effective when it comes to nurturing opera buffs, or boosting ticket sales. But large-scale productions that bring the city together — those deserve an encore.


Issue Date: December 23 - 29, 2005
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