Music Reviews

Jun 6, 2003 - It's Time Nevada Opera's Board of Directors Gets Its Act Together!!!

By Jack Neal

I've been reviewing performances of Nevada Opera for at least thirty years. Nevada Opera founders Ted and Deena Puffer often provided moments of excitement in their years with the company. When the superb opera impressario Esther Nelson arrived on the Reno scene, she moved the company ahead artistically in dramatic fashion. Then it was off to the prestigious Glimmerglass Opera Company for the gifted Mrs. Nelson leaving an emormous void for Nevada Opera to fill.

Frank Kistler, currently interim executive director for the Reno Philharmonic, was hired and did a yeoman's job with the company that was, even then, in dire financial straits. Without giving Mr. Kistler a chance to settle in and get the company going the Nevada Opera Board of Directors let him go and turned to the artistic talents of Robin Andrew Stamper and the energy and inventiveness of business manager Rick Comeaux to pump up Nevada Opera's operatic muscles.

Now, after barely three seasons, the company has let Mr. Stamper go and it's time for opera lovers in Northern Nevada to do something about it. Letters and phone calls to the company might help. Hiring so-called arts doctor Kendall Hardin as a consultant to fix things may be a good idea, but destroying the company's ability to survive without strong and brilliant artistic direction is not.

The deficit did not just occur. The opera board, headed by its president Joseph C. Hickingbotham III, has been encouraged over a several year span of time to do something constructive about the company's looming deficit. Little has been done. When business manager Rick Comeaux threatened to resign nearly two seasons ago if the board did not take the company's deficit more seriously, his resignation was accepted "with regret."

As is so often the case, members of a board of directors who know little about the business they are overseeing, make lethal decisions. To "let go" Robin Stamper, the company's artistic director, without someone of his calibre to fill his shoes is nonsense. Stamper is a gifted opera visionary, has connections, uses them to great advantage, and produces splendid operatic presentations. His plans for the company for next season, two popular operas and a solo concert with one of the world's most prestigious artists, could have put the company in a much more advantageous financial position. Where are those plans now? The Nevada Opera board should lean on their employees to help make the company work, not get rid of the very people who have the wherewithal for success.

That's what happened to Nevada Festival Ballet. After founder Maggie Banks retired the ballet board did not support the company's next two artistic directors who could have made the company succeed had they had their board's support. The same mistake should not be made with Nevada Opera and it is being made.

In one article and one editorial the Reno Gazette-Journal did not scratch the surface of the problems that really caused the demise of one company, Nevada Festival Ballet, and endangers another, Nevada Opera. These comments are not meant to cause a war, but are offered as a plea to the Nevada Opera powers that be to correct the decision to let the people go who can save the company and do what the board should have been better at doing all along and that's raise cash.

Otherwise the only way of saving opera in Northern Nevada is to launch a new company with people who know what they're doing. Robin Stamper knows what he's doing. Nevada Opera should rehire him before someone, or group, creates a new company with Stamper at the helm assisted by the former Nevada Opera employees who have made experiencing opera in Reno so exciting.

(The above text was aired as part of Jack Neal's "Entertainment Headlines" broadcast on KUNR-FM radio, 88.7 FM, June 6, 2003 at 5:30 p.m.)