The History of Toledo Opera, ACT ONE,
Scene One
by Sally Vallongo
Can you imagine Toledo without its own
opera company? How could this lively city exist without
decades of its own tragic Toscas, Lucias, Mimis, Cio-Cio
Sans, and Carmens, or its memorable Rigolettos, Borises,
Don Giovannis, Figaros, and Romeos? That seems impossible
to imagine, doesn’t it, after half a century of fine
professional opera productions. Industrial city though
it was, and is, Toledo has never lacked for excellent arts
and culture.
The foundation was laid in the 1900s,
when visionary movers and shakers built and developed the
Toledo Museum of Art, the Toledo Symphony, several reputable
ballet companies, and a flourishing library where a host
of literary and intellectual groups found inspiration.
Already in place were devoted supporters willing to underwrite
endeavors that showed promise. What more did the city need?
Toledo’s cultural movers and shakers
had the answer. And they were ready to prove their dedication
to this amazing art form by bringing live opera to Toledo,
not through touring companies but with locally produced
performances. The actual birth of the Toledo Opera began
with a series of 1957 conversations between two people:
Toledo Symphony Orchestra conductor Joseph Hawthorne and
Lester Freedman, then a faculty member at the University
of Chattanooga.
Hawthorne invited Freedman to invent
opera for the Glass City. What many of these innovators
may not have realized then was that in carrying out their
vision, they also were writing the first chapter in Toledo
Opera’s own libretto, a tale filled with strong emotions,
memorable characters, and, ultimately, transcendent if
ever-transient beauty.
ACT ONE, Scene One
 By
autumn, 1959, after two years of hard work, planning, fund-raising,
and touting the advantages of live opera, Freedman and
Hawthorne donned white tie and tails to lead an enthusiastic
cast of visiting artists and a chorus of local singers
through the very first production of Verdi’s Aida,
on the stage of the grand Paramount Theater. Freedman,
a tall, imposing figure with strong features and a shock
of white hair, announced his theme: “An opera company
has a responsibility other than just staying in business.
Its purpose is to broaden people’s scopes, to let
them know something else exists.” Countless community
people agreed and jumped on the opera wagon. Toledo artist
Patricia Eckhart designed the imposing set; Old West End
musician Carolyn Seeman built the costumes; Toledo Zoo’s
business manager Joe Bissonnette collected peacock feathers
for headpieces, and local business leader B.R. Baker and
his wife, Ellie, joined Frances Freedman, Jane Bruss, and
Helen Joseph, among many others, in the chorus.
The premiere was a sell-out – 3000
attended – and Toledo’s new opera instantly
became the formal event on the city’s arts
and social calendar. Production costs were under $500 and
tickets were $4.50-$15.00 Freedman, Hawthorne, and the
newly formed company followed their first smash success
with three more productions that ambitious first season:
the double bill of Cavalleria Rusticana and I
Pagliacci in December and Madama Butterfly in
March. A call to young audiences was offered through a
production of Hansel and Gretel, for which local
dancer and choreographer Bud Kerwin formed the Toledo Opera
Ballet Corps.
As a finale, the Toledo Opera Guild
was organized in June, with early opera proponent and supporter
Adelaide Morse as its first chairman. Although the newly
formed Toledo Opera Workshop quickly gained a permanent
place in the hearts and minds of Toledo area opera lovers,
Lester Freedman and his board found a major challenge in
establishing a home base for productions.
After its first season in the Paramount,
already a less-than-flattering venue for live opera, installation
of a huge Cinerama screen removed the historic hall from
consideration. The Workshop moved to the nearby Rivoli
Theater, less grand, shabbier, yet possessing more flattering
acoustics and workable sight lines than the Paramount.
Presenters and listeners alike found the new hall a big
improvement for productions of Carmen, The Merry
Widow, and La traviata, with guest performers
including Skitch Henderson, Eva Likova, Caloin Marsh, and
Anita Salta.
Toledo Times critic, Frederick J. Kountz,
wrote the first of what would become an ongoing request
from opera, symphony, and theater companies, as well as
critics: “The city needs a hall for the performing
arts.” That essential need would not be fulfilled
until four decades later, with the opening of the Valentine
Theatre in 1999.
In the interim, the Toledo Opera tried
out every major performance space in the city – moving
to the Toledo Museum of Art Peristyle and then to the Masonic
Auditorium (today, the Stranahan Theater). After dropping
the term, Workshop, from its name, officers of the new
Toledo Opera Association – Robert Nachazel, James
Rudolph, and Erwin Schuett – asked outgoing Mayor
Michael Damas for free use of a building for storage and
set construction. The next two seasons offered mainstream
favorites for eager audiences: Tosca, Barber of Seville,
and Rigoletto; then Lucia di Lammermoor, Faust, and La
bohème. In that second season, new Toledo Mayor
John Potter proclaimed Sept. 23-29 as Opera Week, and the
TO launched the Toledo Opera Club, to further education
and appreciation in the community. Ruth Lewandowski, Elizabeth
Zepf, Ellie Baker, and Susan Reams took the reins.
Freedman, more firmly at the helm, continued
casting Metropolitan Opera singers as soloists, then using
their renown to attract up-and-coming artists eager to
gain exposure. The Freedmans also developed a sister opera
company in Dayton, the better to utilize their artists
in two venues. Each town had chorus, orchestra, and community
support, but knowledge of the double billing would later
come as a big surprise to many in Toledo. “Opera
is not a musical form,” wrote Kountz in the Times. “It
is a theatrical form and singing is its medium.” Among
the major singers who performed on the Peristyle stage
in Toledo during the first decade were mezzo Blanche Thebom,
soprano Maria Ferriero, baritone Dominic Cossa, tenor Giovanni
Consiglio, tenor Thomas Hayward, and soprano Elinor Ross.
One relatively unknown young Spanish
tenor making his first U.S. tour in 1966 earned raves from
local critics for his performance of Cavaradossi in TOA
production of Tosca. Placido Domingo, then 23,
burst upon the local stage with his incredible singing,
and he still continues to do enchant the opera world. In
a Toledo Blade review of the January performance critic
Boris Nelson wrote: “In Placido Domingo, the role
of Cavaradossi exploded immediately with a vibrancy that
was sustained whenever he was on stage. Without him, the
first act would have collapsed…” Vincent La
Selva conducted that memorable performance, which Freedman
staged.
Continued...
Special Thanks to The Toledo Blade
for opening their archives to Toledo Opera for this retrospective |
