Despite COVID-19, Wichita Grand Opera plans live performances starting in October

It’s time for the fine arts in Wichita to emerge from its pandemic-forced hibernation, Alan Held says, and his Wichita Grand Opera company wants to lead the charge.

“It’s time we get live performances back in our lives,” said Held, who added the title of general director to his post of artistic director this summer. “I feel that there’s so much stress, there’s so much anxiety, there’s so much divisiveness going on in the country, the state and the city right now that we’ve got to start having some expression.”

The Wichita Grand Opera has announced its 2020-21 season with some coronavirus-related concessions but still with a slate of four performances.

Its Opera Gala will be two nights, Oct. 17-18, instead of one to accommodate audience restrictions and social distancing.

“We’ll have people spread out in the theater,” Held said. “We’ve got hand sanitizers and we’re following the rules and everything like this. But the numbers will be down enough that it will be safe to come out to the theater.”

The performers, singing favorites from the Grand Opera’s 18-year-history, will be accompanied by a pianist rather than an orchestra. Many of the performers have Wichita connections including the conductor, Whitney Reader, who has been based in Germany for the past 10 years.

“These are not just people who are out of college and looking for work. They have careers now,” Held said. “We’re really doing something that is Wichita-based, to show people the arts are alive and kicking. That’s the plan.”

The concert also will feature the winner of Wichita Grand Opera’s first “Talent of Tomorrow” vocal competition, open to Kansas and Oklahoma singers ages 13-18.

The “Kansas Christmas” concerts, Dec. 11-12, will be a “hodgepodge of a lot of fun things with local talent involved,” Held said. The performances also will tour to Kingman and McPherson.

Christine Goerke, whom Held calls “America’s greatest lyric soprano,” will perform Feb. 11. She has performed at The Metropolitan Opera, Vienna State Opera, Royal Opera Covent Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Houston Grand Opera, and nearly every other major important opera stage and concert venue in the world.

The season will conclude with “Don Giovanni,” March 4, 6 and 7, postponed from the 2019-2020 season.

Held also is director of the opera program at Wichita State University, and is counting on master classes with Goerke and casting WSU students in a young artist program as a way to bridge the two organizations.

“We’ve wanted to establish a relationship between WGO and WSU for a long time and now it’s finally happening,” he said. “We get to have the best of both worlds set up this way.”

A bass-baritone acclaimed worldwide, Held said he also has felt a financial sting from the cancellation and postponement of performances.

“I’ve lost a year or more worth of income at this point,” he said. “It’s horrible what’s happening. You also get organizations that get hit and crunched and not even able to perform.”

Held is now booking new dates into 2023 and is heartened to see many companies moving their shows from the current season into the next.

“There’s kind of a domino effect,” he said. “People have been on contracts for a long time and everything’s delayed a year. People have been waiting to perform and audience members have been waiting as well.”

He said he local audiences likely feel the same way.

“We want to at least let them perform and get their art going again and encourage them. People are saying we really need to get some music,” Held said. “The responsibility I have is to find a way to get people performing again. Otherwise, on the other side of this, there may no one creating or producing art.”

Held said he’s ready to adjust however he can so performers can perform and audience members can enjoy their work.

“It can’t be back to normal, it’s not possible. But it can be back to business. If there’s not, we’re going to be in an uglier place, and I don’t want that,” he said. “We’re going to find a way we can get out and make something beautiful.”

This story was originally published August 25, 2020 at 10:57 AM.