Wichita has a history of great opera singers. Nine will perform this weekend.

Besides being acclaimed vocalists, there’s a common thread among all of the performers in this weekend’s Wichita Grand Opera Gala.

They all have Kansas connections.

“Every single stinkin’ one of them,” Alan Held, general and artistic director of the company, said with a laugh. “Every one of them is either from here or studied here.”

There will be two performances this weekend to make up for the crowd limitations caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The theater at the Wichita Center for the Performing Arts, which normally seats 500, will fit 130-140 people with social distancing. The ticket reservation system will build in space between parties, he said.

Audience members will be required to wear masks throughout the performance. The singers will be further upstage than usual, Held said, to accommodate distancing.

Titled “Opera’s Greatest Hits,” the concert features the works of Rossini, Bernstein, Dvorak, Wagner, Rossini, Bizet, Verdi, Handel, Berlioz, Puccini and Tchaikovsky, among others.

It will conclude with “Make Our Garden Grow,” a scene from Leonard Bernstein’s “Candide,” featuring all of the performers.

The vocalists are Cole Bellamy, Alex DeSocio, Marie Engle, Ethan Manlove, Aaren Rivard, Rachel Shukan, Aaron Stepanek and Sable Strout.

Also featured will be Caitlin Chisham and Noah Sickman, who placed first and second in the company’s “Talent of Tomorrow” youth vocal competition for singers 13-18 years old. Chisham, a soprano, is a senior at Derby High School, and Sickman, a tenor, is a sophomore at Andover Central.

Held, a globally acclaimed opera bass-baritone, will be featured in two songs.

Each of the adult singers, Held said, already has lengthy resumes with large companies in worldwide locales.

“Kansas, Wichita has always had a history of producing such great solo opera singers,” said Held, who received his master’s degree from Wichita State, where he now chairs the opera program. “It’s not just Sam (Ramey) and Joyce DiDonato and myself.”

The gala, he said, is a showcase of that homegrown talent.

“We have all these singers all over the place and we need to encourage this, especially right now when there is so little music being done,” Held said. “I thought we needed a place where we could have Kansans come back and sing on stage. And it’s a great opportunity for them. I want to encourage our students who come out of Wichita State University, come out of Friends, wherever, but are Kansans at heart.”

It also breaks the stereotype, he said, that rural areas don’t produce such vocal talent.

“People think opera is a New York thing or a European thing or whatever,” he said. “The number of singers per capita that come out of Wichita, that come out of Kansas, is pretty extraordinary. We hold our own with any other area per capita, I’m sure of it.”

Wichita Grand Opera Gala

When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 17 and 3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 18

Where: Wichita Center for the Performing Arts, 9112 E. Central

Tickets: $25-$45, from wichitagrandopera.org or 316-262-8054

This story was originally published October 14, 2020 at 11:05 AM.