Ottawa’s Opera Lyra shut its doors in October after 30 years of operations due to low ticket sales and a reduction in funding.
“It is with deep regret that we have decided to cease operations, effective today. There will be an immediate shutdown of the current performance season, the 31st in the company’s history,” the board’s press release said.
A decrease in donations, sponsorships and government grants were other reasons listed for the financial shortage.
“Our core problem is that revenues have not grown to cover the costs of presenting high quality opera on the stage of the National Arts Centre.”
“There are challenges in all revenue areas, including: major shortfalls in commercial sponsorships, modest shortfalls in private philanthropy, reductions in funding from the federal and provincial governments and, recently, weaker ticket sales.”
The statement explained that opera is an expensive art form and smaller audiences meant revenues could not cover costs.
“Opera is an expensive musical genre. It combines orchestral music, vocal performance, and dramatic staging with sets, lighting and costume.”
Jonathan Estabrooks, a Canadian baritone said joining the Opera Lyra Ottawa Boys’ Choir at seven was his first experience with classical music.
Estabrooks made his mainstage opera debut in Opera Lyra’s 2011 production of Pagliacci.
“It’s really unfortunate because for somebody who spent so many years a part of that company and a part of the classical scene in Ottawa, to have our national capital not have a classical music opera representative of that scale and scope is unfortunate.”
Diana Gilchrist founded Opera Lyra in 1984 after the National Arts Centre’s summer opera productions shut down. The company held productions at the National Arts Centre starting in 1986 with The Barber of Seville – the same production Opera Lyra happened to be putting on this season before they closed.
The company has experienced financial difficulties before. In 1996, the company staged several productions that were not well attended. In 2011, the company had to cancel their last two performances of the season due to financial difficulties.
Estabrooks describes opera as a “tour de force” for spectators and performers alike.
“I certainly hope that they can find a way to rejuvenate it either in a new form or in its original form.”
The Ottawa Symphony Orchestra has also experienced low ticket sales, according to Martha Hynna, president of the OSO board.
“This year we’ve gone from five concerts to four concerts,” she says.
Hynna says she hopes Opera Lyra’s closure will be a “heads-up” to funders.
“I think there’s a tendency to look at new programs and new projects, but it’s important to also fund the ones that have been around for a while or we risk losing them,” she says.
Jacynthe Fugère Bourdages, a music teacher at Béatrice-Desloges Catholic High School, says she used to bring her students to see daytime opera shows at the National Arts Centre.
“They used to have a student show,” she says. “They stopped having that a couple of years ago.”
Fugère Bourdages added that the company would send them classroom activities to do before the show.
“As a teacher you always think about opportunities for your students. It’s also sad for our students that we can’t bring them there anymore.”
Students would often change their mind about opera after having seen it for the first time, she added.
“On the way back they would talk about it and they would be excited about it.”
Ottawa’s opera company is not the only one struggling to make ends meet.
Estabrooks mentioned New York City Opera’s closure in 2013. The company filed for bankruptcy at that time, according to the NYCO website.
“I don’t think that opera anywhere will ever be fully self-funding like Broadway is,” Estabrooks says.
Estabrooks says he thinks opera is valuable to the community.
“One has to look at the benefits beyond numbers, because I think there’s an educational benefit that you can’t quantify.”
Estabrooks says he thinks part of the challenge is breaking the opera stereotype.
“It’s not just about rich men and their wives in tuxedos,” he says. “You can go to the opera in jeans!”
Opera Lyra’s statement says the company might re-emerge in the future by exploring “lower cost models” and “wider partnerships.”