After operating for 12 years in the Rogue Valley, we at Brava! Opera have decided to close our doors effective immediately. Because of our co-founder and Artistic Director Willene Gunn's recent passing and our co-founder and General Director Lorrie Hall's move away from the Rogue Valley, the board has voted to dissolve Brava! Opera. Willene and Lorrie founded Brava! Opera Theater and James M. Collier Young Artist Program in 2010 with the support of our benefactor and Season Sponsor James M. Collier.

 

When we founded Brava! Opera, Opera America said that it takes a population of one million to support an opera company. With a population of approximately 220,000 in the Rogue Valley area, Brava! Opera was able to flourish and endure due to our major benefactor, Mr. Collier, and his consistent and steadfast generosity. With his support, we were able to create a vibrant and successful opera company with an excellent national reputation in a small community. That is a very rare thing in America and would not have happened without him. We also must credit Lorrie Hall who has been a full-time volunteer executive director, producer, and grant writer and Willene Gunn who volunteered as Board Vice President and in many other ways since Brava! Opera’s beginnings.

 

It took a village to sustain Brava! Opera, and we could not have succeeded without our incredible board of directors and the additional support of the Carpenter Foundation, the City of Ashland Cultural Grants, Trust Management Services Foundation, Oregon Community Foundation, the Neuman Hotel Group, Fox 26 KMVU-Alan Balzer, SOU Music Department, San Francisco Opera Center, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and our countless volunteers, local donors, and our amazing In Kind Donors and sponsors who gifted singer housing, car rentals, hotel stays, rehearsal and performance space, discount printing and graphic design, commercial creation, TV advertising, and so much more. Thank you also to our former development directors Elaine Plaisance and Mary Witt and our conductors Martin Majkut and Laurie Anne Hunter, as well as Rogue Valley musicians, our incredible production teams, and non-profit advisor Dee-Anne Everson.

 

Brava! Opera has accomplished so much since 2010. These are some of the highlights: 

 

• 10 Opera Workshop/Master Classes with Concerts that trained a total of 112 singers including a Deborah Voigt master class with concert (and a local NPR interview)     

• Presented nine operas: The Telephone, Old Maid and the Thief, Turn of the Screw, Impresario, Breasts of Tirésias, Orpheus and Eurydice, Don Pasquale, Abduction from the Seraglio and Hansel and Gretel

• Presented Portland Opera's ToGo La bohème      

• Held 10 National Vocal Competitions with 975 singers from across the USA with $90,000 in prizes

• Presented six Vocal Competition Winner’s Concerts at SOU Recital Hall  

• Presented numerous outreach concerts at the Rogue Valley Manor and throughout the Rogue Valley 

• Presented three San Francisco Opera Adler Fellows Grand Opera Concerts at SOU Recital Hall   

• Collaborated twice with the Youth Symphony of Southern Oregon with Brava! Opera singers singing in their spring concert     

• Many of our opera production singers and vocal competition winners are now singing at the Metropolitan Opera in NYC and other top opera houses around the world including Ariana Wehr, Lindsay Ohse, AJ Glueckert, Jamez McCorkle, Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen, Kyle Van Schoonhoven and Nicholas Brownlee to name a few.

 

Our nine operas and opera workshops will remain on YouTube if you want to revisit those wonderful productions.

 

Again, we thank everyone who has supported Brava! Opera over the past 12 years for helping us bring opera to the Rogue Valley, train the complete singer/actor, recognize and showcase young operatic talent, and present high-quality concerts and professional operas. We will be donating our remaining monies to a Rogue Valley vocal focused non-profit.

 

Sincerely,

Brava! Opera Board of Directors

General Director/President Lorrie Hall

Treasurer Ellie Holt-Murray

Secretary Alan Balzer

Members Lauren Cypher and Dr. Michael Hall