50 years of opera
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La bohème. And for his remarkable
work, Mark Junkert, Opera Idaho
General Director, was presented the
Governor’s Award for Excellence in Arts
Administration.
Then everything stopped. COVID stalked
the streets. Many arts programs ceased
operations or folded. Opera Idaho did
not. Small concerts and recitals for
masked audiences seated in carefully
spaced chairs gave local, loyal opera
goers hope. The joy and beauty of the
performances would return; COVID
would eventually be banished. In the
meantime, some Christmas caroling
and a few fundraisers took place, but
the mainstage theater doors remained
closed.
Then, eighteen months after it began,
the world emerged from isolation.
Theater doors were flung open, and the
2021-2022 Opera Idaho season began
with Cecilia Violetta López performing in
a recital followed by a lilting and lovely
production of The Merry Widow. An
elite choral ensemble, Critical Mass Vocal
Artists, which incorporated into the
Opera Idaho fold back in 2018, reached
new audiences, and the company’s
Operatinis now included vocalists from
the Emerging Artists program.
Opera Idaho and the Boise
Contemporary Theater collaborated to
produce All is Calm: The Christmas Truce
of 1914. This non-traditional production,
based on a true story, focused on a
twenty-four-hour truce that began with
a soldier’s rendition of “Silent Night.”
Then in January, Carmen returned to the
stage. The last show of the season, Dead
Man Walking, took place in the beautiful
Egyptian Theatre, but took the audience
all the way to death row.
It has now been fifty years since
Opera Idaho’s first notes were sung.
Through the years of its fifth decade,
the company clearly matured, grew
polished, and remained vibrant. Its
educational program has reached
thousands of children, and audiences
have expanded. Summer programs
like Opera in the Park and musicals
performed in concert have added
spice and zest to city summers. Boise
has enjoyed fifty years of gorgeous
voices, remarkable performances,
and educational successes. Fifty years
of growth and progress. Change is
inevitable. General Director Mark
Junkert has retired, and another
will take his place. There will be
other new faces, new voices, new
directions, new collaborations, and
new innovations. And the music will
continue as Opera Idaho steps into its
next half century.
Tosca, 2017
L’elisir d’amore, 2017
The Winterreise Project, 2018
A Streetcar Named Desire, 2018
Aïda, 2019
La bohème, 2020
Opera in The Park, 2021
All Is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914, 2022
Rusalka, 2023
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