But people have their own rich cultures no one needs opera to be ‘cultured.’ ‘Engagement’ sounds like ‘I want you to be engaged in what I am doing.’ There’s no reciprocity.” “Civic practice,” by contrast, denotes work in progress, with collaborative relationships that strengthen over time. For Marc Scorca, president/CEO of OPERA America, the word “outreach” implies that other people “live in deserts that need to be filled with opera. The terminology has changed to reflect that shift, with “civic practice” as a more representative and less patronizing heading for the work. In this formulation, the opera company is about much more than putting on performances. They are not about marketing or audience development for opera performances, but about demonstrating the company’s commitment to being a good community citizen. These initiatives operate in partnership with community groups, offering the resources of the opera company for projects that further the goals of those groups.
In recent years, however, projects like Omaha’s Holland Community Opera Fellowship have been launched with a different objective. Later, the field expanded its ventures outside the opera house under the rubric of “outreach” or “community engagement,” while still positioning such efforts as ancillary to mainstage productions .
In 1970, the year of OPERA America’s founding, opera companies’ connections to their communities consisted mostly of school education programs.
0 kommentar(er)
