Good to Know Shreveport Opera

Paul Reiser and Jeff Beimfohr discuss the latest with the Shreveport Opera with Steve Aiken and Jennifer McMenamin.

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KTBS Podcasting and the Committee of 100 present Good to Know Shreveport-Bossier, a podcast series showcasing the good things happening in our area. We’ll go in-depth about economic development, community growth and other topics about initiatives that are having a positive impact in our community. We’ll have new episodes every other Wednesday. You can find the KTBS Good to Know podcast wherever you listen to podcasting. Or go to KTBS.com or KTBS Now on your streaming device to see the full interview.

Hello again, everybody.

Welcome to Good to no Shreveport here.

This is a podcast which showcases
all the good things happening in

and around our community.

My name is Jeff, my four
over here to my right, this is my co-host,

Paul Reiser, a local businessman, member
of the Committee of 100 and a past

friar of Fry, Friar of Friar of Potato
Friar.

Whatever you get there it Sonic, right?

That's right.
Sonic Car is one of those things.

Every podcast

we focus on the topics and initiatives
having a positive impact on our community.

We have new episodes available
every other Wednesday

and you can find good to know
wherever you listen to your podcast.

So as usual, the honors to introduce
today's spectacular guests belong to Mr.

Reeser. Thank you, Jeff.

Hey, you know,
my family made our money in oil.

You didn't know we made our money in oil.

That's the oil that you French
fry all worked out.

All right.

Well, thanks for the introduction,
and thanks for the honor of introducing

our guests today, because, as usual,
it's a good one.

I had no doubt.

So, you know, it's interesting to me
because today the topic

that you and I necessarily
aren't totally familiar with, you know,

Shreveport, you're not the biggest
metropolitan area in the country.

So it's surprising to a lot of people
that we have our own opera house.

Well, I think that's a good thing.

It's it is. It's remarkable.

And it's been around is one of the oldest
that's been around since 1949.

And some of the greatest

stars, opera stars
nationally and internationally

come right through Shreveport.
Seriously? I didn't know that.

We're going to learn a lot today, Jeff.

So I'm excited to meet the boys
that are here today for the Opera House.

It is Steve Aiken,
the general and artistic

director, and Jennifer McMenamin,
the executive director.

Thank you all for coming today
and happy to be here.

Absolutely. A lot of enlightening, Jeff
and I need.

Oh, okay.

I know nothing about opera.

Well, I like listening to it sometimes.

Okay.

Didn't introduce us as the opera company.

We're happy.
That's a whole different thing.

The Aubrey.

Yeah. Or the opera?

Yeah, it's
the Grand Ole Opry in three years.

So you guys just start with telling us all

about the Shreveport Opera House
and why it's a big deal.

Well, the opera company
and I want to make sure that that's clear.

The opera,
the opera House is something different,

that we really don't have an opera house,
but we have an opera company

that's been out here
for seven years. We're learning to

stretch out

of we have been here for 75 years.

It is

it's we're one of the oldest
opera companies in the country. Yes.

Yes, we are.

And that also the fact that

I think one of the big kickers that helped
the company

get started was it was a combination
of the opera and the symphony.

And so many people don't even know
that we are separate

organizations, the symphony orchestra
and the Shreveport Opera.

We both are celebrating 75 years,
but we're both separate organizations, so

we're the biggest employer of the symphony
because we hire them to play in.

Our operas are also one of the reasons
I think, that it's stuck here.

So the Metropolitan Opera used to come
through Shreveport and the major

world

renowned singers would all perform here.

So you're talking about the New York
Metropolitan? Yes.

And and so
in the day that they were touring,

everyone in the arts here
remembers Dalton, Harrison and Dalton

would have all of these famous singers
come here

and come to his house and,

you know, he'd make friends
with all of them.

In fact, within the last 15 years, there's

a really world
famous baritone named Cheryl Milnes.

He sang at the Met for about 35 years,
happens to be a friend.

And when he he found out I was here,

the first thing he said was, hey, how is
how is Dalton Harrison doing?

Please tell him I.

I thought, Wow,
everybody knows all Dalton.

Yeah, that's pretty great.

It's interesting to me because you're
Steve, you're the artistic one.

You're singer, you're an opera
singer yourself from New York.

You used to be, you know,
I used to be in Denver.

You're the business side.

You're the fundraising side
and planning the business.

So it'd be interesting

to get both sides of your ideas
of why it's been so successful here,

and also that you bring in people

from all over the country
that live here for a year.

The kind of the main cast member is some
someone that's a up and coming talent.

Is that how does that work?

Yeah, that's a great thing.
I think that we do

and is what has made our program
so popular among young artists.

That's the program that you're
talking about is Shreveport Opera Express

or the Socks program.

I see socks all over.

I guess what that was.

Yeah, this program, right.

So X is what it is.

Yeah.

Well, it's a program for kind of young.

Young.

When I say young,
I mean mid twenties to early thirties.

That's young for sure.
You're an opera singer.

Yeah, absolutely young when you're
starting out trying to be an opera singer.

And Steve does all the the auditions
and he can certainly enlighten us

to that process,
which is fascinating in itself.

But they come here
and they spend a school year here.

They sing for schoolchildren,
they sing at nursing homes,

they sing at private parties and events.

We do dinner parties, things
like that, fundraisers.

But the you know, we sing close
to 200 times a year to 25,000 students.

So that's amazing.

But if you're trying to become an

opera singer or a famous opera singer,
you kind of get tired of dressing up

like a lion or an elephant
and singing to a third graders.

So one of the real hallmarks
of our program to attract

some of this great talent is that Steve
decided, what, maybe ten years ago,

that if he offered these resident artist

starring roles in our productions
what we call, you know, principals

in our mainstage, that he would be able
to really attract some high level talent.

And he has been.

So these young artists come here
and they are not just

expected to bolster the chorus
or sing a supporting role,

but they're giving a given opportunities
to sing Carmen in Carmen

and even Fat Cats.

Yeah, So I tried to drop one in that
you might recognize

the job
and I have to say those things in the biz.

When I was a singer,

I was an apprentice in, in Miami
the very first year

that they had
an apprentice program in 1984.

And most of the residents

bolstered the chorus and
that was their job to bolster the chorus.

And now that I'm in the position
of using these resident artists

in a positive way with our community
and the company,

it just makes more sense

to give them real opportunities on stage

because you don't learn your craft, right,
Just like in every other business.

Well, obviously
it's like an athlete, right?

That's right.

You you learn your craft
by doing your craft and

and that means not in a studio or not in a
in a classroom, but up on stage.

And that's how you hone your skills.

The more reps you get, the better.

That's that's exactly it.

That's exactly it.

And that's the artistic answer for sure.

The business answer to that is,
is it allows us to save some money

on our productions by utilizing the talent
that we already have in-house

instead of having
to basically contract out that job.

So that's amounted to significant savings
to the opera company over the years

that's been in place.
It's a win win for everybody.

The residents that come
in really get an opportunity

and it's I do everything I can
to have them

bolster our chorus
and and it's a good idea.

It's it really works. It really works.

And our other goal is to really move them

forward
out of Shreveport into a bigger company.

I mean, we're really proud of the luck
that we've had over the years

to have our residents go from here

to Santa Fe or San Francisco or Chicago.

We had a pianist go right from here

to the Metropolitan Opera
where he became their pianist.

Yeah, we have singers that now
sing at the Metropolitan Opera

and they may be small roles,
but it's it's really

that's going to be a source of pride
for our young.

Absolutely.

In fact,

we were telling Paul earlier

that one of our residents
or I can't remember if I told you or but

our resident that we had two years ago

when we had her here for two years,
she did two seasons with us.

She went on to win.

Last year,
the big Metropolitan Opera competition

won first prize in that wow in New York,
no serious matter.

Nino, what's her name?

She's with Los Angeles Opera right
now. Nice.

So, you know, that makes us sort of
make sure I understand this.

Forgive me and bring it back to this.

I will not.

Go ahead. I don't wish to be offensive.

Yeah, but I'm kind of acquired in this,
the kind of the mud bugs

and that we bring in really young,
great talent.

Fair analogy.

And they are looking to go on
to major colleges and go on to the pros.

So the people we see
now are actually really up and comers.

So and they come in as residents,
we recruit from all over the country.

So when you say resident,
you mean you're bringing in someone from.

So I understand the one that's here
now is from from Las Vegas.

We have we have four four.

So you bring in these and you call them
residents, but they're from out of state.

You're bringing them
and they live here for a year. Right.

So can you explain that
how that works? Yes.

So the whole process is,
for instance, in December,

I went to New York and auditioned singers.

We line up the

process of of having them apply
well in advance.

We had about 300 singers apply.

Wow. I only have enough time
to hear about 200 of them.

So 100 of them.

I listen to every one of the 300 singers
first on tape.

Yeah.

And then we narrow that down to 200

where I assign them times In New York,
we get a space where we can hear them

and we hear them every 10 minutes for four
or five days.

Well, you're kind of competing, though,
with other opera houses, right?

Yes, absolutely. Yes.

Yes. In fact,
when we were there, a company

that we're very friendly
with, Nashville Opera was in a room

downstairs, one floor
down, doing the exact same thing.

And if we heard someone we really loved,
we would also send them down to them,

too, because, you know, this is a
this is a small world, the opera world.

And so if you like television.
Yeah, exactly.

If you if you have someone
that you really, really love,

you want them to be employed, whether it's
going to be with you or someone else.

So we listen to all of them

and we

we then I come home with the resume
and we,

I go through them and try to figure out
who I want to offer a gig to.

And usually the first

or second person you offered the job
to will take it some years.

It's harder than that because other opera
companies have offered them a job.

Yeah, well,
that's what I was going to ask you.

When you get down to like two or three.
Yeah.

And you're competing for the same talent,

how do you determine who wins?

Well, you know something?

I think our main stage roles.

Yeah, some folks will make a difference.

And the fact that we're able to offer
our program is a school year long.

So we're and we provide a house.

The beautiful home in South Highlands.

They get a vehicle to drive.

We have a lot of perks.

We also have a church job
that they can take advantage of

with our spouses,
just like college recruiting.

Yes, it is.

And I think the fact
that we've got such a great program

that Steve has has done through the offer
in the main stage roles,

The Beautiful Home,
and that's thanks to our donors.

And in our board and

as well as just having a yearlong program
where you're not having to figure out

all of your jobs in three week
increments has really makes a difference.

That's that's really those are all
very unique things to our program.

You know, the pay is is low.

The pay works out to be about what the pay
is for most regional opera companies.

We don't pay them a lot of money, but we
pay them what we can afford, which for us

we pay them $350 a week.

The church job pays
between 100 and $150 a week,

but all of their housing
is completely taken care of.

All the utilities, we give them wireless

we have, they have a gym pass
where they can have a gym membership.

And we in the early years,
I was really concerned about the fee

because I thought
we're just not paying enough.

But then when I checked around the country
to see what other companies

do, we do really perfectly fine.

In fact,

a number of our our resident artists,
the Sox artists, have gone on to Santa Fe.

The Santa Fe is a $38 million

summer festival for producing opera.

That company hires about 20

apprentices, 20 young artists

when they do their season, and they

all make $750 a week.

Did I say a month that we paid them 300?

Oh, we did say okay, a week.

So they pay 7 to 7 something
plus a gym pass.

Yeah.

And a really and a nicer house
than what I live in.

So there you go.

That's nice.

Yeah,
but you're paying them with opportunity.

Yeah. Yeah.

They also have an opportunity. Yeah.

For instance, when I was a resident artist
in Miami, we got $90 a week,

so you know, it's up a little bit.

Are you also giving them a coaching
opportunity or.

Yes, absolutely. Or is that so?

My wife is a voice teacher
and and a former opera singer like myself.

And so once a week they can coach with her
and run through repertoire

that they're working on.

And she'll just be in here
to help them through that.

And and that of course,
is at no cost to them

where if they were in New York,
they'd be paying anywhere from

60 to $200 an hour for that new thing.

They're working with us.

So we also bring in some other voice
coaches and.

Right.

And and even people
that are just currently opera performers

that just have experience in the biz
so that these young artists

have an opportunity to learn from them,
ask them questions, get feedback on

acting, on singing or diction, all of it.

I'm interested in the age thing.

As you mentioned

a little while ago, about 20 to 30 years
young for an opera singer.

Yeah.

Does it take a certain amount of years
to get to the point where you can develop,

develop and do?

Is it can?

And yes, generally it does. And women,

they mature vocally sooner than men.

And so their careers oftentimes
start sooner and end.

You know, at an earlier age,
men start a little later with their voice

maturing a little later
and can sing usually later.

In fact, we just had

a man by the name of Greer Grimsley,
who is probably

the world's leading baritone
as far as doing voluntary work.

Now, most people that have seen Bugs
Bunny in the horns and the spear,

yeah,
that's usually a funny take on Bogner

and the ring cycle,
which is a for opera production.

It takes four nights to do
and each opera is on average

four and a half to five and a half hours
long.

Well, and this guy that came to Shreveport
just happens to be my buddy

from back in the eighties.

But he has become one of the world
renowned Wagnerian bass baritone.

Well, nice.

He came to Shreveport

and they come usually every year
to do Master classes with our singers. But

he came in saying, If not, you're with us
in September to celebrate the 75th.

We then saw him in New York in December
when we were there doing auditions.

Have you opened up the program at the Met?

And the second line said
that he had just sung

in Shreveport, Louisiana
for our Diamond Jubilee concert.

My Yes, great. PR Yeah.

So the 75 years you're talking about.

So what are we doing for the 75th?

I say we we just did that.

We just did this big concert with
the symphony where we celebrated 75 years.

We did it up the Strand.

It was a really incredible concert, bringi

It was great because we celebrated
the symphony.

They were on stage and not in the pit.

We got to do it at the Strand
and everyone loves the Strand.

It's so beautiful.
Is that where you normally do your shows?

No, no.

Every so often, every so often
we that the strand,

we we go to Riverview

because the city has been very, very,
very generous,

generous to the arts organizations
that need to use the Strand.

And so both the symphony
and the opera have benefited from their

their generosity.

So it makes it, again, from the business
standpoint, yeah,

it's just a much better place
for us to go.

I'm interested
in, from just the singing standpoint,

how hard is opera on the vocal cords?

Well,
if you know how to sing, it's not so hard.

Well,
for instance, there's a reason I don't.

I have one functioning vocal cord.

Could I be an opera singer?

Yeah.

Had a virus that destroyed the nerves
that control Once you.

You could probably not be an opera.

So I figured.

Yeah, I'm actually interested in.

That's only one side. Yeah, it was weird.

I was back in and before I got into news,
I was the sports guy and, yeah,

woke up one day

and I had a call to basketball games
that day and I got through them.

But for the next week or so, I mean,

I was trying to do the sports on the news
and it was terrible.

And this voice coach called me
and said, Man, you sound awful.

Come see me. I did.

And then she sent me to an anti guy,
did the camera down the nose thing,

and the first words out of his mouth were,
there's that TV station you work for.

Have a good disability program.

And I'm like, Wow, what?

And I was out of I, I was done.

I couldn't for the next I could believe
that because your voice sounds great.

Yeah, it does.

Now I went to three two years, I think,

and did

all kinds of therapy and stuff
and none of it worked.

And I wound up having a surgery up
at the Mayo Clinic,

and I woke up on the table,
recovery table, and I could talk.

And in fact,
my voice was like a half an octave lower.

I think. Wow.

And so anytime somebody has vocal problems
or they use their voice

a lot, I'm interested in how.

Yeah, how it affects them. So, yeah,
I'm interested.

It's it's a you know, people

we sometimes have to chat
with our young artists because they feel

tired after some rehearsals and well,
yeah, it's a, it's a workout.

Like you talked about going to the gym.

Well, these are muscles

and you have to get them to function
so that you can sing a three hour opera.

The average traditional opera is about 3
hours long with an intermission,

and you have to know how to sing
and pace yourself.

When I was studying,
my teacher would would say, Look, you just

you've only got a dollar to spend
for the whole opera and you just spent

$0.90 on the on the one song you sing,
but you've got 2 hours to go.

Yeah. So you had to learn
how to, how to pace yourself.

And that's another good thing
that this program does.

These kids going out every day to schools

and performing a little 30 minute opera
that we write in the house.

And I have some composer friends
that composes them, but they go out

and like this year they're doing one about
anti-bullying called Stop Bully.

They are also doing
one called Leo the Lion Lion

about lying and cheating and lies.

And so they go into the schools
with these messages

and they sing for 30 minutes
in English, in English.

And they may not Italian,
they may not ever

even realize
our young artists may not realize how much

they're actually

learning until a few years down the road
when when I mean,

one of our one of our singers
has now been on

America's Got Talent. Oh, yeah, Yeah.

Oh, really? Yeah.

They had some thing
where the singers would sing,

but the judges pictures were up on stage
looking like they were actually sound.

Okay. And that was this gig.

But one of them was our
our former resident artist, John Riser.

Nice.

And John called me after he'd been gone
for about a year and he just said,

Man, I didn't realize it while I was doing
all of that outreach into those schools,

singing at eight in the morning
and nine in the morning, day in, day out.

How much that taught me
about being a performer.

Like,
I can assure perform on the spot now.

It's 7:30 a.m.. Yeah.

You know,

Jennifer, talk us through

about the business side of this thing
and what it takes to put on a show

and how you attract the audience
and how the other shows are received.

Oh, good questions.

As far as attracting
is not just a pretty vocal

voice, but

the marketing is always a challenge.

So thank you for inviting us on a show
like this.

I always say that the people that you know

are tapped into the arts community
or in the schools.

Those folks do know about us
and we do have that attitude.

A little bit of, you know,

if you're looking for something to do,
you'll find the opera company eventually.

So we do have to be kind of careful
with our very limited marketing budget

in terms of just we don't have
the capability to blanket the town

with billboards and newspaper
ads and Facebook ads and things like that.

But we try to target it as best we can
to let folks know and really,

I think the past few years

we've been trying to invest
in the audience that we do have a lot to,

you know,

get them to come and bring friends and
kind of do the word of mouth a little bit.

They are to get even deeper relationships
with the people we have.

You know, everybody wants the younger
audience, millennials.

And and

it's not that we don't want them.

We absolutely do.

Yeah, sure.

But admittedly, you know, it's the market.

You know, the marketing is a challenge.

So, you know, in an effort to do
that, we've tried to do some shorter

English only operas that we do.

We've been doing them
at the Catholic Center lately,

so we do it in a small venue.

The whole run time is usually not longer

than 90 minutes,
so that it's kind of quick.

It's a, you know, just general admission
ticket price, flat

rate, 25 or 30, 25 to $35.

And they come in,
they get exposed to opera.

It's in English.

It's you know, it's it's kind of it's
important, easy to understand.

Yeah, yeah. English.

You know, the fact that we sing in a
foreign language frightens folks for sure.

The idea that opera is going to be long,
that it's going to be boring,

You know, And it's none of those
things, honestly, operas,

violent and

how boring.

Anything but but it's just so funny to me
that, you know, people

have this stereotype of opera being boring

and we try really hard to introduce people
in small ways to opera.

And I think one of the ways

that we've been doing it through the Socks
program is, you know,

starting with

some of these kids in school, you know,
and then when they're 25 years old

and they're looking for
just something cool

to do on a Friday night,
you know, date night or something.

And we've got a production coming up.

They're kind of like, hey, you know,

I remember seeing them in school
and it was kind of fun.

Let's go and set a ticket price.
They can afford it.

So hopefully we're kind of doing something
opera for all ages and, you know,

bringing them along with us.

You're fighting the perception
that it's kind of highbrow.

Oh, yeah.

That's always been there,
you know, It's always been there.

I always talk to folks when I'm doing
an outreach, talk to to adults and kids.

I grew up in Anchorage, Alaska.

Again, not the Mecca of.

I wouldn't think so.

And and we didn't grow up with with opera.

We didn't grow up with with I mean,
we had music, but we didn't grow up with

I didn't take a voice lesson
until I was in college.

You know, I didn't know about opera
until I was in one.

I had never been to one
until I was actually in one.

So I think if

for me,

getting people in the door
is the most important part of it

and not getting him in the door like we
if you are not in our database

and you want to attend the opera
and give us a call,

we'll give you your first two tickets
because we want you to come in

and we're not going to put you
in the last row at the top of the balcony.

We're going to give you decently
so that you have a really good

experience.

A good experience, Yes.

First one's free, Jeff.

I see. Yeah, that's right.

They their thing is it's
just like a movie.

Every one of us have gone to movies
that we hated,

but it didn't keep us from going back
back to another one.

True, But people will go to the opera
and say, I hated it.

It was awful.

But maybe they went to a really horrible
opera.

Yeah,
I mean, I've got operas that I hate it.

Operas, you know, So I don't know.

Name one that you hate. Come on.
All right.

I did a world premiere piece
about Patty Hearst called

Tonya, and it was horrible.

It was just going back a ways.

Yeah, it was horrible.

I have never heard of it for a reason.

It was awful.

So, Steve,
I went to your LinkedIn page. Yes.

And your about me
section said that you are you really want

to make people understand that opera is
not really what they think it's about.

And you're really,

really excited about educating kids
about the importance of arts. Yes.

So talk a little bit about that.

Well, you know,
I think that that in the US

we are not brought up understanding
classical music at all.

We're not
we're not brought up to understand opera.

We're not brought up to understand
the symphony.

And the symphony innately
is always going to be easier to understand

because you go
in, you listen to beautiful music,

and you don't have to know the history
or anything else, and you could just sit

and enjoy.

There's less of an expectation
or on the audience member Right.

And in the opera, as I've learned,
because again, when I got into this,

I knew nothing about it, nothing.

And I felt like,
where did you get into it?

And so I was a college student
in Anchorage.

Okay.

They were doing a little opera in English,
called them all in the night Visitors.

It's it's a Christmas opera.

And I was in the chorus

and the baritone lead in that got sick
and my professor

was running the opera company
that ran the music department.

And she called me up and we were two weeks

before this show was going to open
and said, I think you can learn this.

I was 18 years old,
so I think you can learn this and do it.

And and I thought, Man, I'm
singing with the big boys of Anchorage.

And I did it.

And I didn't even realize it was an opera.

I thought it was musical theater.

And she said, Kind of is yeah,
it was English, it was music.

And and that's that's
where it kind of clicked for me.

I thought,

Wow, this is really no different
than any other musical theater piece.

Hey, we're down to our final 90 seconds
for both of you.

Who would what final message
would you like to leave to folks?

I think, you know, call us up
and don't be afraid of the opera.

Yeah, that's
really obvious for it's for everybody.

It is. It's for everybody.

And we're a lot of fun. Yeah.

And if a person wants to try an opera,
try it out.

And where do we start going to Shreveport
Opera dot org

or call us to 279503.

Yeah. We'll take care of you.

Call ahead, you'll give it to her
say the number again 2279503.

All right and after your question
I a call that I think I saw somewhere

where you said call ahead.

We'll give you a tour
any time you have a small crew.

But if we'll make it after the show, after
the show, we can bring you backstage.

Oh, absolutely.

We're
that are all the singers normally pretty

happy to talk to the.

Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

It's a nice it's a really nice
and approachable group of folks.

They're nice.

Even the ones we bring in from
out of town,

just for a big opera,
they're they're always nice.

I mean, they're regular.
I don't want to begin.

I don't want to bring in a bunch of people
we don't know around him.

That's right. That's right. Yeah.

What? Great. Yeah. I'm sorry.

Yeah,
there's definitely a color people don't.

I hate them all.

So we learned a lot of that.

Yeah. Okay.

Thank you.

All right, listen, thank you, guys.

We really appreciate you being with us.

Thank you.

And first, you tickets are free, right?

Absolutely.
First time tickets. We'll get you hooked.

All right.

The Shreveport Opera House think we've
all learned a lot today, haven't you?

I have.

All right.

Well, I know I have,

because I knew nothing to begin with,
so I couldn't fail to learn something.

All right.

That's going to do it

for this edition of Shreveport
Bowl of Good to Know Shreveport voters.

Appreciate you being with us.

You can find this podcast
wherever you listen to your podcast.

Have a good one, everybody.