Published in the February 2019 issue of Nob Hill Gazette: On the Peninsula.

The Opera San José experience begins the moment the audience enters the California Theatre. This once-abandoned vaudeville and movie house was renovated in 2001 through a collaboration between the City of San Jose and the Packard Humanities Institute.

“You walk into the beautiful lobby and every detail takes you back to this moment in time when people enjoyed this art deco space, from the gorgeous marquee on the outside to the hand-painted sunburst over the proscenium. It’s a real landmark in the Bay Area,” says Opera San José’s Artistic Planning Director Khori Dastoor.

The 1,100-seat theater has only 20 rows in the orchestra section, five in the grand tier and six in the mezzanine, making it similar in size to a traditional European regional theater, “which to me is the way Mozart intended, the way Verdi intended,” Dastoor explains, “that you share a collective experience in a hall that’s appropriate to the human voice.”

Dastoor’s vision of an ideal opera-going experience is informed by her successful career as an operatic soprano, singing such great roles as the title character in Lucia di Lammermoor. Her mentors include Opers San José’s founder Irene Dalis — herself a former opera diva.

When Dalis passed away in 2014, she left behind a legacy at Opera San José that included not only the thriving company she founded in 1984, but the successful careers of the many emerging professionals she mentored through the opera’s resident company.

“Irene Dalis was a diva of international proportion,” says Aaron Nicholson, Opera San José’s director of marketing and development. Dalis was a principal performer with New York’s Metropolitan Opera for 20 years and performed in many of Europe’s storied opera houses, including Berlin, Naples and London’s Covent Garden.

When she retired from performing in 1977, Dalis returned to her hometown of San Jose and began teaching at San Jose State University. She quickly realized that the United States lacked opportunities for young opera singers to develop a repertoire of lead roles that allow them to succeed as principals in large opera companies.

“They hire people who have performed the lead roles many, many times,” Nicholson says. “You’ve got this piece in your blood – it’s in your skin, it’s in the fiber of who you are.”

General Director Larry Hancock agrees, acknowledging that aspiring opera singers in the U.S. have few chances to make the jump from student to principal. “University training is not enough,” he says. “It takes repeated performances to really learn to perform a role.”

In founding Opera San José, Dalis created the country’s only yearlong professional resident company, using the model she experienced in her formative years performing in Germany.

According to Dastoor, herself a former resident, the company’s practice of supporting emerging professionals through a rigorous rehearsal process makes their productions stand out. “In San Jose you might see a talent about to happen, and a moment of awakening, and be in the room for a night where something special happens for the first time,” Dastoor says.

With its practice of providing a space for emerging talent to create something new and exciting, Opera San José is the perfect fit for Silicon Valley.

“Part of what makes Opera San José special is the unique environment,” says Music Director and Principal Conductor Joseph Marcheso. The company’s location also means its audience has adventurous taste. “That sensibility is being reflected more and more in not only the titles that we select but also the way that we present them.”

For example, the recent production of The Flying Dutchman used video projection to set the nautical scenes against a background of rippling water.

“I feel a burden to represent our world today,” Dastoor says. This means not only presenting new works, including several world premieres, but keeping beloved classics relevant by viewing them through a modern lens.

Whatever the production, Opera San José strives to stay true to the intent of the composer and librettist. Opera “doesn’t have to be edgy for the sake of being different,” explains Dastoor. “Sometimes the simplest thing is the most revolutionary.”

Whatever approach Opera San José takes, the audience is always in for a treat.

“The production value at this opera company is as high as I’ve done anywhere else,” shares Opera San José Technical Director John Draginoff. “Our sets and our props and our costumes and our lighting are top notch. It’s a credit completely to our staff. They put a lot of heart into it that you don’t see in a lot of companies.”

The proximity of the audience in the California Theatre means attention to detail is a must, for costumes in particular. “You see everything,” Hancock explains, “which means we can’t really make costumes. We have to make historic replicas of clothes.”

Costume Director Alyssa Oania and her staff often fit more than 100 costumes per show, all while making sure the performers can breathe and move in period costumes.

“The biggest challenge in the Bay Area is that not everybody can make $150,000 a year, and we are losing technical theater people. Stitchers, cutters, right hands, painters, carpenters, stagehands, stage managers … It’s affecting everything,” says Hancock.

San Jose is not just losing artists — it’s losing entire companies. The American Musical Theatre of San Jose closed in 2008, San Jose Repertory Theatre closed in 2014, and Silicon Valley Ballet closed in 2016.

Dastoor is adamant that Opera San José will not be part of that trend. She is passionate about the ability of the performing arts to bring people together: Instead of sitting alone with smartphones people converge as an audience to share an experience.

 “Opera San José will endure,” she insists. “Opera and culture are the underpinning of democratic society and we deserve it as human beings. … We have to stand up for a society that believes in collective experience and values art.”

One way Opera San José works to support such a society is by making itself accessible to the next generation of opera-goers. Through its educational programs, OSJ sends its local artists to perform one-act operas at local elementary schools, invites middle and high school students to attend dress rehearsals for each of the mainstage productions, and offers student tickets to anyone under 25 with a valid student ID.

“It’s really disheartening to see how the gradual decrease in emphasis in arts education in the schools has just slowly but surely affected attendance at all major arts groups,” laments Lettie Smith, Opera San José’s former K-12 education coordinator.

Conductor Marcheso finds hope in the rising popularity of orchestral concerts featuring movie soundtracks. “I wonder if there’s a problem with overthinking what opera means,” he posits. “Opera San José is a perfect place to test out what it’s like to see a live story with a living soundtrack.”

Many of the operas it produces are modern, and even in English. Whatever the age or language of the opera, Hancock believes audiences will find the stories culturally relevant.

“Opera teaches you empathy,” he explains. “That’s what it sets out to do. Think of all the great operas that are still in the rep — what are they about? They’re about letting you see a side of life you’ve never seen and points of view you’ve never heard. That’s what it’s for, and my god we need some, don’t we? We need some empathy.”