Washington National Opera finds new stage after split with Kennedy Center

Transcript

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William Brangham: Earlier this month, the board of what is now called the Trump-Kennedy Center formally approved the president’s plan to close the center for two years.

Meanwhile, the Washington National Opera, which is one of the center’s largest arts organizations, had already announced that it was leaving. That exit is one of the most consequential in a year full of turmoil.

Senior arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown reports for our Art in Action series, which explores the intersection of art and democracy, part of our Canvas coverage.

Jeffrey Brown: A rehearsal for “The Crucible,” a 1961 opera by Robert Ward based on Arthur Miller’s seminal 1953 play about the Salem witch trials.

Miller wrote it as a warning about injustice and mass hysteria in the McCarthy era anti-communist trials of his time. Now, says Francesca Zambello, artistic director of the Washington National Opera, it has new relevance for ours.

Francesca Zambello, Artistic Director, Washington National Opera: I think that everyone in this country, whatever side of the fence you’re on, is certainly wondering what is happening with our legal system, what is happening with democracy, are the — is the Constitution still serving us today, is it serving us right now?

And our democracy is on trial now.

Jeffrey Brown: Few in the art world have been quite so caught up in the political maelstrom as the WNO and Zambello, whom we met recently at the company’s rehearsal studios in Washington.

Francesca Zambello: Let’s focus everybody, OK? Great, thank you.

Man: Places for top of show, please.

Jeffrey Brown: Founded in 1956, now celebrating its 70th season, the opera company has performed at the Kennedy Center since the center’s opening in 1971, bringing some of the world’s greatest singers to its grand Opera House and other stages.

In 2011, it signed a so-called affiliation agreement to formalize its relationship, making it one of the center’s tentpole organizations. But everything changed with Donald Trump’s second term.

Francesca Zambello: This last year has been something I could never have imagined. I could not have dreamt this up. Last February, there was literally a coup d’etat at the Kennedy Center.

Jeffrey Brown: That’s how it felt to you?

Francesca Zambello: It absolutely felt like a coup d’etat.

Jeffrey Brown: The longtime leadership, respected arts leaders fired. New leadership put the president himself as chair in its place, a new requirement that arts groups break even or earn a profit on every production, contrary to how most opera, dance and theater groups operate, with their need to plan far into the future and experiment with their art forms.

Leading artists canceled performances. Audience members stayed away.

Francesca Zambello: The building felt politicized. Everyone who worked in the building, if they did not march in lockstep with the new management, were fired. The audiences felt this, I think, incredible burden that everything was about us or them, about the two parties, whereas we have always been an apolitical building, an apolitical arts institution.

Jeffrey Brown: In the crucible, J’Nai Bridges, one of today’s leading mezzo-sopranos, sings the role of Elizabeth Proctor, falsely accused of being a witch.

When Bridges first signed on, she fully expected to perform at the Kennedy Center, even as she wrestled with going ahead.

J’Nai Bridges, Mezzo-Soprano: I was a bit hesitant because it’s a tricky thing to navigate, you know? Not everyone was for my choice of performing at the Kennedy Center. I felt that the role in the opera is so relevant that it was almost, in a sense, a protest. So I really felt like, OK, as uncomfortable as this might feel, I’m ready for it.

But then things changed. And I have to say that I am relieved.

Jeffrey Brown: You are relieved?

J’Nai Bridges: Yes, I’m relieved, for sure. And I think that it was the right decision.

Jeffrey Brown: That stunning decision announced in January by WNO leadership and its board, to leave the newly renamed Trump Kennedy Center and go out on its own. The drop in ticket sales and donor support meant the shows could not go on.

And, says Zambello, there was more.

Francesca Zambello: I think that by making the move away from the center, we made a big statement.

Jeffrey Brown: Which is?

Francesca Zambello: Which is, it should not be about us and them. It should be about a good civil society. But I was very concerned knowing what it’s like to be homeless. A theater company, an opera company, a ballet company, you can’t be homeless.

Jeffrey Brown: But you are, in a sense, homeless now.

Francesca Zambello: I think we’re now part of a bigger picture, where now we’re part of a bigger community.

Jeffrey Brown: You’re changing the nature of home.

Francesca Zambello: I’m changing the nature of home and I’m making it about geographic diversity.

Jeffrey Brown: Now the WNO is performing in theaters across the D.C. area and further afield in different size halls for different productions.

“Treemonisha,” an opera by Scott Joplin, performed to a packed and appreciative crowd at Lisner Auditorium in Washington, the same venue as “The Crucible.” It’s a full circle moment. The company’s first ever performance was here in 1957.

A May production of “West Side Story” will be put on in two different forms, fully staged at the Lyric Baltimore and a smaller production at Strathmore Music Center outside Washington in Maryland.

Francesca Zambello: I’m thinking of this as a new kind of creative freedom, that we are producing in different venues that really are appropriate for the works that we will be presenting.

Jeffrey Brown: And she says the company will continue its American Opera Initiative, which fosters new operas by contemporary composers. For its part, the new Trump-Kennedy Center board recently formally approved an early termination of its agreement with the WNO, having earlier claimed the parting of ways was its decision due to a financially challenging relationship.

What now? Can the Washington National Opera survive, even thrive independently? Grand opera now becomes a grand experiment. When we met Bridges during rehearsals, she was optimistic.

J’Nai Bridges: So many people are excited to support what we’re doing. I know that theater will be filled with an audience that wants to support WNO, this great company, and art and artists.

Jeffrey Brown: Francesca Zambello sees even higher stakes.

Francesca Zambello: I think that the arts are certainly under attack right now. I think that many people don’t believe that they’re necessary. And if all of us as artists and as people working in arts organizations do not stand up to the injustices that are around us, then we are not doing our jobs.

Jeffrey Brown: Zambello says the Washington National Opera will soon announce its productions and venues for next season.

For the “PBS News Hour,” I’m Jeffrey Brown in Washington, D.C.