Florentine Opera Returns to the Marcus Center Stage

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Photo via Florentine Opera Company

When the pandemic reached Milwaukee a year ago, the opening of the Florentine Opera’s much anticipated performance of Peter Brooks’ The Tragedy of Carmen was cut short. With that decision, the Florentine became the last resident performing arts group to mount a production at the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts before the second half of the performing arts season was postponed—and then cancelled.

This year, the Florentine inaugurated a series of digital events, “Voyages,” mini-tours of France, Mexico and Italy with reference to music history. But the stage will always remain on top of any opera company’s mission. Last week the Florentine Opera announced a return to the Marcus Center. In April, the company’s young Studio Artists will sing a program called “La Vie en rose” at the Wilson Theater at Vogel Hall. In May, the Kurt Weill-Bertold Brecht “scenic cantata,” Little Mahagonny, will be performed by a small ensemble and orchestra in the Marcus’ main room, the newly renovated Uihlein Hall.

I asked the Florentine’s general director, Maggey Oplinger, about the company’s recent past and near future.

Was the future of the Florentine Opera ever in jeopardy because of the pandemic?

Looking back to March 2020, I wondered how on earth we would make it through a pandemic. But thanks to our incredibly generous community, donations and government support have helped us bridge the gap. We’ve worked hard this year to make every dollar count in a multi-season context. We anticipate a rough road back to the stage, with many expected and unexpected COVID costs. These include increased venue costs due to social distancing caps, quarantine weeks for our cast and creative teams, covers for everyone who also need to quarantine and test, changed housing requirements, and many more expenses that allow us to safely perform. We have not been in jeopardy because we shaped our decision-making around making sure we survived (literally named that as a goal!), but it’s been an intense year. Our team is resilient and amazing at finding solutions to the most challenging programs. I’m honored to work with them.

How did your thoughts on resuming live performances evolve along with the changing Covid situation? At what point did you look at the news and say: “Now’s the time to go back on stage?”

We tried to minimize changes for our team and the audience, so set deadlines for choosing whether to go forward with each show and in what format. We made the year about choices—giving our audience the opportunity to see live when possible, digital always, and a variety of types of shows to choose from. Want to see a Florentine Presents program with the Baumgartner Studio Artists? We have it—and it’s now filmed in a private home and includes an architectural tour. Missing travel? Our Voyages series takes you around the world, curated by international artists who open their city and spaces to us. We all need some escapism; our goal was to provide that, paired with the gorgeous music that moves us on or off a stage.

As for coming back, our goal was always to return as soon as it was safe for everyone involved. That’s simple to say and much harder to execute! We submitted our 58-page safety plan in conjunction with the Marcus Center and their plan last Friday; it also went to multiple unions and partners, including the MSO. This plan has to work for everyone involved, and cover protocols for everyone from the lighting designer to the lady in the last row of the house. Everything costs more and takes longer, and we have a smaller audience buying tickets. But we are thrilled to be performing again, and to bring our audience everything from French song to Mozart in the remainder of the season.

Why did you choose “La Vie en rose” for your return to the stage? What can you tell us about the production—will it be staged differently to provide safety for the performers?

We did everything possible to maintain the season as we originally planned it. Obviously. our mainstage shows couldn’t stand—we were due to perform a full-scale La Boheme on the same weekend that’s now Little Mahagonny, which has a much smaller cast and orchestra. So we kept the concepts we had designed and modified them. This program, originally envisioned as a lovely way to welcome spring, seems so much more poignant as we return to the stage from the solitude and silence of this long year. We’ve adjusted our selections to give our audience a variety of styles and stories to experience, ending on a high note. Performances should move people—these first ones back in particular.

We’ve moved this show from the Lueders Opera Center to Wilson Theater at the Marcus Center. Building a joint safety plan with one venue makes our spring safer and easier to manage. We block off 25 feet in front of the stage, as our singers aren’t miked and that vocal projection ability makes opera performers super spreaders. Our singers will be tested multiple times a week, and quarantine into performing together. They live in a “bubble” and have all season, so they can safely interact on stage without masks. We limit the number of people backstage, and everyone has PPE appropriate to their level of interaction with others. It’s a heavily choreographed production offstage as well as on! Our COVID performance protocols have been reviewed by doctors, public health experts, and multiple union reps as well as our Marcus Center partners. We have every confidence in the safety of everyone involved in the production and the audience—or we wouldn’t be coming back.

We’ve also prepared these singers for a much emptier house than what they’re used to. Our audience is capped not by 25%, but by the number of people we can host socially distanced, which ends up being more like 20%. So this will be a really intimate show that will look sparse from the stage. Still, they’re so excited to have a live audience again! I know the minute the lights go down and they hear applause, their ability to share energy with the audience will not be limited by number of people. How long have we all waited for that moment?

Will you ever get back to performing The Tragedy of Carmen?

We had the opportunity to perform Tragedy for a small group of board members and donors, under 50. We also worked frantically to digitally capture the production, so everyone who had bought tickets or wanted to would have a chance to participate. So our plan is to move forward with the programming and artists we made commitments to in 2020, rather than to try to recreate the work of that wonderful ensemble. As tragic as that sold-out opening and closing was, we hope the team who built it remains satisfied that it saw the light of day! That was our hope.