Gabriel Preisser, General Director, Opera Orlando
Gabriel Preisser, general director of Opera Orlando, sat down with Invest: to discuss the challenges and opportunities available in the region for the company. With education ingrained in the fabric of its identity, Opera Orlando is increasing accessibility to the broader community and innovating ways to reach it.
What has been the overall impact or contribution that Opera Orlando has had to the Greater Orlando community?
One of the things that we do well is inherent in the art form itself. Opera is a culmination of all art forms. So it’s not just about singing. Singing is a big part of opera, but it’s also about the set design, lighting design, costumes, orchestra, dancers, and everything coming together to tell an amazing, transformative story. We hire over 150 independent contractors annually, mostly from the Orlando area, to help put our productions together, along with hiring the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra to play for our mainstage productions and hiring dancers from the Orlando Ballet, depending on the production.
What recent or notable achievements or milestones has Opera Orlando celebrated?
Two seasons ago, we surpassed the $2 million mark in annual revenue, which is a significant accomplishment for us, given that we started in 2016 with an annual budget of only $250,000. So, in six years, we grew from a $250,000 annual budget to $2 million while staying in the black and growing our cash reserves to over $300,000. We also started an endowment fund and have close to $3 million in cash pledges or bequests towards that fund.
What initiatives does Opera Orlando have in place to make opera accessible to broader audiences, including those who may not be familiar with the art form?
Every company aims to make art accessible, affordable, and relevant to today’s audience. Our site-specific productions are great because it is a unique experience. We have to make sure we have something unique about our productions, and we accomplish that with our site-specific productions, like doing Puccini’s Girl of the Golden West at the Cheyenne Saloon or Barber of Seville at Casa Feliz. Opera in unexpected places with food and drink included is a great night out on the town. We also take traditional classics, like Carmen, and find ways to make them relevant to our audience here. We set Carmen recently in Haiti, and we had the dialog done in Creole, and then the music was still sung in traditional French. It appealed to our Haitian American audience. Creole is the third most spoken language in Central Florida. We partnered with the Haitian Chamber of Commerce and sold out that production.
This past season, we did something similar with an opera called Frida about Frida Kahlo. We partnered with Casa de Mexico and with the Hispanic Chamber and provided Spanish supertitles. You usually have the English translations above the stage, but we had English and Spanish for the first time and sold more tickets than ever before for a single production. The Hispanic community in Orlando is vast. Because of that, we will continue to do Spanish and English translations above the stage.
What is the importance of fostering collaboration with other regional arts organizations or community groups?
Our core values at Opera Orlando are collaboration, community, and creativity. We celebrate collaboration. We have long-standing partnerships with the Orlando Philharmonic, our orchestra. We use dancers from Orlando Ballet in at least one production each season. We even share shop and warehouse space currently with Orlando Ballet. There’s a lot of camaraderie and efficiency there to share costs. We’ve also partnered with Phantasmagoria – the Victorian spook troop who recently performed in our production of The Juniper Tree, a Brothers Grimm fairy tale opera. We also partnered with Orlando Family Stage for that production. They created larger-than-life puppets that really took our audience’s breath away.
What is the importance of educational programs and outreach efforts, and what are some specific programs the opera is working on?
Our education partners are a big part of our DNA as a company. We partner with Orange County Public Schools, Osceola County Public Schools, and several private schools. This past season, we did a children’s opera called Frida Kahlo and the Bravest Girl based on the children’s book by the same name. Since we were doing the opera Frida on the main stage, we wanted to stay in that same theme. We took this opera out into the elementary schools, especially those with a large Hispanic population, so the students could hear their language on stage and feel represented by the artists. We also invite students to free dress rehearsals of our productions on the MainStage, and we partner with the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra on their Young People’s Concerts at Dr. Phillips Center, which reaches over 30,000 kids each year.
We also have an excellent Youth Company that is a big part of our organization. It’s for ages 8 through 18. It is an audition based group with scholarship opportunities. These kids perform in our MainStage operas, receive training throughout the school year, and even put on their own concerts and events. We have a Studio Artist Program for post-graduate singers pursuing a solo opera career. We audition about 600 singers yearly for that program and pick the top four. They’re with us in residence the whole season and sing in the MainStage, in the schools, and local retirement communities. Additionally, we have an Apprentice Program with Stetson School of Music and Summer Institute for High School singers.
In what ways does Opera Orlando approach sustainability and stewardship, whether environmental or financial?
About four years ago, we invested in a 12,500-square-foot shop to build and store our sets, which enabled us to save a lot of the lumber and materials we purchased for each production. Prior to that, building and then throwing away set pieces wasn’t necessarily efficient or environmentally friendly. We now have several sets available for rent along with costumes and we have been able to create an alternate revenue stream with renting our sets and costumes.
What are some of the challenges happening right now, either in the region or specifically for the opera?
There’s always so much going on in Orlando. You have so many artists here, which is great because we have a large talent base as a result. They’re here because most of them work at Disney or Universal or one of the other theme parks. Because of that, there are several art groups and several art events going on. The parks always have something going on, too, of course. It’s impossible to have a weekend where it’s just the opera going on. So we’re always in competition with something, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Some people might look at competition and think competition is bad for business, but competition forces us to be creative and think outside the box, and consequently, it has been great for us to explore new ideas and repertoire.
What are the organization’s aspirations or goals for the near term, and what are the top priorities?
One of our goals is potentially adding more performances per production, and we came very close to selling out Frida, which would have justified us adding more performances. If we can sell out a production at Steinmetz Hall, then that would justify us adding a third performance or even a fourth. Another goal relates to our endowment fund. The more we can get our endowment up, the more we will have a spending policy to come out each year and help cover our operations costs. Our operations costs are roughly $500,000 annually. We would like to get our endowment up to $10 million, and then that 5% spending allowance would help offset our operations costs every year. We have a 10-by-10 goal or $10 million raised by our 10th anniversary for the endowment fund. The last thing we’re looking for is a home base in Orlando. We currently operate in a church, and we are very grateful to them but it doesn’t really serve our needs for rehearsal and storage space. So, we are currently looking for the future home of Opera Orlando.
