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5 Questions to Beth Morrison (founder and director, Beth Morrison Projects)

Beth Morrison’s ideas are game changers. Since the founding of Beth Morrison Projects (BMP) in 2006, she and her initials have become synonymous with new contemporary opera, producing and commissioning new works, and helping to support composers in shaping a new American cannon. Part of these efforts include dreaming up exciting events like the NEXTGEN festival, which produces new opera by emerging composers, opening up the semi-final and final rounds to a live audience. BMP is currently in the middle of NEXTGEN’s third cycle, with Harriet Steinke and Anuj Bhutani having just been announced as finalists. Their operas will be produced for the final round in New York City during the 25/26 season, which will also mark BMP’s 20th anniversary.

With a strong background in voice and arts administration, Morrison started her company as soon as she moved to NYC. Despite having no contacts or funds at the beginning, she has built an experience-generating machine that has launched the careers of many artists and has resulted in two Pulitzer Prize-winning operas. Mesmerizing visuals and innovative sound design have been a part of BMP’s work since the beginning, and her emphasis on prioritizing composer’s ideas has earned her the nickname “the composer’s producer.”

An ever-expanding universe of up-to-date opera making, BMP has been bi-coastal since 2014 after opening an office in LA thanks to growing relationships with institutions such as the LAPhil, LA Opera, and Ford Theaters. We caught up with Morrison to talk more in depth about the hints along the way that this fledgling company would become the successful opera powerhouse that it is today.

Silvana Estrada in "Marchita" at the 2023 PROTOTYPE Festival -- Photo by Maria Baranova

Silvana Estrada in “Marchita” at the 2023 PROTOTYPE Festival — Photo by Maria Baranova

Going all the way back, what is one of your earliest memories of coming up with an idea, then bringing it to life?

I’ve always been a person that “makes it happen,” so when I was a kid that meant that I was the one coming up with ideas and executing. A good example is that I was a co-founder of the All Student Theater Project which existed in my hometown of Auburn/ Lewiston, Maine for a few short years, while I was in high school and college. We were a bunch of theater kids who felt that the repertoire that was being performed at the Community Little Theater, of which were all a part of, was on the conservative side. We wanted to do productions of Hair, Godspell, Evita, which at the time were progressive. So, we decided that over Christmas breaks, we would spend three-weeks rehearsing, teching, building sets and costumes, advertising, etc. and put on a show just after Christmas. We worked around the clock, literally, to make it happen. It ended up being the most exciting theater coming out of the state of Maine for the several years that we were active.

Was there a particular opera or theater work that made you want to pursue music as a career?

I started performing in community theater at the age of 8, and I was hooked. The Music Man was the first show that I was in, but thereafter was in at least 2 or 3 shows a year. My early performance life through the end of high school was completely focused on Broadway repertoire.  I wanted to move to NYC and become a Broadway star.

I loved everything that I was in, but was particularly drawn to Evita, which I was able to star in as the title role. However, when I was 17 years old, my high school choral director (who was also my voice teacher), gave me a brochure for the Boston University Tanglewood Institute, the program for gifted high school musicians that is associated with the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Tanglewood Festival in the Berkshire mountains of Western Massachusetts. That was the summer that changed my life, and was the first real turning point.

Prior to that I had very little exposure to classical music or classical singers. But that summer my eyes were opened wide and I fell in love with classical music. The singers that were there that summer were Jessye Norman, Kathleen Battle, Thomas Hampson, Barbara Bonney and more. When I first heard Jessye Norman sing, my jaw hit the floor. I had never heard anything like it, and I was transfixed and completely captivated. That was the turning point of my life, and that was when I decided to pursue being an opera singer. I basically fell in love.

Beth Morrison -- Photo by Maru Teppei

Beth Morrison — Photo by Maru Teppei

As a producer, you have undoubtedly read storylines for hundreds of new operas as you decide what to work on next. What qualities of a story or compositional approach pull you in the most?

I’m always looking for stories that are relevant to a 21st century audience.  I’m looking for works that will tell the stories of our time written by composers and librettists that are not afraid to be bold, audacious, and fully themselves.  I’m always seeking artists who want to push form and the boundaries of what Opera can be.

Radically changing the landscape of producing and composing opera must have meant continually trying and learning new things, and pushing your own boundaries. Do you have any advice on how to bring a new idea into the world even when the prospect might feel daunting?

If you are going to strike off on your own and do something new that hasn’t been tested or doesn’t have a clear path, you will have fear and doubt that creep in (at least every now and then).  I try and live by the motto “Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway.”  It’s ok to be fearful, but you can’t let that fear paralyze you or put you in a box that ultimately leads to narrow thinking and a lack of creativity.  Unleash the mind by feeling the fear and doing it anyway.

PROTOTYPE 2024 presents Terce: A Practical Breviary -- Photo by Maria Baranova

PROTOTYPE 2024 presents Terce: A Practical Breviary — Photo by Maria Baranova

You’re no stranger to the excitement of premiere day! Do you have any personal rituals or routines for your opening nights?

Opening nights are the most thrilling nights of my life.  After what undoubtedly has been years of birthing a work, to finally put it in front of an audience and let it shine is literally the best feeling ever.  But it can also be nerve-wracking.  I don’t really have any major rituals- trying to maintain my daily routines of diet and exercise are key to the success of everything I do- except that I like to have a drink prior to opening night with some of my team members.  That is to toast the opening and the huge amount of work that it took us to get there, but also to calm the nerves when the curtain goes up- because at that point, it’s out of my hands and anything can happen… that’s live theater, baby!

 

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