What’s Wrong With Chicago Opera Theater?
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COT’s demise really began as long ago as the fall of 1990, when it bid farewell to Marc Scorca, who left his post as general manager after six years with the company. After encouraging a bold expansion in programming that included lavish productions of Carousel at the Shubert Theatre and Where the Wild Things Are at the Chicago Theatre, Scorca walked away to become executive director of OPERA America. COT was left with $100,000 in unpaid federal payroll withholding taxes and an operating deficit of more than $200,000. At the time key COT board members claimed the financial chaos was a big surprise to them. Maybe it wouldn’t have been if they’d been doing their job as the company’s overseers.
On the business side Scorca was replaced by Mark Tiarks, a quiet, well-meaning general manager who disappeared into the woodwork when the company needed a bold business leader. He was replaced by former board member Jean Perkins, an unpaid and inexperienced interim manager who at least kept the company alive. But she clearly could not take firm control of the company, and COT continued to drift. Last year, for instance, the company chose to mount its final opera of the season at Rosary College in River Forest, a move that forced subscribers used to seeing their operas at the Athenaeum Theatre on the north side to drive far out of their way.
Though she’s got one of the strongest voices in musical theater, actress Betty Buckley, now starring in The Fourth Wall at Briar Street Theatre, does not appreciate being thought of as a Broadway belter. And that certainly is not the style in which she recorded the 14 show tunes on her new album Children Will Listen, released this week on the New York-based Sterling label. Most of the tunes on the album were arranged by Buckley, Kenny Werner, and Michel Colombier in a jazz-inflected style that is quiet and soothing rather than loud and brassy. One of the songs, “When There’s No One,” is a beautiful ballad from the musical Carrie, which Buckley starred in on Broadway. Though Carrie bombed in its ill-conceived debut, Buckley still has faith in the show and says she would be happy to go to work again on the material. The album may be one of an increasingly rare breed; it comes after Buckley spent many years fighting to get a record contract. “Record companies today don’t know how to market Broadway musical theater singers,” maintains Buckley, “so they have overlooked us.”
