UALR magazine
Fall/Winter 2007 • Vol. 3 No. 2
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No Large Ladies, Horned Helmets
By Amy Manning Burns
The UALR Opera Theatre has created quite a buzz on the Central Arkansas cultural scene, and Edward Crafts is one of the leading factors.
A veteran performer of the Metropolitan Opera and other stages worldwide, Crafts joined the university in 2006 as opera stage director.
Since then, the UALR Opera Theatre has been filling the house for its community performances, starting with Paisiello’s “The Barber of Seville” as last season’s opener, followed by the critically successful production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Pirates of Penzance” last spring.
The 2007-08 season opened in November with an equally impressive review: “The Coro-
nation of Poppea,” written in 1642 by Monteverdi and Busenello. On May 2 and 4, the theater will present “Die Fledermaus” by the “Waltz-King” Johann Strauss at The Arkansas Repertory Theatre.
Crafts has worked closely with many of the world’s best-known stage directors, including Jean-Pierre Ponelle, Gian-Carlo Menotti, and Bliss Hebert. He served for five years as artistic director and principal stage director of the Maryland Lyric Opera and has instructed young professional singers at Peabody Institute and Oberlin Conservatory’s “Oberlin in Italy.”
As UALR associate professor of voice and opera, Crafts has found the music department to have a uniquely nurturing environment. “The faculty gives our students a great deal of support, and the students encourage each other to excel. In my experience, this is a fairly unusual situation.”
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Crafts is a firm believer that opera can have universal appeal. “Think of opera as a type of music theater,” he said. “Almost everyone likes music theater, so many of our audiences are surprised at how accessible our performances are. Even people who think they don’t like opera wind up enjoying themselves.”
Each opera is performed in English, eliminating a language barrier for many of our patrons, said Crafts. “We try to present operas of varying musical and theatrical styles. The stereotype of opera is large ladies with horned helmets, but that’s only one style, and not one we are going to be producing at UALR.”
Operatic training goes beyond the stage, said Bevan Keating, assistant professor of music and voice area coordinator for chorus, conducting, and voice. “It doesn’t matter if you come from Arkansas or Milan. If you have the work ethic and God-given talent, it is possible to succeed in this art form. We have students making money as semi-professionals singing at weddings, funerals, or public events. Public performance opportunities are important to them and to UALR.”
UALR Opera Theatre offers performance and production opportunities in music theatre and opera. Two shows with sets, costumes, and orchestras are produced each academic year. Each production offers substantial grants-in-aid for qualified cast members. Last year, two of Crafts’ students spent the summer in Italy, studying the language and music.
An active cultural scene is lifeblood to a thriving community, said Keating. “Culture attracts business, money, and families. Culture revitalizes communities and lends itself to entrepreneurship. Little Rock is big enough to support these projects now.”