Morrison and Whitener – as well as Kristin Marting, the artistic director of HERE, who was among the founders of Prototypes and runs it today with Morrison, and Jecca Barry, a former director who was part of the curatorial team of the 2023 edition – discussed the past and present of Prototype in a group video call. Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.
Over the past decade, what kind of influence have you seen Prototype have on the industry?
JECCA BARRY We’ve seen, across the country, other opera companies starting their own festivals or exploring the idea of a second stage, other venues, like black box theatres. The first collaborative show we did with LA Opera was “Dog Days,” and it was at the Redcat [a 200-seat theater]. LA Opera told us that 70% of the audience who came to see it had never set foot in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion [the company’s much-larger home]. It’s really about creating a completely different audience, and really, that is so important for opera companies these days.
KRISTIN MARTING This concerns both form and content. I feel the festival covers that spectrum of work. There’s a crossover that happens, and that’s because a lot of the artists we work with don’t try to stay within the lines. Then the second thing about content: I feel like what we’re really interested in is socially relevant work that resonates with people – a whole range of people, told by a whole range of voices. I think it’s also something the industry has embraced, thankfully, after being monochromatic for so long.
How would you say New York’s cultural landscape has changed since Prototype’s history, and what has that meant for the festival’s mission?
BETH MORRISSON It is nearly impossible at the moment to get opera programs in any of the venues in the city. With Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the Metropolitan Opera is finally doing something new, but there are a lot of works created for small stages and other types of stages that the big presenters don’t do here. And for a company like ours, which has no room for performance, it’s really hard. Before, our stuff was at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and that’s completely changed. Lincoln Center doesn’t do the opera. The shed is not. It means that we can only do our work in our festival when we present it ourselves, which I think is really a shame.
BARRY The creative impulses are there. I mean, it’s amazing how many young composers want to write their first opera right from the start.
