Ask Curtis Tucker, the artistic director of Lake George Opera at Saratoga, a question about the company and you’re likely to get a long, slightly rambling, yet effervescent answer. Tucker, a native of Missouri, is anything but taciturn or even succinct. Indeed, in one fell swoop he can cover a range of topics that would make your head spin. It’s sometimes hard to keep up with the twists and turns of his conversation. Yet, the passion with which Tucker speaks about the company, its mission, and the changes that he thinks will strengthen LGO going forward is unmistakable and worth the auditory journey.
I spoke with Tucker via phone in late April, as he was busy working on this summer’s season at Lake George. As artistic director there is, of course, much for him to do, particularly around this time of year. But, in light of the recent change in his position at the company, he seems to be relishing his tasks.
Tucker joined LGO in the summer of 2005 as the general director, and in 2006 he guided an expanded summer season that included the professional premiere of Ned Rorem’s Our Town. Founded in 1962 by Fred Patrick and his wife, soprano Jeanette Scovotti, LGO began as a seasonal repertory company that presented operas in English and showcased young American singers. By 1965, the company had progressed from performing with two-piano accompaniment to performing with a full orchestra. And 1981 saw its first performance in the intimate Spa Little Theater in Saratoga Springs, New York, which eventually became the company’s home in 1997.
Under Tucker’s guidance, LGO now presents an annual summer festival of three fully staged operas or operettas. The company’s vast repertoire of more than 90 fully staged productions includes works by 52 different composers, 33 by American composers and 10 world premieres. After Fred Patrick’s death in 1965, the company had a series of six general directors prior to Tucker’s arrival. Among them were notables Paulette Haupt-Nolen and William Florescu, Tucker’s immediate predecessor.
The responsibilities of the general director position that Tucker assumed when he arrived at LGO encompassed both artistic and administrative duties. But, as of January 1 of this year, after six months of intense discussions between the board and staff, the administration went through a restructuring.
“My title is now artistic director,” Tucker explained, “which sounds like I just lopped off half of the job. That’s true to a degree, and I’ll explain more about that. I suggested the change to the board leadership. Their initial reaction to the idea was fairly cool, but after taking some time to explore, discuss, and debate the pros and cons, they decided that it was a good idea. We began talking about making this change in spring 2008. So, there were months of conversation to fully vet the idea and consider what the change should look like and how we should plan it.”
In the middle of this thoughtful discussion, the economy took its infamous downturn, so one of the original points of discussion about whether to hire another senior staff member was tabled. “We didn’t change personnel or hire a new general director,” Tucker continued. “Instead, we shifted duties around among the existing staff so that some of the administrative work that I was handling as general director has been taken on by other staff members. For instance, our business manager became our director of administration and finance. Our director of development and marketing took on some of my former duties as well and is now doing most of the grant writing.”
I was curious as to what prompted the change, particularly since the company seemed to be doing well under Tucker’s guidance. And therein lies the answer. According to Tucker, the company has grown quite a lot in the last five to six years in terms of its budget and its programming. “Our budget is significantly larger than it was six years ago. And as the pressure grows on the business side of the company, it starts to usurp the time needed to pay attention to the artistic side if there’s only one person overseeing both. The staff and board came to the conclusion that we had reached a point where it was too difficult for one person to run both the administrative and artistic sides as well as they each needed to be run.”
The new administrative structure that the company adopted is an interesting and somewhat unusual one. There is now no single person at the helm of the company. Rather, there is a trio of leaders—the artistic director, the director of administration and finance, and the director of development and marketing—all of whom report to the board of directors.
I asked Tucker why he would willingly step down from the apex of the company to share the leadership, not a typical move for a general director. “I’m driven by being an artist,” Tucker answered with passion and obvious pride. “I like the business aspects of the company and I feel that I’m good at those aspects. But at my core, I’m a conductor, singer, and artist—and what I love about this change is that it allows me to live in the world of the art a lot more than I did before. This move is really, in many ways, the culmination of a 15-year exploration for me—from being an artist, to going to law school, to being the managing director of an opera company, to then being general director of that same company, to being general director of this company, to now artistic director of this company. I’ve landed back where I’ve always wanted to be.”
He also remarked that he felt it was the right time for him to make such a change. “I wanted to make this change because I wasn’t entirely satisfied with how my role as general director was functioning. What I was able to do was carve out a position that allowed me to do the artistic things that I seem to be doing well, that everyone seems happy with, and for which I have a passion. Also, I now have the chance to have more of a personal presence in the community, meeting people, shaking hands, talking to service groups, all of those kinds of things. That’s an important part of this change for me. As general director, I sometimes felt chained to my desk, because so much of my focus was the administrative work. Now, I’m not tied to office hours as much and that allows me to be out in the community more.”
Tucker did make the point that in some ways, the decision process is easier if everything is up to one person, “If there’s a single decider of both the financial and artistic sides of the equation, then the conversation is between me and myself. With this new structure, I have to discuss ideas and artistic plans with others because I’m not any longer the final voice when it comes to financial considerations. But I think this change is developing a stronger teamwork environment among the staff and board. Everyone has to be involved in the decision-making process.”
Tucker went on to say that this change provides him with more opportunity to explore other artistic endeavors outside of his duties for the company. “It’s good for me personally as an artist, and it’s good for me in my capacity for this company to engage in outside activities such as conducting, composing, teaching masterclasses, lecturing. This new arrangement gives me the flexibility to pursue those opportunities.”
I was curious about any immediate effect the change has had on the company, particularly on the staff members with whom Tucker interacts on a day-to-day basis. “The immediate impact on the company seems to be very positive,” Tucker was quick to respond. “Specifically what’s better is that all of the key players more enthusiastically buy into their roles, and we also better agree on who’s responsible for what. I’m curious to see how the new staff structure holds up in the long term. It seems to be working well, and I think that’s so because of the particular players—the three key staff members as well as the board president, who’s very hands on.”
And what impact, if any, does Tucker think this change will have on the artistic product that Lake George offers? “Well,” he said, gearing up for a lengthy and enthusiastic response, “because I now have more time to devote to artistic considerations, the change is going to allow us to expand, somewhat, our artistic programming. I say that at a time when the economy has caused almost every arts organization I know to scale back its programming, and we’ve done that a bit as well in terms of this summer.
“But, for instance, we did a new program in Albany: Mozart Meets Salieri. It was a double-bill semi-staging of The Impresario and Prima la musica e poi le parole in collaboration with two other nonprofits in Albany, though produced entirely by Lake George. Since it was a new event, we had limited resources, so I couldn’t hire a lot of production staff to help me with it. If I was still general director, I could not have done it because of the amount of energy that went into planning this off-season offering. It took a lot of effort, mainly from me because I was the primary producer. And it was an important event because it was the first time, since I’ve been here, that we’ve done a program in Albany.
“Saratoga Springs is only a half hour north of Albany. A lot of our summer audience comes from that area, but we haven’t done many programs down there. We haven’t taken our programs out to nearby communities; this was a good opportunity to do so. We’re having discussions with other organizations about doing similar things. So, we all see this change in staffing as allowing us to think about more programs and collaborations throughout the year.”
I then asked Tucker if he viewed this change as an opportunity to build a winter season, or if these kinds of programs were geared more as teasers for the summer season. “It’s both,” he answered. “I’m reluctant to label anything a ‘winter season’ because I don’t want to put it on the same scale as our summer season. But we have developed a number of year-round artistic programs and this will allow us to expand those and reach out into other venues. That’s actually in our mission statement—to reach out to and perform in alternative venues. We haven’t done a lot of that, and this was a successful implementation of that goal.”
Reaching out to the surrounding communities with wintertime programming will also help with something as basic as the public’s perception of where the company is located.
The future of the company was the natural concluding topic of our discussion, and I asked Tucker where he’d like to see the company in 10 years. He paused for a few moments and then gave a somewhat circumspect response.
“Where a company can go artistically is often tied to the performance facility in which it operates. This company and many of its constituents talk often about finding another venue for our performances. Glimmerglass Opera, which is an hour-and-a-half from here, started after Lake George Opera was established and has seen tremendous growth largely because they were able to build their own opera house. Of course there were some other factors that contributed to their rise, but their budget is now seven times what ours is.
“Our facility is a big, long-term issue for us, and it’s a challenging one to deal with. For instance, the hall has very little foyer area. There’s no place to have a donor reception. I don’t see us moving to a new facility any time soon, so I need to figure out how to use the best parts of the performance space we’re in, not only to create a better artistic product, but even for before- and after-show events.”
I pressed him further by asking for more specifics about long-term goals. Was there a certain budget size he wanted the company to achieve? Did he want to increase the number of summer productions? Did he have hopes of LGO building its own performance space? To my surprise, Tucker answered, “There are certain things about the infrastructure of our company that haven’t developed to match the caliber of our product. If there was one thing I could figure out for us to do so that in 10 years we’re in a different place, it would be strengthening the supporting operations of the company, so that they rise to the level of our artistic product.”
A strikingly unglamorous but worthy goal. Yes, Tucker may be quite a talker, but his words reveal that he’s just the agent of change that LGO needs to grow into its future.
