Phantom Opera
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Cohen met Williams four years ago, when the company was performing Walton’s The Bear and Menotti’s The Medium at Rosary College. Williams had been involved in opera for over 30 years, doing artistic and managerial work for the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the San Francisco Opera, Opera Theatre of San Antonio, and the Die Bühnen der Stadt Köln in Cologne, Germany. By founding AOG, Williams hoped to give talented young singers a chance to perform with a large orchestra (usually comprised of players from the Civic Orchestra of Chicago). He was reasonably pleased with the production at Rosary but dissatisfied with having sold only 500 tickets. Two summers later he directed The Barber of Seville for the Comedic Chamber Opera of Munich, “a quaint little opera house out in the middle of a cow pasture,” and during the run an aspiring American singer offered him $10,000 to start an opera company in the U.S. if Williams would cast him in one of the productions. By 1999, Williams had returned to Chicago and was busy reviving American Opera Group.
Williams began planning the 2000-2001 season, but this time, he says, Scharres was uncooperative. “This is a supposition on my part, but I had the feeling we didn’t have enough clout in the community.” Scharres contends that the center was booked up and that Williams turned down the only available weekends, which coincided with the Memorial Day and Fourth of July holidays. When Williams realized that AOG wouldn’t be returning to the opera house, he cut a deal with Destocki at the Norris Center. Destocki says he expected to sell at least 600 or 700 tickets to Madame Butterfly by opening night: “A lot of people were looking forward to the operas.” But Williams knew from his experience in Woodstock that the production would require sustained marketing and wasn’t impressed by the Norris Center’s efforts. Three weeks before the Saint Charles engagement the company had sold only 104 tickets–about $3,500–to cover a $42,000 production. Williams was about to start rehearsing the 26-piece orchestra, which would have cost the company $2,500 per session, when he and his board decided to can Madame Butterfly.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Dorothy Perry.
