Just 12 years ago the Austin Lyric Opera (ALO) seemed on the road to expansion. To accommodate the staff needed to do that, ALO built a gorgeous, and immediately iconic building on Barton Springs Road.
But along with our economy, arts organizations have been feeling the fund-raising pain, the ALO among them. And on Friday it sold that building for $5.45 million to Megalomedia, a reality TV production company.
Things looked bleak for the Opera last spring. The ALO, a founding resident Long Center company, found itself up to its eyeballs in debt — as much as $2 million — and needed to make changes in order to survive. So they cut back their show runs from four to three, they put their headquarters up for sale and they will soon spin off the Armstrong Community Music School.
The building sale puts ALO back in the black. Its debt is paid and the proceeds place the Opera on solid financial footing. “We will spend the first quarter of 2012 locating rehearsal and office space and expect to be settled into new quarters well before summer,” Smith said in a press release Friday.
The Austin Lyric Opera celebrated its 25th anniversary this year. Back in November, CultureMap columnist Shelley Seale spoke to ALO leaders about that history as they launched their first 2011 production.
In the past quarter-century, ALO has developed a reputation as an innovator and showcase for new American opera talent, with productions that have fused with major international artists, directors, and designers garnered international acclaim.
Susan Threadgill, who was the production stage manager at ALO for 23 years recalls the early days of the company. "It was exciting and hectic. We had a great collection of professionals who knew their job very well, but didn't know each other very well. So we had to put together a team and make it work. There was a certain sense of trepidation because we had never done this before." But today, she says that singers have told her, "I sing at the Met to make money—but I sing in Austin to remember why I do this."
Claude Decloux, son of ALO co-founder Dr. Walter Ducloux, says that it was very important to his parents that the opera was not an "exclusive" club, not just for the rich, but something the community would take great pride in supporting. "He really believed, to the depth of his existence — both my parents did — that if people had the chance to see a first-class opera, they would get hooked on it. Because it is the ultimate art form and when you think about the number of orchestra members sitting in that pit, each of whom have played their instrument for 20 years… and then you have these incredible voices; it's just a synthesis of a million hours of talent, all in one place."
For his part, Artistic Director and Principal Conductor Richard Buckley is excited to look to the future of the
Austin Lyric Opera. "Where the next 25 years are going to take us is something I hope people seriously start looking at. Within our celebration of what we have done and where we are, what we can and do achieve on the stage now, I think we have to put a fair amount of energy into who and what we want to be — and for whom will we be performing in the next 25 years."
The sale of ALO's headquarters makes that future possible. ALO's next production — Donizetti’s classic Italian opera Lucia di Lammermoor — opens January 28 at the Long Center.
Photo by Mark Matson