An Ambitious New Era for Opera Carolina – Charlotte Magazine

Shanté Williams did not grow up listening to opera. She grew up in north Charlotte, where her mother was a pastor for the To Be Encouraged Christian Ministry. “So much of worship is singing and talking about the joys and sorrows of life,” Williams says, “and a lot of that comes through in the music.”

In college, an adviser suggested she listen to opera while she studied. Williams found that, though the music was new to her, its emotional resonance wasn’t. Like the hymns she was used to, opera explored deep human feeling. “It’s natural,” she says, “for me to hear a song and, you know, the tears come to your eyes.”

In July, Williams became the first woman and person of color to lead Opera Carolina. James Meena, the company’s general director since 2000, remains as artistic director and principal conductor. The transition coincides with the company’s 75th season, as it celebrates its history and strategizes to ensure it can continue to thrive in a city that looks radically different than it did in 1948.

Opera Carolina is the oldest continually operating opera company in the Southeast. In its earliest days, volunteers raised money, sold tickets, sewed costumes, built sets, and sang in the chorus. Opera Carolina has since become a fully professional company, but 90% of its performers and members still live in the region. Its staff, Williams and Meena emphasize, have the same above-and-beyond ethic that helped the organization take root, but that alone won’t sustain the opera through the 21st century.

“Opera in the United States has really been under a lot of pressure the last 20 years,” Meena says. His conducting career has included stints at the Pittsburgh Opera; the Toledo Opera; and the Cleveland/San Jose Ballet, which had bases in Ohio and California. He’s guest-conducted in South Korea, Egypt, Canada, and throughout Italy. He’s watched for decades as opera companies across the country have struggled to hang on, especially after COVID. The difference between decline and growth, he says, depends on the town’s and the company’s leadership.

“This is a very dynamic city that values what the arts institutions do,” he says. “You don’t find local government stepping in in the dynamic way that our City Council and county commission have, not just to prop up but to actually advance what we do.”

In 2020, for example, Foundation For The Carolinas campaigned to raise $23 million from the private sector to support local arts institutions over three years; the City of Charlotte matched $18 million of those contributions. Such initiatives buoyed the opera as the pandemic decimated arts audiences, and local government has been a critical supporter of the opera for decades. But its long-term success depends on building a sustainable audience that reflects the city. 

“For us to grow, we’ve got to broaden, diversify, and get a little bit younger,” Williams says. She likes the term “opera young,” which is to say, not very young at all. “At the end of the day, we’ve got to be not just opera young—we’ve got to be actually young.”

Opera Carolina’s 75th-season celebration is designed to attract first-time operagoers and energize longtime supporters. The season kicks off with a benefit concert with superstar Andrea Bocelli and features three fan favorites: Bizet’s Carmen, and Puccini’s La Bohème. 

Those might be time-tested gate­way drugs, but they’re also more than 100 years old. To foster the next generation of talent, for its own stage and beyond, Opera Carolina has made an unusual investment in workforce development. It also plans to showcase new works in short form and festival formats to meet modern audiences.

Williams mulls the opera’s future from a pizza restaurant in Vicenza, Italy. Opera Carolina has partnered with the International Lyric Academy to give aspiring opera artists the opportunity to train and perform for three weeks in Charlotte and four weeks in Vicenza. The youngest participant this summer is 10 years old.

Three years ago, under Meena’s leadership, Opera Carolina launched a resident company to cultivate a talented and robust local workforce and complement its school-age programs. The lavish productions that once made opera a pastime for aristocrats now make running an opera company an expensive and labor-intensive proposition. The workforce development program, which Williams says is among her top priorities, includes opportunities in lighting, costuming, screenwriting, directing, and more. “All of those things,” Williams says, “that make an opera work.” 

Meena says, “Opera Carolina is doing a lot better than a lot of other opera companies across the U.S., but that’s not to say we don’t have challenges.” He and Opera Carolina’s board had long planned to recruit a new general director, but the pandemic made survival a more immediate priority. After COVID subsided, Williams’ enthusiastic work on the board and as a sponsor recommended her for the role. Her venture capital company, Black Pearl Global Investments, sponsored last year’s production of The Passion of Mary Cardwell Dawson. In business-oriented Charlotte, her corporate acumen caught the opera’s attention.

Williams’ opera-fueled study sessions propelled her through a bachelor’s in chemistry, a Ph.D. in integrated biomedical science, and an MBA. She’s the CEO of Black Pearl, a $25 million venture capital fund that focuses on health care investments, and owns Black Pearl Vision. Among other volunteer roles, she’s chaired the boards of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Black Chamber of Commerce and Heal Charlotte. 

She doesn’t see much difference between her work in the financial sector and with Opera Carolina, which has a $2.8 million endowment and a $2.9 million annual budget. “With my VC stuff, I get to write checks to people who are launching their dreams and startups,” she says. “And with Opera Carolina, I get to write checks and help artists get onto that stage.” 

Williams approaches the work with a zeal that verges on evangelical. She talks about her “servant-leader approach” and how she hopes to make “irreversible impacts.” Like a religious leader, she stresses the importance of meeting audiences where they are. To that end, she and Opera Carolina are launching a salon series at its headquarters in a historic home on Elizabeth Avenue. There will be performances and snacks and wine, but, Williams says, “there’s no RSVP. There’s no VIP section.”

The series will also give attendees a chance to mingle with leaders like Williams, who, as Opera Carolina’s first Black woman director, can be a role model for those who haven’t historically seen themselves in the opera world. “In order for you to be it,” she says, “you have to see it.” But Williams has sometimes had to take a leap, whether or not she had role models who looked like her.

“I don’t have to wait my turn,” she says. “I don’t have to wait until somebody invites me. I can kick down that door if I need to.” Now that she’s through the door at Opera Carolina, she wants everyone to come inside. “This year, the theme that I’ve adopted is ‘opera per tutti,’ which means ‘opera for all.’”

Today, Carmen is an opera standard, but when it premiered in 1875, its story of a dynamic, independent, openly sexual Romani woman rocked conservative Paris. Opera has always looked for groundbreaking themes, wider audiences, and dynamic ways to tell stories on stage. In another 75 years, opera will look different—and so will Opera Carolina. But for an art form that’s evolved for centuries, that’s nothing new. As Meena says, “We’re just keeping the tradition going.”

Opera Carolina’s Diamond Jubilee

The company’s 75th season brings smash hits to Belk Theater

Carmen

November 9, 10, 14

Set in southern Spain, Carmen tells the story of a guileless soldier who abandons his childhood sweetheart for the eponymous Romani woman. Drama ensues when the fiery Carmen leaves him for a brash bullfighter.

La Bohème

April 10, 12, 13

Based on an 1851 novel, the opera centers around a poor seamstress, her artist milieu, and their Bohemian lifestyle in 1830s Paris. The popular opera—one of the most frequently performed worldwide—inspired the Broadway musical Rent.

ALLISON BRADEN’s writing has appeared in Oxford American, Outside, and Sierra, among other publications. She has contributed to this magazine since 2017.