Center Opera was an organization of the second, new-alternative kind described above. It had all the ingredients for addressing the oneness of the creative and interpretive problems: a permanent resident company; an exclusive dedication to contemporary work; and a visionary leadership that recognized the necessity of developing a flexible performing language responsive to the needs of such work, and of then commissioning new operas written specifically for that company and that language. It began as a performance component of the Walker Arts Center, and so with an emphasis on exploring the design element of production, but was soon cast off to sink or swim on its own in a former movie theatre, the Cedar Riverside. There, under its artistic director, Wesley Balk, it created a distinct music-theatre performing style, derived from intensive work with its resident company. ^(I) The company presented some contemporary European pieces (of Egk, Birtwistle, et al.) that seemed compatible with its way of working, but its repertory was predominantly American, and came to include many new operas tailored specifically to its strengths. These were of predictably inconsistent quality, but the several I saw all had entertaining properties and demonstrated the virtues of shared purpose between creators and interpreters. Two of them, Dominick Argento’s Postcard from Morocco and Conrad Susa’s Transformations, proved to have some legs, and Postcard was recorded. The company attracted a loyal, enthusiastic following, and gained a reputational beachhead for itself on the national opera scene.

But the following was small, and the beachhead tenuously held. In time, a combination of the natural urge to extend the reach of an artistic mission with the economic necessity of drawing a broader audience led to the introduction of works from the classical repertory, beginning with Le Nozze di Figaro. The move was successful in that a noticeably larger audience showed up and responded favorably. Artistically, the result was more equivocal. In theatrical terms, the Center’s way of working did bring a freshness to aspects of Nozze often rendered tiresome by received routine, but also came up against an incompatibility with a period work whose characters and scenic structures needed a different kind of discipline. Musically, while a professional small-house standard was maintained, the company’s vocal and stylistic limitations were at times exposed. Within a few seasons, Center Opera was attempting bigger productions (of, e. g., the Weill/Brecht Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny) in larger venues, and within a few more it had merged with the more mainstream St. Paul Opera to form the Minnesota Opera—no mean fate, but one into which the audacious contemporary American voice was gradually subsumed. Center’s very capable administrative director, John Ludwig, who had emerged from another Ford-sponsored initiative for the education of administrative interns in the nonprofit arts, moved on to become the Executive Director of the National Opera Institute. With the passing of a few more years and a turn toward bringing a different type of music theatre (the Broadway type) into the operatic fold, that organization was itself dissolved for lack of adequate funding.