This interview was originally recorded on January 15th, 2025.
The Oral History Project is supported by the Arthur F. and Alice E. Adams Charitable Foundation.

Esther Nelson, arts administrator 

Esther Nelson is the former artistic and general director of Boston Lyric Opera. Under Nelson’s leadership from 2008 to 2021, Boston Lyric Opera saw extraordinary growth in programming and operations, cementing its national reputation as an acclaimed producer of traditional and reimagined classic operas and claiming its place among the nation’s important incubators of new works. The company also benefitted from nearly a decade of surplus budgets, grew its audiences in number and diversity, and implemented new programs that brought critical and industry notice.

From 1995 to 2002, Nelson served as general director and CEO of The Glimmerglass Festival, and before that, she was general director and CEO of Nevada Opera. She previously held senior management roles at New Orleans Opera and Virginia Opera and served as chief executive of Triangle Opera Festival in Durham, North Carolina. Nelson served as an evaluator for the New York State Council and, in Louisiana, served in an advisory capacity to the State Tourism Commission. She has also been a management consultant for a broad range of arts organizations.

Transcript

Marc A. Scorca: Esther Nelson, welcome. I am thrilled that you are with us today to contribute your stories to our Oral History. You've seen a great deal in our field, and I look forward to speaking with you about all of your experience. Thank you, and welcome.

Esther Nelson: Thank you very much; I appreciate the opportunity. Thank you Marc.

Marc A. Scorca: Esther, I ask everyone: who brought you to your first opera?

Esther Nelson: My mother. I was about three or four, I don't remember. She had tickets to The Magic Flute at some smaller house in southern Germany, and my cousin was supposed to babysit. And my cousin was a teenager and she was out with friends, and she forgot, so she didn't show up. And so my mother just decided she was gonna take me along. And so I went to The Magic Flute, and that was my first opera that I saw on stage. Now, I should explain also though that my mom was a professional musician; she was an organist and pianist, and we had lots of recordings. She loved opera. So I grew up listening to opera on LPs, and Magic Flute was one of them. And she would take time to explain to me what was going on. So she'd explain the music, the story, but more interestingly, she explained to me how sometimes words will say one thing, but the music will say another, and to trust the music, so to listen to the music. To me, it seemed not educational when she did that, but it seemed more like she was sharing secrets with me.

Marc A. Scorca: Yeah. She was telling you a story.

Esther Nelson: She was telling me a story, and she shared something with me that not everybody knew, so I was in tune with that. And so I think had it not been for that, there was no way that a 4-year-old will sit through a Magic Flute.

Marc A. Scorca: Do you remember that performance? Do you remember being enthralled or going to sleep?

Esther Nelson: I didn't go to sleep. I was absolutely mesmerized, because what I had listened to on recordings, what she explained to me on the piano, I saw it come to life for the first time on stage. My mom later basically said it wasn't a very good performance. I couldn't judge that. But the fact of seeing these people on stage and everything coming together, and the musicians right there, I was absolutely mesmerized and supposedly I sat through the whole thing, quite glued to it. And at the end, there was a gentleman in the audience who came up to me and he gave me a bar of chocolate because he thought I behaved so extraordinarily well to sit through the whole thing. And then I got chocolate too. So, for me, the whole experience was, "This is cool". Going to the opera has all kinds of benefits.

Marc A. Scorca: I think there are plenty of people who don't know that you were born in Germany. So where in Germany, and when did you come to the US?

Esther Nelson: So, I was born in southern Germany. The closest town that most people will know is Heidelberg. And I came to the US in the late 70's, primarily because I had an American father. He was actually half-European himself, but he had graduated from The Citadel Military Academy in 1944. And they shipped him over, (a) 21-year-old young lieutenant in the Battle of the Bulge. I can't even imagine a 21-year-old doing this. Then he met my mother over there, and he stayed. And so I was born and raised there, but I was born as an American citizen as a result of that. But I really knew nothing much about the United States, because he didn't even speak English with us; he spoke German. And I wasn't familiar with the American culture or anything, but by the end of the 70's, I had gone through university and I'd gone to college in the UK and in Germany - of course, I got my degrees there - but also in France or in Italy. And so for me, it was like I had wanderlust, I was a globetrotter. So it was natural to go to the United States, 'cause I didn't have to worry about a work permit or green card or anything - I was a citizen. And I will always say that I came to the United States, probably the most uninformed citizen, because I never went to school in the United States, so I didn't know anything about much of its history, let alone its political structure or its geography. And when people apply for citizenship, they have to learn all of these things. I never did.

Marc A. Scorca: But you were a citizen, yeah.

Esther Nelson: And I finally learned what river is where and what capitals are where when my own kids went to school, or wherever I lived there. But then I moved to New Orleans because my father's roommate from The Citadel had a law practice in New Orleans and invited me to come and stay with them. And that's how I ended up in New Orleans. It was a great place in your twenties to live and work in New Orleans - big party town, you know? Not much got done, but you had great fun not doing it.

Marc A. Scorca: Well, when you came to the United States, was arts administration something you were thinking about? 'Cause it's so interesting that here you are, brought up in Europe, you come to the United States in the late 70's. You say you didn't know much about the United States, and yet in the years since you have so become immersed in American culture, helping to define American culture through opera - you were on some kind of learning curve. So when you came to the US, was arts administration something you were thinking about?

Esther Nelson: Not particularly. If I had thought of a career (which I did, here and then) in opera, it would've been as an artist, because I was trained in voice and piano. But I think I recognized fairly early on that I did not have the dedication it requires. I might have had modest enough talent, but the dedication of practice, in both voice and particularly piano, was just not something I had in me. My friends who went into the business, they would practice regularly two or three hours a day. I was interested in so many other things that I wasn't gonna do that alone. But I also actually was trained to some extent in set design. So I went into the visual side of it too. So I was obviously involved in some theater or another, and ultimately, it didn't occur to me then, when, early on, I was much more interested in the process. Knowing enough about singing and knowing enough about music, I certainly had my share there, and also about design and set design. So all these elements, I was fascinated about how they all come together. But I wasn't really aware that that could lead to a career, and particularly not in opera in Europe. There were no women, much, who were even in the artistic side, other than singers and pianists and musicians. But even in the orchestra pits, you could look there and if you spot a woman, that was unusual. So it never occurred to me until I started working for the New Orleans Opera. I started actually in public television originally, but then I ended up with the New Orleans Opera where I had volunteered earlier. And it was actually again the late 70's, and we forget there weren't that many professional opera companies.

Marc A. Scorca: No, no.

Esther Nelson: And they were sort of flocking around OPERA America (which) was then about 10 years old, I think.

Marc A. Scorca: Exactly.

Esther Nelson: So, it was very few companies that would gather at these meetings. And I had the good fortune of working for one of those older general directors...

Marc A. Scorca: I was gonna ask you about that. You worked for Arthur Cosenza.

Esther Nelson: Arthur Cosenza, who was one of those who just came from the field. He was a singer; he was a tenor. He was actually a neighbor in Philadelphia of Mario Lanza's, and then he became a stage director. And so many of the directors of that era were artists who rose, who then took on a company. And we had a music director, Renato Cellini, who was by that point already dead, unfortunately. But he really built the company with Arturo. And so when I came in, I learned a lot from him.

Marc A. Scorca: What was your first job?

Esther Nelson: It was the weirdest thing, because I had a good friend who headed the public relations department, which was, at that point, still a relatively new thing. We didn't even have marketing departments or development departments - but public relations, yes. And she got a full-time gig with a column at The Times-Picayune. And so she said to me, "Why don't you apply for the job?" And I said, "I don't know anything about public relations; I'm not even a native English speaker. I don't think I should be taking this job". But she basically dragged me into Arthur's office and said, "I think that she might be a good candidate". And so Arthur and I sat down, we talked about opera, and we talked about music and not a thing about public relations, and in the end, he said, "Well, if you want the job, you can have it. I'd love to have you work for us". And I said, "Well, okay". So I started doing that, but very, very quickly, it became also apparent that Arthur was at the stage of his life where he was happy to delegate duties more, and have more time. And that included a whole host of things, of what general directors then did.

Marc A. Scorca: It's so true, Esther, what you say. Arthur Cosenza is one of the early members of OPERA America I never met. He was still general director when I started in 1990 and we spoke on the phone a couple of times. But in those old days (before you), the general directors just did it all, and they had a few assistants. And just in fact, when you entered the business, is when things began to professionalize, and there was suddenly someone who knew about fundraising or marketing or communications.

Esther Nelson: Correct.

Marc A. Scorca: Right at that point...

Esther Nelson: I would venture, because the opera companies in our neighborhood, so to speak, who actually knew something about development, and began to really establish departments like that, were Houston and Dallas. And, of course, New Orleans had this little bit of an ancient city chip on its shoulder, like you know, long opera history. And all of that is great, but that's history. But both opera companies in Texas too were eager to establish themselves as an opera company, so they were much more proactive in looking as to what else they needed to do. So I learned a lot from those two companies, shuttling back and forth, and "How do you do this?" And "What's development, actually?" And, you know, coming from Europe to the whole idea that you should raise funds for theater is ridiculous. And I had to learn very much the hard way, because when I worked in public television, I remember I irritated some board members because I thought they were meddling in our business, professionals. They weren't. And I would have to be called to the president's office one day to say, "You can't treat board members arrogantly like that. We need them". And I could not understand...long learning curve from that...

Marc A. Scorca: Yeah, for sure. So was Nevada your next step?

Esther Nelson: No, no, no. When I left New Orleans, I went to North Carolina.

Marc A. Scorca: To North Carolina. Okay.

Esther Nelson: For personal reasons then. So I was kind of looking around. I should also say that it was Arthur Cosenza, who planted the seed in my mind that I should potentially one day run a company. That would never have occurred to me on my own. First of all, I don't think I had that kind of confidence that I could be doing that, or knowledge. And frankly, as a woman, while there were some significant women general directors in the United States, it's just the structure wasn't there. It was just not the field. You sort of, unfortunately, as a woman accepted the fact that that was not for you. So it was, in fact, Arthur who kept pushing me and would say, "You can do this". And I remember at one memorable OPERA America meeting, he put me at the table with Ardis Krainik and Sarah Caldwell. But I do remember particularly Ardis, who took time and spoke to me and also Sarah Caldwell. And there was a time when I was thinking, "I might wanna go back to Europe", because I never had planned to actually stay here in the States. And it was Sarah Caldwell who buttoned me down and said, "So, do you like working for opera? Do you enjoy it? Arthur says you're good..." et cetera. And I said, "Well, yes I do". And she said, "Why would you go back to Europe, girl?" in her typical-Sarah-Caldwell-kind-of-abrupt manner. And I said, "Well, I don't know". And she said, "Well, you should know that it's gonna be difficult here, but you're not gonna make it there".

Marc A. Scorca: Hmm.

Esther Nelson: And I thought, "Well, okay". I stayed, primarily because Sarah Caldwell talked me into it.

Marc A. Scorca: And isn't it interesting how that all came full circle? We'll get to that.

Esther Nelson: So I went to North Carolina.

Marc A. Scorca: So, Triangle Opera, at the time. And I know from your wonderful interview that was part of our tribute to Robert Ward, that that's of course where you got to know Bob Ward, such a wonderful composer, wonderful gentleman.

Esther Nelson: Oh my God.

Marc A. Scorca: If ever the word 'gentleman' was invented to describe someone, it was Bob Ward. And so Triangle Opera, now home to a vibrant opera company. We're really happy that North Carolina Opera is doing so well; it's really, really terrific. Was Virginia next, or Nevada next?

Esther Nelson: No, Virginia came next. So I will say that I think having had the opportunity to work with Robert Ward was just one of those life-defining moments. And he at that point had already engaged Michael Ching too, who was a student of his. And so Michael actually became general director of Triangle. And Michael moved to Virginia and I took over. And that was actually my first general director position. I figured at the time, maybe it's small enough I can trust myself that I might be able to handle this. But just working with Robert Ward was...I learned so much, and I learned a great deal about what's important when you run an opera company, especially create or build a smaller company - that passion you have to have and that vision, and you need to connect with great artists because they're the ones who keep your own vision and imagination going. And that was Robert Ward. And then I went to Virginia and Michael by that point was in Virginia. (He left Triangle for Virginia Opera; from there he moved to Memphis). So I kind of followed, and because Virginia Opera was interesting to me because it was building a triumvirate, if you will. It had its headquarters in Norfolk, but already established in Richmond. And the idea then was that we could expand up to Northern Virginia and ended up in George Mason. That was Peter (Mark), another one of those early dynamos in the opera industry. And keeping up with Peter, that was a job in itself. But God, the energy he had was amazing. I learned a lot about how to expand an opera (company), how to grow it even geographically and move around.

Marc A. Scorca: Isn't it interesting, Esther, how some of the really early pioneers, whether it's Arthur Cosenza or Peter Mark, Robert Ward, they had a passion, a single-mindedness, a dedication (sometimes to excess) that helped them succeed in creating these opera companies.

Esther Nelson: Yes. Because they had such passion and belief, which very often I think was not exactly realistic, that they just pass that infectious spirit and that passion onto you and their funders too, and the board. It's very, very important that you have this core belief in what you're doing and the passion in it.

Marc A. Scorca: And they woke that in you.

Esther Nelson: I think it was there in me, but I never thought I could apply it that way, and that it could turn into a profession, and that you would use that passion as a vehicle to inspire others.

Marc A. Scorca: Yeah. So then in a sequence, Nevada,

Esther Nelson: So then first of all, I married and had a child. And I have to admit that I didn't think I was a natural mother, so I needed to dedicate some time to that, and it's very, very difficult to run an opera company, even though I was doing Richmond. Peter was certainly involved overall in Virginia Opera, but the schedule just is not really helpful when you have a child, especially a baby. And I didn't know much about kids or babies, and so I figured I better concentrate on that. So I took some time...

Marc A. Scorca: Especially that your husband was also an airline pilot.

Esther Nelson: He was not there.

Marc A. Scorca: Right, exactly. So, let's be honest. I mean, Bernd' (Ulken)'s a wonderful, wonderful man, but he was an airline pilot, which meant he was someplace else.

Esther Nelson: Yeah. Great opera fan, by the way, thank God, but he was somewhere else. So I then took time off. And then came Nevada, because Bernd could fly out of the west coast for a while. So I thought, "All right, we can do that", and it's a small enough company that I can maybe handle that with a child. And by that point, our son was two years old. And so we went there and once again, I was working with one of these early pioneers, Ted Puffer, who was one of the great voice teachers, and he lived in Nevada (where) he taught at the university there. Among his voice students was Dolora Zajick.

Marc A. Scorca: Exactly.

Esther Nelson: We were very lucky to have her concerts. Another artist who lived there was Toni Tennille, the great singer. While she didn't do opera, we hired her for all kinds of concerts and music, because she loved opera. It was Nevada. Liza Minnelli's lighting designer was our lighting designer. And Nevada, initially you think, why would an opera company...what would they be doing in Reno, Nevada? And the reason that the opera company started is first of all, Ted Puffer's vision, but it was because we had so many good musicians there, because in the old days, casinos hired live musicians, and they paid handsomely, so they attracted a great number of really good musicians around the country. So we had access to tremendous musicians who were sick and tired of just playing for casinos. So they were looking for a really good orchestra gig, and they founded their own smaller orchestras and chamber orchestras. But then Ted hired them, and between them and him, they started creating an opera company. So it was, again, who knew?

Marc A. Scorca: There's an interesting pattern here of you being kind of the ballast at the opera companies for general directors who more are artistic. You know, Ted Puffer, a voice teacher; Peter Mark, a director, a conductor; a composer in Robert Ward; Arthur Cosenza who is a director. So that you became the heavy in making sure the company ran okay.

Esther Nelson: Right. I think that's what it was. But I will say that in New Orleans Opera, as well as at a Triangle Opera later on, I took on a lot of the artistic as well, which was good, because my core passion isn't the administration. So it was great to keep my fingers in the pie on that sense, too. So, Nevada was absolutely fascinating. What I remember most fondly was that we created a touring program, a very extensive touring program, and throughout the desert of Nevada and that included a lot of reservations. And when you go into these reservations or into small towns or villages where kids have never even seen an instrument, you can't come in there with a standard opera program/education. You really have to think this through, and you have to include the community in the creation of what would be appropriate, and that was not my background, but we hired a number of really interesting Native American musicians. And we began to create a tailor-made music program that was about voice. It was about instrument, about storytelling for voice, which is certainly familiar to many Native American cultures. So we took it from that end, rather than coming in saying, "Look here, we are opera, so love us". That doesn't work. And the reward then was when we had kids absolutely enthralled in ways that I would rarely see in public schools, that it brought often tears to my eyes. And especially when later on, I found out that some of those kids who went through these touring programs, wanted to become musicians. And they did; and they entered the field.

Marc A. Scorca: That's fabulous. And then Glimmerglass.

Esther Nelson: Then came Glimmerglass. Yeah.

Marc A. Scorca: So, you know, wow. Such experience that you had gathered artistically and administratively, and then arriving at Glimmerglass at a time when it was just the festival in the United States to discover. People were flocking to it - real halcyon days for Glimmerglass. It had to have been challenging to relocate to a small little community in upstate New York, and yet to be engaged with creating fantastic art, working with someone like Paul Kellogg revered as a general/artistic director at the time, as it morphed. So what was it like getting to Glimmerglass?

Esther Nelson: Well, first of all, I was admittedly quite surprised that they were interested in me, because while I was experienced in many ways...the natural step would've been probably another regional company, bigger company for me, before I would go to Glimmerglass. But there we were. They were reaching out to me several times. And in fact actually, initially I declined because I'd only been in Nevada for a little over a year, and I thought, "I can't do that. I'm just starting to make my mark and implement some decisions". But then again, Bernd actually at that point flew out of New York City, and so he flew Europe and India (mostly) and Japan. So it was always a hassle for him to get to New York. By that point, I also had our second child. Anyway, east coast would've made logistically a lot more sense, to be quite honest, for me personally. And so that was then I think one of the deciding factors, I will say, in accepting eventually the offer that came in from Glimmerglass. I grew up in the country. I grew up on a farm and so for me to live in a little farm town like Cooperstown was not so much of an adaptation, as it was for my husband who was completely an urban child, pretty much. The idea of being able to go to Glimmerglass was almost too good to believe, because like all of us at that time, we witnessed Glimmerglass suddenly blossoming into this enormous creative center, right? And that I should have the privilege of working there was just incredible to me. And I had been to Glimmerglass in 1990, when I was at Virginia, for Intermezzo. And I remember even then being in this environment of total creative immersion, and everything was of course produced completely new, which was unusual, not for a festival, but certainly from my background. So, here you had this gathering of designers, of musicians, of singers at the creative end originally, and directors. And it was such an infectious environment, and it was about the creative process. Because I remember when I was at Glimmerglass the first time, I thought some of the production values were a little on the unfinished side, but it didn't matter. It didn't matter because the creative energy was so forward propelling, that you were ready to embrace the experiment. You were ready to embrace the risk, which is something that companies increasingly, already then, began to be afraid of. And creativity is risk. It includes risk; it's not about safety. You wanna be safe on your numbers, but you don't wanna be safe in creativity. And that was what inspired me with Glimmerglass. It offered this environment of risk taking. And it wasn't about that in the end you expected the result to be perfect. It wasn't about that. But you still felt that energy, and so did the audience. And that's what intrigued the audience. And the audience, therefore, was much more ready to accept works that they may never have heard of. At that point Baroque works were not that common yet, but yet regularly done (there). And that was Paul. Paul, who had never worked in an opera company before.

Marc A. Scorca: I know. I was gonna say, you had worked for people who were artists: a director, a conductor, a composer - not Paul.

Esther Nelson: No. He started out in like stage management, at one point there. He grew the company, he grew with the company. But something about Paul was that he had this vision, he had this belief, and sense, I can only say it was sense of what was good, and what wasn't. And what needed to be pursued and what didn't. And he surrounded himself by these creative people, and he trusted them to do the work. Not that he would let them do whatever they wanted - you can't do that either. But he trusted them. And there was this rapport back and forth. Again, there was another incredible experience for me to be working with someone like that when I came in. And I mean, there were challenges of course, because Paul, at that point, his main focus had to shift to City Opera, where he was general and artistic director.

Marc A. Scorca: Right.

Esther Nelson: And so when I came in at Glimmerglass, I was asked to become the general director, and I was in charge of both. And that was a long decision that the board had to evaluate whether or not there would be dual leadership, that Paul is artistic director, and I as general manager or managing director. Or whether I would be general director with all that entails, which is I had the ultimate authority over both administrative and artistic. And I did. It was not easy for Paul. It wasn't easy for me either, by the way, because he built the company; I stepped in as a newcomer and considerably younger. And I have to say we both were on a learning curve there as to how to deal with this. Because the time did come when I had to differentiate between my total admiration of this man and what he accomplished and my responsibility to the company, which meant that not everything that maybe Paul thought we should be doing made sense to me, or I could justify as a general director. So there were times when I would say no, and I think in hindsight in most cases, it was justified. But that was not easy. Not easy, particularly for Paul.

Marc A. Scorca: I can imagine.

Esther Nelson: Not easy for the staff either. Not easy for the creative teams. John Conklin was there and others with whom, of course I continued to work and is a close friend. But they all looked to Paul to make the final decision, and then they had to also switch gradually to say maybe he doesn't have final word, but for the most part he really did continue to run the artistic. And we had Stewart Robertson, our music director. But again, I credit this total environment that Paul and Stewart created of this vibrancy, of this exchange. I credit that also with the success that ultimately I think we had, Paul and I, in navigating our Glimmerglass relationship. It made it very difficult, I might add, also for staff and particularly the individual who had to balance the artistic side. I mean the artistic administrator, who was also coming in new, whom I hired from Scotland, Nick Russell. And that wasn't always easy for him either, because of this revolving door between the general director, the artistic director, the music director. But it worked out. I think we can say now in hindsight that the creativity of Glimmerglass continued during that time period.

Marc A. Scorca: Yeah. Esther we're talking roughly, 1980 to 2000 (when you started at Glimmerglass) more or less a 20 year period. Did you experience barriers, bias against you as a woman?

Esther Nelson: I would say very rarely did I find any bias directly against me. I think it was more, the structure in those days was not inclusive for women leaders. And that was just a reality. That was a reality I had to face. But I remember Ardis Krainik sitting me down - one of those early meetings to say, "Now, if you ever want to make that, remember the fact that it's the board of directors who hires you, and they're the ones who make the decisions about you. And so, you got to present your case (if you ever want to apply for a position) to your board of directors, and they will include women too. So position yourself not with a chip on your shoulder, but feel confident in what you know. But it is the directors who will hire you". And that was very good advice, because I never really felt any discrimination or block from that end. And they hired me. I will say that where I felt it mostly was from colleagues. It was internal rather than external.

Marc A. Scorca: I regret to hear that. And yet you triumphed through sheer talent and vision and force of personality. Did you have role models? You've mentioned Sarah Caldwell, Ardis Krainik. Were they role models? Did you think about them? Did you wonder what would Ardis do? Did you have any other role models? Robert Ward? Who are role models for you?

Esther Nelson: I would say Robert, definitely. Arthur, certainly a role model. I would say both ladies were role models because they were women in the field. I didn't have any women mentors. I mean, the few women who were there, they didn't have any time to mentor anybody, and we didn't really have that thought process at the time of mentorship, period, I think in a professional world. And I'm so glad that that now exists. And I want to credit you, in particular and OPERA America for pushing. That is one of the helpful aspects for anyone coming into the field, male or female, is to have a mentor. It's very helpful. And now there is a structure that exists, that offers that. That didn't exist in my time.

Marc A. Scorca: I wish we could do more. Yeah. It is so important. So okay, full circle, you get to Boston and here was Sarah Caldwell, who sort of encouraged you 20 years earlier, and Sarah Caldwell, who kind of existed as a phantom up in the rafters of every theater in Boston.

Esther Nelson: Right.

Marc A. Scorca: What was it like to operate in the shadow of someone who is both a legend and notorious?

Esther Nelson: Yeah. I think her creativity - I mean, she was a conductor, but I think her most creative aspect was as a director and in finding repertory that was new and exciting. And she certainly knew how to do that. So she, I think, put Boston back on the map, because Boston did have an opera house, which they then tore down in the 50's. But that has its own sad legacy. But since then, there wasn't really much going on, I hate to say. Some people may disagree, but I don't think there was anything of note really until Sarah Caldwell. And Sarah, for all of her flaws, really did put Boston on the map, again with her vision of what an opera company can be. She was a financial disaster. So she left, unfortunately, a legacy of mistrust among funding institutions and donors and board members sort of thinking that opera companies are just notoriously mismanaged financially. Now having said that she was a financial disaster, I'm, to this day, not quite certain if, in fact, she was - if that was incompetence. I think in part she would never have gotten where she was if she had been quite honest upfront about the cost, like including touring and all that. I mean, the reality hit after the fact when there were bills that couldn't be paid, artists couldn't be paid, rent couldn't be paid, donors couldn't be paid back, or loans couldn't be paid back. That happened after. But I'm not so sure that she didn't know about that. She was a very smart woman. She knew that if she wouldn't put up that front of that promise, false promises to some extent, she would never have gotten where she was. But ultimately, I will say that that was a sad legacy of Sarah Caldwell in Boston. And there's something about the Puritan mindset that's first of all, very mistrustful of theater to begin with, because 'banned in Boston, thrive in Boston'. And, you know, the old Puritan idea was music is divine; theater is sinful. That still sort of lingered a little bit in Boston's history...

Marc A. Scorca: Puritan Boston.

Esther Nelson: And that's why - no accident - but the Symphony was the first out of the gate and got a great Symphony Hall. And if it hadn't been for that, and the early belief and money and endowments for the Symphony, I don't think it could have grown to where it was. It was unfortunate the early opera house, which had many of the same funders, couldn't fulfill its promise because they had a great start and they went to Europe to tour, but that was 1914 and World War I broke out, so they came back with debt. So again, we have an opera company that incurred debt, not their fault, and then comes Sarah Caldwell, which then we have a lot of financial distrust. So that I think, to some extent, is still Boston's burden.

Marc A. Scorca: Yeah. Now Esther, you arrived in Boston and, after getting your feet under you and establishing trust in leadership, you started the Opera Annex to explore opera, contemporary opera, if not new opera in unusual and suitable sites. I'll never forget The Lighthouse in the Kennedy Library Rotunda. It was an extraordinary experience. And then you boldly left the Shubert Theater for a whole lot of good reasons, and wound up having probably the biggest site specific opera company in the United States. And it had to have been both challenging and incredibly rewarding, I would think, from a creative point of view. How do you see it now that you've stepped away, (you've been gone a few years) looking back at this bold creation of a unique company.

Esther Nelson: Yeah. So not all of it was by plan, to have had the foresight of all of that. The Opera Annex was by plan, and it was a condition upon which I accepted the position by the way, that an additional million dollars would be raised, because we only did three operas, and I just don't think with three operas, you have enough footprint in your community to justify your existence. And I knew we weren't gonna do a fourth opera in the Shubert. So at that point, the idea of a traveling show and site specific show was born. And that excited me, and that was my plan, because I figured not only were we not gonna do that in the Shubert anyway, but I felt it was an important time in the development of American opera companies that we brought opera to the people and into neighborhoods as well, because increasingly it was challenging to bring people to your theater. So it broadened the scope. It also allowed for the opportunity to do works that we would never have done as a subscription series. I mean, who comes to In the Penal Colony? But people, even our most diehard traditionalists would come and see them in an Annex production, in a site specific production. And once they stepped out of the theater environment, they opened their mind to accept something that they might not have accepted - the same production or similar production wouldn't have been accepted in the Shubert, or in any traditional theater. It opened their minds to works they would have not wanted to see, or would not have enjoyed. So I think the great part of the Annex, is that it fostered not only a new audience, but it actually changed the mind of the existing audience, which then opened the path to rarer works, and their willingness to maybe be a little bit more adventurous in what they wanted to see, and not just the same old, same old, because that's a vicious cycle that's just smaller and smaller. Nothing against the chestnuts and the classics; they're popular for a reason, but you can't just keep doing them. And that really worked. Now, we tried to renegotiate the lease with the Shubert, and for a whole host of reasons, as you said, that didn't work. Some of it was (that) the hall itself had great limitations. And number two, the cost, frankly, of any of these houses that are basically Broadway touring (venues)...

Marc A. Scorca: They're Broadway houses, right?

Esther Nelson: And you can't sell your own tickets either. You have to sell it through Ticketmaster or whatever. The Shubert organization used Ticketmaster, and that by itself is bad enough. But then you don't have immediate access to your own - subscribers, yes - but not your single ticket buyers. So you don't have access to your audience there. And you know, when they buy a ticket, they talk to somebody at Ticketmaster who's absolutely clueless about what you're doing. They're trying their best, but they don't know. And so you don't establish a relationship with your audience, which is also your funding pool. So, you can't ever establish a relationship with them that you need in order to convince them of funding. So when, for many, many reasons, and I don't wanna say that the Shubert was a bad house. It had its merits, but it was far from suitable for an opera company. But then ultimately it was the financial situation where the negotiations broke apart. And I just could not see spending so much more money on a house. And, you know, unlike a touring show that comes in from Broadway, we need the house for rehearsals too. We can't afford on dark days to spend that kind of rent. Even though the management, again, to their credit, did come our way and certainly with a reduced price. But in my book, that was still too much.

Marc A. Scorca: Were you surprised by how well you were able to produce season after season in different venues?

Esther Nelson: I appreciate the thinking that it was 'well', because it wasn't always 'well', but I'm glad it wasn't apparent. But had we not had the experience with the Annex to begin with, we would've fallen flat on our face. We would've not have had the infrastructure nor the personnel to deal with installations.

Marc A. Scorca: You had kind of rehearsed the installation concept,

Esther Nelson: And that was the part that wasn't planned. But then that worked to our benefit, because at that point, we felt that we had at least a year of other opportunities under our belt, and it was great. And by the time we did the massive Handmaid's Tale at the Harvard Basketball Court, that pulled on every little bit of experience that the team had, in order to manage something like that. But it's not sustainable long term, because you have to rent a venue that's not yours, and then they have to give it to you, or rent it to you, for a month or four weeks. Most venues don't just have a month blocked out. They have other projects they do and other obligations. And so we could go in ice-skating rinks and basketball courts and whatever, but they needed them too for their primary purpose. And so it is very, very difficult and not sustainable long term. I always thought we will continue the annexes but eventually you also run out of places that you can install in, repeatedly. And so I'm very glad that the company is making moves. I wish I would've gotten a lot further before I retired with the venue, but we made progress and every time it didn't work out was yet another step to it. Ultimately, it will have to happen.

Marc A. Scorca: Absolutely. You know, these projects, Esther, are generational projects. They're not the projects of five years or 10 years.

Esther Nelson: No, absolutely.

Marc A. Scorca: And the company continues to do excellent work under challenging circumstances and continues to seek opportunities for a proper home.

Esther Nelson: Right. And in the meantime, they have a home for rehearsals.

Marc A. Scorca: Yes. The new center.

Esther Nelson: Fantastic. It is fantastic. I mean, that's such a huge step towards that already. That's great. I'm glad.

Marc A. Scorca: You know, in our last few minutes: advice. So, here you are with an incredible track record, that spans 40 years of American opera from New Orleans to North Carolina to Virginia to Nevada, upstate New York and Boston. Festival companies, small companies, companies that perform in multiple cities. You've seen a lot. What advice do you have for a young person wanting to advance into leadership in opera?

Esther Nelson: Find your passion. What is it you're passionate about? It could be the music. It can be the theater aspect of it, but you have to have some core passion about one aspect or two of what makes opera. And then my recommendation is always surround yourself by really, really visionary creative artists. That was always my mantra and allow them to do work. Get a music director or conductor who is energetic, who has visions, who inspires, who explores repertory that we should be exploring. Stage directors, singers, musicians, surround yourself by creative people because they're the ones - it's not our project. It is not a vanity project. It is our vision as a general and artistic director to provide a forum that can realize such a vision. But it is not an ego project. Those who surround you, the creative people that you admire, whose work you admire, who will continue to inspire you in the right direction, so that you can then inspire your board and donors, with their help. Surround yourself by really good talent. And they're not always easy, and they will be opinionated, and they will be difficult often, but that's part of what we need to allow. Keep the creative juices going. And find your own passion as to why you are so passionate - that'll stick with you and that'll get you through all the ups and downs and the pressures (and they are immense). But find that and believe in opera as a living art. And there's a lot of new opera that's being done now, which is great, but I also think that a lot of new works don't get the forum they need and the time to develop that they need. And I will say many times I see a premier of an opera which I think is just great, but I think they should have another year of maybe trimming, a little more focus work, and that's a sad part in our field. It all culminates with the premiere, without having had enough runway time, as they did in the 19th century. And then somehow, there it is - finished product. It's never finished. So I hope that we find a new generation that allows those works to continue to evolve and the funding for them to evolve, so that they will become audience gems in time.

Marc A. Scorca: Yeah. Well, Esther, thank you so much for taking this time this afternoon.

Esther Nelson: You're welcome.

Marc A. Scorca: I wanted to capture this interview for quite a while, and I'm so happy you're at your new home in Rhode Island where I wish you health and happiness and just can't wait to catch up with you more soon.

Esther Nelson: I hope so. Marc, I hope to see you.

Marc A. Scorca: Thank you so much. Really appreciate it.