‘Sound’ Investment
Funding woes stifle opera program, some say
By Jacque Petersell
Copy Desk Chief

With the opera only a little more than a month away, Richard Estes has a lot to do.

He has props to build, lights to hang, costumes to order and scenes to stage. He also must work with the music students, making sure they know the music and are hitting the right notes.

In essence, Estes, the director of opera theater, is a one-man production crew.

“We haven’t (sold tickets) in the past because the opera program at TCU has a staff of one — that’s me,” he said. “I don’t have enough hands to sit at the door and sell tickets, too.”

Officials in the School of Music say that they want the school and the opera program to become nationally acclaimed, but funding, faculty and facility issues have been holding them back.

“Throw a dart at the School of Music and anywhere it lands we are under funded,” said Richard Gipson, director of the School of Music.

Scott Sullivan, dean of the College of Fine Arts, said the 2002 budget for the School of Music was $2,694,000. However, he said $2.2 million went to salaries and benefits and $130,750 went to pay adjunct professors. That leaves $360,000 for remaining productions.

Estes said the opera program had been without a director for two years and the yearly budget was $2,000 when he started here in 1992. Normally the opera program does one opera a year with a budget of $12,000.

Even with the increase, Estes said, the cost doesn’t compare to other opera budgets.

“Most opera budgets run between $40,000 and $50,000 a year,” Estes said. “Ours is $12,000. We have people donate a little bit every year, but it’s in the hundreds not thousands.”

Estes said the costs differ on the types of opera and the equipment needed. Most of the money, he said, goes to outside sources such as hiring technicians and stage carpenters to hang lights and build props — things he can’t take care of.

Estes said it’s just a way to cut costs from the already limited budget.

“I can either spend $12,000 on materials or labor,” he said. “If I spent it on labor, I wouldn’t have any materials.”

With Estes working multiple positions, he doesn’t always get to work with the singers as much as he would like, said Christina Hager, who served as the opera representative for the music students forum in the School of Music’s re-accreditation process.

“(Estes) doesn’t always get to work with us on other things,” said Hager, a senior vocal performance and English major. “He would like to spend more time on how we sound rather than prop positions.”

Lack of funding
Sullivan said the monetary demands on the university are intense, and there are competing needs within the School of Music. Where the money is spent is up to the school, he said.

“We’d like to have some help for (Estes), but the school has to decide where the priorities are,” Sullivan said. “Money is limited.”

Gipson said he is talking with others in the School of Music about looking for ways to increase funding and the number of faculty members. Talks are in their early stages and no decisions have been made yet, he said.

For now, Gipson said, the school will have to primarily rely on fund raising for special activities. However, there aren’t any fund-raising plans set yet, he said.

Estes said they have tried to fund raise in the past, but it hasn’t worked. He said they had to run the fund-raising campaign through University Advancement, but the opera program has yet to make the list.

“Programs tend to be funded according to a pecking order,” Estes said. “Years ago opera was put at the end of the line for funding within the music unit.

“As resources are also scarce for other music programs as well, there has simply never been the effort put forth by the institution at the school level or the college level or the university level.”

Bronson Davis, vice chancellor for University Advancement, said to request fund-raising support a program has to fill out a form that must be OK’d by the school dean, the provost and then by Davis. He said he hasn’t seen any application from the opera program for support.

Davis said the office has recently supported other School of Music programs, such as an Evening of Gershwin at Bass Performance Hall and the Latin American Music Festival. Davis said the School of Music has a list of priorities, and any attempt to raise funds for the opera program was stopped at the school level.

Estes agreed and said the proposal hasn’t gotten out of the School of Music.
“I can’t get out of my own neighborhood,” he said.

Gipson said it isn’t fair to just say TCU wouldn’t put the opera program on the fund-raising list.

“The perspective we all need to keep in mind is that TCU was searching for a director of the School of Music for two years,” Gipson said. “The reaction is to step back and wait until the position is filled (before getting funding).”

One program the school is aiming to be like is the College of Music at the University of North Texas, Estes said. John Scott, the assistant dean and director of admissions for the College of Music at UNT, said while he did not know the current budget numbers, the opera program is able to put on three of four full productions a year and a children’s opera where UNT music students perform for children in public schools.

Another school TCU is aiming to be like is the Meadows School of the Art at SMU. Marciem Bazell, director of opera at SMU, said she is able to pull people from other departments to help with the operas, including stage managers, stage directors and people to make costumes and props. She said she also has two other vocal coaches to help the opera students.

The annual budget for the opera program at SMU is $30,000, Bazell said. It covers two opera scenes programs and one major opera production.

Space issues
Other differences include the amount of students attending each school, and the number of practice rooms available to those students.

UNT has more than 1,650 music students that share 300 practice rooms in two buildings, or 5.5 users for each room. SMU has about 350 students that share 40 rooms, both open and reserved, or 8.75 students for each room. There are practice rooms in the arts residence halls as well. At TCU, there are about 200 music students sharing 17 practice rooms, or 11.8 users for each room.

“Facilities are not even adequate,” Gipson said. We have major space issues.”

But Hager said the problems go past the basic practice time. The opera program also suffers from lack of practice space.

For opera, the main practice room is Ed Landreth Hall Auditorium, Estes said. But 40 percent of the time, the auditorium is being used for other events, sometimes forcing opera practices into halls or even outside, he said.

Hager said many times, when only a few people are needed at opera practice, they rehearse in Estes’ studio, which also serves as his office and opera storage room. Hager said the space isn’t fair to Estes because his room to teach is being taken up by boxes. However, T.J. Hoffman, sophomore music major, said it’s more than an inconvenience to Estes — it’s an embarrassment.

“(Estes) has to apologize for it being so cluttered,” he said. “It’s just a storage space and it’s distracting. It makes it hard to practice.”

Looking to the future
Scott said the ultimate measure of any music program is the success of its graduates. UNT currently has six graduates with solo parts in the Metropolitan Opera, many graduates are first player in their sections, 67 graduates performing in armed services bands and more than 1,600 grads teaching in public schools.

Estes said that 100 percent of music education graduates get a teaching job right after graduating. Estes also said TCU students generally do well in graduate school. Currently, TCU graduates are studying at some of the nations top graduate schools, including The Boston Conservatory, the Manhattan Conservatory of Music and the New England Conservatory of Music. But school officials are looking to get more students jobs at better music organizations, Estes said.

“In the future, if we could do that to more than two or three students, but (increase) to 10 students a year,” Estes said.

Jacque Petersell