Arizona Opera has a new leader, and he didn’t have far to go to take his new job.
Brian DeMaris has taught at Arizona State University for around a decade. During that time, DeMaris says he’s both collaborated with and attended Arizona Opera. DeMaris has also worked with opera companies around the country, including the Glimmerglass. But his musical experience is not limited to that genre — he’s also worked in the areas of ballet, musical theater and symphony.
DeMaris, the new president and general director of Arizona Opera, joined The Show to talk about taking over.
Full conversation
MARK BRODIE: Brian, you’ve done so many things in so many areas of music. Do you expect it will be different in some ways to be the person in charge, as opposed to any of the other things you’ve done in the world of music?
BRIAN DEMARIS: Yeah, you know, I feel like my career path has been unexpected from day one. I fell into playing the piano in middle school, high school and pursuing that for college. I thought I would be in music education as a teacher. I fell into opera by discovering it in college. I went right into apprenticeships with opera companies directly out of college and then I kind of fell into teaching, but continued to keep my one arm in the opera world as a conductor, and everything has been somewhat accidental, but it's all had something to do with opera.
And that's kind of been the best part. I feel like it's a calling, it's something that found me. I think a lot of people that interact with opera feel the same way. Everybody kind of found it by accident. It's one of the musical art forms that has the most impassioned fans. You know, maybe not a lot of people love opera, but the people that love it really love opera, and I really feel the same way because of everything that it connects to.
BRODIE: So, when you talk about opera having a very excited fan base, but maybe not the largest fan base, is it safe to say that that presents you with both challenges and opportunities?
DEMARIS: Absolutely, challenges and opportunities because of that. But the thing that I think opera has going for it, it's really like nothing else and it also connects to everything else. There is not an opera that's been written that doesn't connect with some field, or industry or area of literature, time period, history, culture in some really effective and magical way. And that's, I think, why opera brings people in from so many different corners.
Those fans are out there everywhere, and sometimes I think one of the downfalls of opera and making opera is that it is very labor intensive. And we have to spend so much time in the production, making it happen. And yet, everything that we're connecting with is outside of those spaces, outside of the opera production space. So, we have to really work hard with all of the staff and all of the board to connect to all the other aspects of everybody's life to bring those audiences in.
BRODIE: Do you see it as part of your job to try to make those connections and explain to people who maybe are not familiar with opera, or maybe just don't love it to begin with, that none of this, maybe it's in a different language, it takes place in a different time, but here is how it is relevant to the world today or how it is relevant to your life today?
DEMARIS: Oh, I absolutely see that as part of my job, and, you know, as I was debating, with myself and my family kind of moving out of academia into full-time opera, I came home from one of the meetings with a board committee, and I said to my wife, “You know what? This is, this is feeling right because it's teaching.” And that's what I'm passionate about, and that's what conducting is, that's what music making is. And, you know, I say it's teaching because teaching is also learning.
So, I'm not destined to go out there and make someone fall in love with opera, force their hand or say, “You have to like opera.” I don't think that's it, but what I can do and what we need to do in the art form is really show just how much opera connects to. And to get past that idea of the fear of elitism and those sorts of things really help people see and understand that, nobody was born into opera. Everybody found it and fell in love with it by accident and by surprise, and I think there's a lot of people out there who love opera that just don't realize it yet.
BRODIE: So I know that you have some experience in musical theater in addition to opera, and in thinking about that, it strikes me that in some ways, musical theater and opera are very, very similar, and in other ways those two art forms are extremely different.
DEMARIS: This is one of my favorite things to talk about. You know, of course, there are different styles, with contemporary musical theater and rock and pop and R&B and jazz, and all those influences, but if you really zoom out really far, it's all the same thing. Musical theater is opera, opera is musical theater. They're both age-old art forms that transcend cultural boundaries from all over the world.
And, when you zoom in a little further to the here and now, OK, sure, maybe there are pieces on Broadway right now that not every opera house is quite ready to dive into, but there's certainly pieces in the musical theater that can really benefit from being performed and produced by opera house. Arizona Opera has done some of those recently. We'll do more, absolutely, you're never gonna keep me away from musical theater, but I subscribe to the idea that singing is singing and stories are stories.
BRODIE: So, does that mean that audiences should continue to expect Arizona Opera to try new things and, you know, not just sort of stick to the old, the old classics?
DEMARIS: That's another great question. Remember, you're talking to someone that's coming straight from ASU where they pride themselves on being number one in innovation. And during the search, I heard that word so many times from the opera staff and the board, and the people I was interacting with, and I think innovation is really just an Arizona thing.
So, of course, we're gonna continue to innovate and do great things with technology, with the programming, with educational programming. I'm particularly excited to innovate by connecting with the universities in the state, some of that is already happening. We're gonna build on that, by building connections with businesses, and other organizations and especially trying to foster some collaboration and start conversations with other arts organizations all throughout Arizona, to see how we can really work together.
Because, let's face it, opera is struggling, the arts are struggling. There's a new era right now that's really more dependent on philanthropy than ever, and I think working together as arts organizations, we can solve some of those problems that affect all of us and really find some of those opportunities that we can all grow from and all grow together.
BRODIE: Yeah, I wanted to ask you about the funding situation because obviously, as you say, a lot of arts organizations are not doing great. There's questions about where public funding might be coming from if it's coming at all. It sounds as though this is something that you're thinking about and trying to maybe try to get out in front of a little bit?
DEMARIS: Yes, so, you know, you kind of hear, “Is opera dying?” and those kinds of questions and opera I think is always been dying because it's always been reborn, and it's always adapted to new cultures, new realities, new political social realities, new cultures of finance and economy, and I think we're just in yet another moment.
And while, you know, I've been working professionally for 20 years, even in that time, you know, we kind of faced some downturn in 2008 where opera adapted and did really great things, and one of the adages at that time was really doing new small innovative opera, and I had a colleague say, he said, “I posit that the future of opera is small,” and in some ways, that's true, not because it's less exciting or less extravagant artistically, but just more impactful in an intimate way.
And I think the moment here we're facing is that opera is local, and I'm really excited to connect Arizona Opera to the local community in Tucson and Phoenix and expand beyond those two cities, to the rest of the state. And I think that local impact and really connecting with the communities in Arizona is the solution to that, and that way everybody feels some ownership over their own arts organizations, and that's really what we're gonna be about at Arizona Opera to navigate through this moment.
