Opera Colorado has a new CEO. Here’s how she plans to bring the art to a modern audience

Barbara Lynne Jamison recently began her tenure as the Ellie Caulkins general director and CEO, where she will shape the future of Opera Colorado. For the past seven years, she served as General Director and CEO for Kentucky Opera.

As Jamison takes her post, she joined CPR News for an interview about her vision and mission for Opera Colorado.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

CPR News: How long have you been in your new post at Opera Colorado?

Barbara Lynne Jamison: My first official day on the job was August 1. But I had done a little bit of work this summer with the company.

CPR News: I want to rewind further. How did you first come into the world of opera? What sparked your love for it?

Jamison: I grew up in a very musical family. We all sang around the piano. We sang in the car. We all took music lessons of some sort … I didn’t even really think of music as necessarily a career path for myself. I just did it through school.

I was very fortunate to have school programs that had the arts in school. And I think it’s so important to continue to keep arts in the school, not just because they are so good for all of us, but because it also opens our minds to possibilities that we might never have even considered.

So I was able to take cello lessons in school and sing in choirs in school, and because of that, I found myself getting into college. And I got a scholarship. I was not an academic; I was not a top “A” student. It just wasn’t my focus. But I was able to get a music scholarship that enabled me to get into college.

I hadn’t even seen my first opera yet at that point … My first opera was one that I was in. And over time, I did start to attend operas. But my world into opera was really through music and the love of expression and the community that exists around art-making together. And so I think that really leads a lot of how I work in the industry today.

Courtesy Opera Colorado

CPR News: You were a performer for a while, then a music educator, before you ended up in arts leadership, correct?

Jamison: Yeah, I was a performer. That was what my degrees were in, and I did perform successfully. But I had an accident [touches throat] and was not able to keep singing.

I was really interested in arts education policy and decided to go get a degree in music education. I studied a lot of different things that really gave me some context. But I didn’t feel like being in academia forever, so I found myself back in administration.

CPR News: I saw your educator background come through in some of the projects from your time with Kentucky Opera. Looking at what Opera Colorado is currently offering — and what you hope it can offer in the future —​​ where do you see room for growth, especially around education?

Jamison: People often don’t recognize that, as a 501(c)(3), our 501(c)(3) status is an education status. That is the umbrella that the IRS puts us under as an opera company. And I think that’s important to remember when we recognize what our responsibility is in a community.

Education can take all kinds of paths. And it doesn’t always have to be didactic, it can just be experiential … But starting out as early as possible, helping everyone see the world through an artistic lens, is important. And in our industry, we get to do that through the art of music, the art of visual arts, the art of theater, the art of dance, the art of instruments, the art of singing. We have all the art forms put together in one. We have the art of electricians and carpentry. All of this exists in opera.

So we’re going to continue to build programs, and to look at the programs that we’ve been doing: what has been successful, what could use a reboot? And then work to raise funds so that we can implement those programs in our community.

CPR News: The question of raising money is a big one now. I know Opera Colorado has had many years of financial hardship. And arts organizations across the board are losing NEA funding. They’re running out of some of the pandemic-era support that arts organizations were getting. I’m curious what the path forward looks like in this climate.

Jamison: That’s a really great question. The path forward for me is remembering why we exist and who we exist for. And I think when we are really careful to stay focused on that, we find the support in the community for the work that we do. 

You talked earlier about the educational programs that we have; those are really important to us. And we will not be cutting those because that is central to our mission. Educational programs are and will continue to be central to our mission. The work that we do in the Ellie, on the stage, putting up operas, is also really important … But we also need to work with the community that chooses to support us. That will be our path forward. 

I think looking at the future with a bright and optimistic vision is really important, because arts have always survived. They always will survive. It is our task, it is our responsibility, and it is our privilege to get to look at what the art for tomorrow looks like here in Denver, in this community, and remembering the responsibility that we have to serve, not just to entertain, as an opera company.

CPR News: As we think about the arts as a place where community is born and thrives, I have also noticed a shift in how artists have started to advocate for better pay, better workplace protections. In 2023, Opera Colorado chose to unionize. Do you see anything particular or different about leading at a union shop, and how do you take care of folks in what is oftentimes a transient workforce?

Jamison: We are underpaid in our industry. In fact, opera is one of the lowest-paid industries of the performing arts: of the major opera, ballet, and orchestra worlds. It’s a tough world, and I would advocate for increasing pay for everyone.

But also what’s important is making sure that the work that we do is respected, the work hours are respected, that we are not just machines, we are human beings who have a life outside of what we do, and who bring all of those experiences in and need to have space for that so that we can make the art form richer by including the whole of a person in the process.

(Photo: Courtesy Minnesota Opera)

CPR News: I’m an arts reporter who loves the performing arts, but I’ll admit, I’ve never quite known if opera was my place. Then, in 2022, when there was “The Shining” the opera, that was the first time I thought I might understand, and enjoy, and be welcomed into this world.

Were this season’s productions — a couple of beloved classics: “La Traviata” and “Madama Butterfly” — chosen before Opera Colorado’s change in leadership? And what are your thoughts on generating a newer, younger audience?

Jamison: It’s true that these were programmed before I was named. It’s pretty typical for an incoming general director and CEO or artistic director to have to wait a couple of years before they can put their shows up. Next season will be my first planned season. And so we’ll be looking at what to do there. 

But there’s a fine balance of old and new. When there’s a brand new opera, it really piques people’s interest. But when we put the older works up, we also make sure that we’re seeing them through a new lens — that we are not just doing the same thing that was done ten years ago when you saw it, or in New York when you saw it. They are reinterpreted through new perspectives and with a different cultural landscape in mind. 

That’s really important to us here on the stage when we’re looking at the roles of women characters who may have just been seen as oppressed at one point in time. Now we see them with agency because we choose to give them that on the stage. 

Courtesy Opera Colorado

CPR News: Is there anything that I did not ask you about that you still want to talk about?

I think it’s really important that we at Opera Colorado help everyone find their pathway to the art form.

Opera is not a brand. It’s not Disney. It’s not Broadway. It’s an art form. And there are different iterations of that art form. 

What we do try to do is help everyone find something on the stage, in the story, where it piques your interest. And we do hope that everyone feels welcome, and is welcome, to find their story on the stage.

I do hope that we, over time, can put something on the stage that draws every single person to the Ellie Caulkins theater, and we can experience it together.

Editor’s Note: Opera Colorado is a financial supporter of CPR News. Financial supporters have no editorial influence.