I've been hearing for a couple of years now that the retirement of Speight Jenkins, the (mostly) beloved and longtime leader of Seattle Opera was "around the corner."
Today, that retirement has finally been announced, as well as Jenkins's replacement Aidan Lang, who was found after a hush-hush, two-year search process:
Aidan Lang, respected in the opera community for positions of leadership with New Zealand Opera, Glyndebourne Opera Festival, the Buxton Festival and Opera Zuid, has been named Seattle Opera’s third General Director effective September 1, 2014. Lang succeeds Speight Jenkins, who has led the company for more than three decades. Founded in 1963, Seattle Opera celebrates its 50th Anniversary beginning with the August 2013 production of Wagner’s Ring and culminating with the 2014 International Wagner Competition and 50th Anniversary Concert and Speight Celebration in August 2014.
This announcement marks a moment in Seattle's broader culture as well. Over the past six years or so, Seattle's other two classic performing-arts organizations (the ballet and the symphony) have transitioned away from longtime leaders (Kent Stowell/Francia Russell and Gerard Schwarz) who were intensely focused on institution-building, establishing a foothold for their medium in the city's consciousness, and congealing a reliable audience and donor cohort.
The ballet replaced Stowell/Russell with Peter Boal and the symphony replaced Schwarz with Ludovic Merlot Morlot, both exciting choices for audiences in Seattle (and beyond) who were more than ready to see those sometimes staid-seeming institutions push forward into a more daring and engaged phase of their aesthetic development.
Will the 57 year-old Lang inspire the same excitement among opera geeks? Either way, the transition seems to have been meticulously choreographed.
Some of Lang bona fides from Seattle Opera's announcement are below the jump. And you can follow him on Twitter. His most recent tweet: "Speighters gonna Speight."*
Lang has served as General Director of New Zealand Opera since 2006 with a goal of ensuring that every production is theatrically stimulating and musically ambitious. Working collaboratively is a top priority for Lang, and during his tenure New Zealand Opera implemented a series of collaborations with such companies as Glyndebourne, Opera North, and Welsh National Opera, bringing exciting productions from directors Nikolaus Lehnhoff (Jenůfa), Tim Albery (Macbeth), and Christopher Alden (Turandot) to New Zealand. In addition to bringing productions in, Lang made it a priority to develop the capacity to build productions in the country, establishing New Zealand’s first-ever opera production workshop. This achievement has resulted in international co-productions with Scottish Opera (L’italiana in Algeri), Victorian Opera (Serse), and this year’s Der Fliegende Holländer with Opera Queensland in Australia.
Among other productions, he directed the first Brazilian production of Wagner’s Ring at the historic Teatro Amazonas in Manaus. Other noted productions include Le Comte Ory (Welsh National Opera), Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria (Lisbon), The Turn of the Screw (Salzburg) and the British premieres of The Magic Fountain by Frederick Delius (Scottish Opera) and Cornet Christoph Rolke’s Song of Love and Death by Siegfried Matthus (Glyndebourne). As Artistic Director of the Buxton Festival, Lang expanded the Festival to include Baroque and contemporary music, tripled its audience attendance, and delivered significant operating surpluses in each year.
* Not actually his most recent tweet. In fact, not one of his tweet at all. It was something Dominic said after we got the retirement announcement.
