Here’s how the symphony, ballet and opera are preparing to reopen in Charlotte
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CLT Fall Arts Guide 2020 Series Nav
Our coverage of the Charlotte Fall Arts season amid COVID, social justice protests
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Note: This article was updated Sept. 21.
Live arts performances in Charlotte have been shut down since March due to COVID-19. Leaders of arts groups like the symphony, ballet and opera say these shutdowns have been devastating for performers.
And while these organizations hope to hold performances in theaters at some point this fall, they must comply with reopening requirements from the state.
Gov. Roy Cooper moved North Carolina into Phase 2.5 as of Sept. 4, and it is expected to remain in place until at leas Oct. 2. However, that phase did not allow for theater venues to reopen.
For now, some arts groups will transition to outdoor and virtual performances, while others are still unsure of what their season will look like. Here’s a look at what the opera, ballet and symphony are considering for the fall.
Charlotte Symphony shows
The Charlotte Symphony will present a season of virtual concerts, along with smaller format and limited capacity outdoor performances, the orchestra announced Sept. 21.
Four concerts will be livestreamed from Knight Theatre, and patrons can see individual performances for $18 or all four for $72. They will be available on demand for a week afterward.
Music Director Christopher Warren-Green will open the series with Grieg’s Holberg Suite for Strings and Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings on Oct. 23 at 7:30 p.m. He’ll also conduct Brahms’ Liebeslieder Waltzes and Dvořák’s Serenade for Strings on Nov. 20 at 7:30 p.m.
Resident Conductor Christopher James Lees will conduct a concert of Americana music on Nov. 6 at 7:30 p.m. Lees will also lead a string orchestra in Mendelssohn’s Sinfonia No. 7 in D minor and Caroline Shaw’s Entr’Acte, on Dec. 4 at 7:30 p.m.
The Charlotte Symphony’s popular On Tap series will also return with six concerts in NoDa Brewing Company’s beer garden. Lees will host on Sept. 29, Oct. 20 and Nov. 17, General Manager John Clapp on Oct. 6, Warren-Green on Oct. 27 and incoming president and CEO David Fisk on Nov 10.
For those shows, tickets are $15 in-person or $10 for streaming per concert. All six can be streamed for $54.
Fisk said when it’s safe for live performances to return to its traditional indoor venues, the symphony will adhere to the safety guidelines of Blumenthal Performing Arts — which runs the venues where the orchestra performs. Those measures including social distancing, mask requirements and temperature checks for audience members.
Fisk also noted that the Black Lives Matter movement that has sparked protests in Charlotte and across the country has been a “wake-up call” for many institutions.
“There is definitely an issue in the classical music world of inequality and of unequal access to music starting at a very early age,” he said.
“We will absolutely be focusing on what more we can do in the coming weeks and months and years to enable everyone to have access to music, and to be more representative of Black voices, brown voices on the stage, in the music that we choose and really in everything that we do to try to represent the communities that we serve.”
For instance, the symphony has a program called Project Harmony which provides free instruments, ensemble music training and homework help to local students who face challenges. Fisk said this is one way the symphony has worked to increase access to music in the Charlotte area.
He also said he’d like the symphony to partner with other orchestras and groups to be able to learn from them. That includes the Sphinx Organization based in Detroit, a social organization dedicated towards supporting diversity in the arts.
Opera Carolina safety concerns
Opera Carolina had been set reopen in theaters in November with Giacomo Puccini’s “Tosca,” Artistic Director James Meena said. But weeks later, plans changed and the production was moved to 2021, along with “Aida.”
January plans for “I Dream,” a piece on Martin Luther King Jr. that the opera originally performed in 2018, have been pushed back to April. Next year, it will be revised and the opera will hold a series of community engagement initiatives around the piece, he said.
“The postponement of ‘Tosca’ and ‘Aida’ and the rescheduled performances of ‘I Dream’ is not an announcement we ever wanted to make, but it is the right one. The safety of our patrons, our team, and our artists is the most important consideration,” Meena said in a news release.
“’Tosca’ and ‘Aida’ are both large-scale grand operas that couldn’t be performed with actors at safe distances from one another. ‘I Dream’ is a significantly smaller work, which makes it easier to safely distance.“
In addition to the changes to the season, Bella Notte, Opera Carolina’s major fall fundraising event, has been canceled.
Meena said when theaters do reopen, the opera has guidelines for backstage members and the theater has health and safety guidelines for audience members.
Protocols for the theater will include a touchless ticketing system and cleaning protocols, he said. For opera members, Meena said everyone will be tested before they enter the theater, they will be wearing masks when they’re offstage and they’ll social distance backstage as much as possible.
In the meantime, Opera Carolina has several virtual and outdoor events planned.
The opera will launch a Virtual Opera House on its on its website in late October, when people can view virtual performances, Meena said.
Opera Carolina also is scheduling smaller live performances starting in late September and early October, which Meena said are expected to occur about once every two weeks.
The opera is looking for outdoor venues for these performances where audiences can social distance, Meena said. These performances will also be streamed.
Some pieces in this series include “Tinder Opera”, a one-act comic opera about the dating app Tinder and “Service Provider”, a piece about the relationship between millennials and their iPhones, as well as excerpts from classic opera pieces like “La Traviata.”
Meena said when the company fully reopens, members of the opera are most excited about finding a sense of community.
“Just getting together as a performing company and actually working together in the same space I think is going to be a thrill,” he said.
Meena said some safety concerns, especially for performers, still remain.
He said many guests artists are based in New York and elsewhere across the country, and have been watching coronavirus numbers spike in North Carolina. They also have concerns about getting on an airplane to come to Charlotte and having to stay in hotels.
“The concerns for the performing company are at least as daunting, if not more so than our concerns for the audience,” he said.
Charlotte Ballet’s ‘different experience’
The Charlotte Ballet’s annual performance of the “Nutcracker” has been canceled. But Executive Director Doug Singleton said the ballet still plans to reopen in December with “Sleeping Beauty: A Fairy-Tailored Classic.”
It will run Dec. 10-20 at Belk Theater, he said.
Singleton said in order to open for Sleeping Beauty, company members will start training in the studio by October. But he knows reopening plans depend on what happens with the coronavirus and mandates from the state.
Once the theater does reopen, Singleton said audiences could expect to see reduced capacity in the theater, temperature checks and masking policies.
“It’ll be a different experience without a doubt,” he said.
Singleton said the coronavirus shutdowns have been devastating for dancers, who have not been training or taking classes since March 13.
“That’s almost a full year of performances that are taken away by these amazing, athletic artists that have a limited time to do what they do,” he said.
Classes over Zoom aren’t enough. “They need the space, they need the floor, they need the mirrors, they need the bars to really be able to hone and enhance their technique,” Singleton said.
Meanwhile, two long-time Charlotte Ballet dancers won’t be returning for the 2020-21 season. Alessandra Ball James recently announced her retirement after 15 seasons. Chelsea Dumas, who has been with the company for seven seasons, is leaving to explore other career paths.
Singleton said when the ballet is finally able to reopen open, everyone, from the dancers and production staff to the stagehands and ushers, is looking forward to seeing each other again.
“We all had these work relationships that were constant, and we were always around each other,” he said. “Camaraderie, and being connected again, is what I’m most looking forward to.”
Observer staff writer Heidi FInley contributed to this report
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This story was originally published September 8, 2020 at 5:00 PM.
