Today we’d like to introduce you to Dana Varga.
Dana is a sought-after soprano, voice teacher and career coach, as well as the Founder and Artistic Director of MassOpera (formerly MetroWest Opera). She is on the voice faculty of the Longy School of Music, and has previously served on the voice faculties of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the New England Conservatory Preparatory School and the Boston University Tanglewood Institute. Dana regularly presents vocal master classes as well as classes on business and entrepreneurship for singers all over the east coast, and publishes articles frequently in Classical Singer Magazine.
An avid concert soloist, Dana’s recent performances have included Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with the Cantata Singers (Jordan Hall), Mozart’s Mass in C Minor and Haydn Lord Nelson Mass with Coro Allegro (Sanders Theatre), the Fauré Requiem and Neilsen’s Symphony No. 3 with the Springfield Symphony, Amy Beach’s Mass and Handel’s Israel in Egypt with the Commonwealth Chorale, the Bach B Minor Mass and Christmas Oratorio with the Rhode Island Civic Chorale and Orchestra, and Mendelssohn’s Psalm 42 with the Andover Choral Society. She performs Handel’s Messiah regularly with dozens of organizations across the northeast.
Past concert highlights include both Vaughan Williams’ Sea Symphony and Dona Nobis Pacem as well as the Brahms Requiem and the Dvořák Te Deum with the Metropolitan Chorale, Orff’s Carmina Burana with the Granite State Choral Society, Dubois’ Seven Last Words with Coro Allegro, the Bach Magnificat, Mozart Requiem and Mendelssohn St. Paul with the Choral Art Society, and Beethoven’s Mass in C at Tanglewood (Ozawa Hall).
Dana has amassed accolades for her numerous operatic roles, which include Musetta in La bohème, Fiordiligi in Cosi fan tutte, Anna Maurrant in Street Scene, Rosalinda in Die Fledermaus, Micaëla in Carmen, Alcina in Alcina, Hanna Glawari in The Merry Widow and First Lady in The Magic Flute. She has performed with Boston Lyric Opera, Odyssey Opera, PORTopera, Opera Boston, Boston Opera Collaborative, PANopera, Connecticut Lyric Opera, Commonwealth Opera, Boston Baroque, the Aldeburgh (Britten-Pears) Festival, and the prestigious Caramoor Festival in New York.
Please tell us about MassOpera.
I founded MetroWest Opera (Now MassOpera) by accident in 2007. I worked at the First Parish Church in Weston, MA as the soprano section leader and children’s choir director. There is a large hall there called the Parish Hall that has a little stage and a big red curtain, and I asked the church if I could use it to put on the one act opera Dido and Aeneas by Purcell with some friends. They agreed and the performance was such a huge success that the community basically demanded a repeat. I decided to name the company and put on one production per year. I enlisted the help of some friends to run the company smoothly. We put together a board, applied for non-profit status, and became a 501c3. Our annual budget has increased slowly over the past eleven years, and we have moved into more and more professional venues. In 2010 I added a vocal competition, as there aren’t many Boston-area competitions for classical singers to compete in. Additional events such as fundraisers, audition preparation evenings for singers, and business of singing seminars have been added over the years. We kept gravitating closer and closer to Boston; we would do a performance in Newton, in Brookline, in Watertown….finally we ended up at the Boston Center for the Arts in the south end of Boston this season. For this reason and many others we decided we needed to rename the company MassOpera, and rebrand. I now co-run the company with two amazing colleagues. I serve as the Artistic Director, William Neely as the Executive Director, and Cassandra Lovering as the Producing Artistic Director.
Has it been a smooth road?
Not at all! Running a small non-profit arts organization is absolutely a labor of love. I have never been paid for my work with MassOpera (though my career has been positively affected in other, non-monetary ways). Our 2011 production went wildly over budget due to a number of unforeseen issues, and there was nobody but me to cover the costs; I had to shell out $9,000 of my own money to save the season. I have since been reimbursed, but it was a big speed bump in our company’s history. All of us who work for MassOpera are volunteers, so we are not only learning on the job but making time when we can. It is hard to get all of the staff and board in one place, hard to do strategic long-term planning…hard to do everything when everyone involved is also working full time at other jobs! We make it work, and we have all learned so much. There is a lot of pride involved when the curtain opens on a new production, or when we hand out awards to incredibly talented emerging singers at the competition.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
Our newly crafted mission statement is: MassOpera cultivates experiences for artists and audiences that challenge the status quo and reflect our diverse community. One of the things that sets us apart is our commitment to creating as many performance opportunities for Massachusetts-based singers as possible. Most of our productions are double cast, and we are careful to program operas with good gender parity (as there are far more female singers than male in the business). We also work to select operas with interesting stories that are relatable and accessible to a wide variety of audiences. MassOpera…not just opera in Massachusetts, but opera for the masses!
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Yes, Boston has a thriving arts scene and is a great place for arts entrepreneurs. However, Boston has a bit of a “venue crisis” especially for small companies. There are not many affordable small spaces or theaters to rent in the area, and those that are both desirable and affordable are booked up very quickly. Even renting a church space for a seminar or auditions can be incredibly costly. There are almost zero rehearsal spaces that can be rented by the hour (there are hundreds of options in New York, in comparison). Often rehearsals have to happen far outside the city, or crammed in someone’s living room. The city needs to improve upon offering affordable spaces for rehearsals, events and productions to arts organizations that can’t afford the current price tags.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.metrowestopera.org
- Email: metrowestopera@gmail.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/metrowestopera/
Image Credit:
CoCo Boardman
Niles Scott Studios
Getting in touch: BostonVoyager is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
