Today's guest blogger is Brett Batterson, Executive Director of the Auditorium Theatre. This is the first in a series of postings about their November 2008 production of the opera, Margaret Garner.
"NEW AMERICAN OPERA BY TONI MORRISON AND RICHARD DANIELPOUR STARRING DENYCE GRAVES MAKES CHICAGO DEBUT!"
"AUDITORIUM THEATRE CONTINUES TO FIND NEW, EXCITING WORKS THAT RESONATE WITH CHICAGO!"
The headlines to this, the first entry in a series of blog posts about the Auditorium Theatre’s upcoming production of Margaret Garner that ChicagoClassicalMusic.org is graciously hosting, could go on forever. There is just too much to be excited about with the Chicago premiere of this great American work this November: the story, the music, the performers, the collaborators, the educational programs... like I said, the list goes on and on.
How, you might ask, did this come to be? Why is the Auditorium the location for Margaret Garner’s Chicago debut? The answer actually goes back to when Toni Morrison and Richard Danielpour were writing the opera for Denyce Graves. They were also looking for an opera company to commission and produce it.
Denyce was singing in Werther at Michigan Opera Theatre and approached MOT General Director, David DiChiera, about producing Margaret Garner. David was looking for a new commission for the company, and was particularly interested in finding a piece with an African-American theme. He had recently discovered the writings of Toni Morrison and thought her works would be perfect for adaptation to the operatic art form. 
This random but opportune confluence of events led to the creation of the piece, the recruitment of Cincinnati Opera and Opera Company of Philadelphia as co-commissioners and the first performances in each of those cities. And as a minor side note - I just happened to be working as the Chief Operating Officer at Michigan Opera Theatre at the time and was involved with the original commissioning, but left Detroit for Chicago before the production actually debuted in 2005.
Fast forward to the performances in Philadelphia. Sitting in the audience were 22 Chicagoans, led by arts funders Amina Dickerson of Kraft Foods and Anne Roosevelt of the Boeing Company. These 22 individuals watched the performance in awe and agreed that this opera simply must play in Chicago. They also felt that the Auditorium was the ideal venue. When Amina and Anne called to ask me to lunch (every arts administrator's dream phone call, by the way), I had no idea that it was to discuss the idea of producing Margaret Garner at the Auditorium. When they told me, I almost spilled soup down the front of my white shirt because I was so excited to say, "I know that piece! How fantastic!"
The rest, as they say, is history. Or better - history in the making! No wait, HISTORY AND EXCITEMENT IN THE MAKING! Hold on, EXCITING HISTORY IN THE MAKING! Yeah, that's it. The list goes on and on...
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