The Baton Rouge Opera Guild has given their annual scholarship to the LSU Opera program, which will allow students to worry less about their fee bill and more about their talent.
LSU College of Music and Dramatic Arts Director of Development Katie Rothstein has been working for the University since December 2015 and has a background in opera. She works for a group that raises money for the College of Music and Dramatic Arts and College of Humanities and Social Science.
“We are so grateful to our donors for their support,” Rothstein said. “Organizations like [the Baton Rouge Opera Guild] are what make LSU Opera great and help us attract the very best talent that’s out there. Talented students attract talented faculty and vice versa. We have what we have because we have people who are generous and we are so grateful for that.”
The BROG was formed in 1948, and since that time, they have been giving money to opera organizations in Baton Rouge, which has taken a couple forms but has almost always taken the form of support for the Opera at LSU, Rothstein said.
“We have some major gifts that come through that will establish an endowed scholarship, but this is a non-endowed gift that comes through annual that their members support,” Rothstein said.
Music Director and Associate Professor of LSU Opera Michael Borowitz has been at LSU for nine years and has been involved with BROG since the beginning. The patrons of the organization form an individual relationship with all of the students that they sponsor and support.
The scholarship of $30,000 is split up among students in the LSU Opera program. Students who are selected based on talent and need are given up to $2,000 each. Borowitz said the students are chosen by the voice opera faculty vote. The faculty meets, and once they have established the singers who will be invited to attend the University, they sit down and talk about who is most deserving of that money. Their vote is based on their auditions and their perceived abilities for a career.
“It allows students who otherwise wouldn’t be able afford to go to college to get that opportunity,” Rothstein said. “Some who otherwise would have to be working more hours now have more opportunity to study and do music and be at rehearsals and all those sorts of things that would make it difficult to hold up a job at the same time and go to school.”
The LSU Opera puts on two mainstage productions a year. This year they are doing “Falstaff” with music by Guiseppe Verdi, and “Dog Days” with music by David T. Little. Rothstein said opera is more accessible than people think. She said it takes all of the elements people love about big music theater like the sets, the costume and the orchestra and on top of everything it is also entirely acoustic. Everything you are hearing is at a supremely high level of artistry, she said.
“For me, I love all types of music. I have a very eclectic taste, but when it comes to something like opera or classical music, it gives me goosebumps in the same way that funk makes me dance,” Rothstein said. “It just moves a different part of my soul.”
Rothstein said the University was one of the first opera workshops in the country to attract the most talented people around the United States to come join the University’s program. LSU Opera has many successful alumni, including Lisette Oropesa, Daniela Mack and Paul Groves, who have all had successful international opera careers.
“Almost all of our voice professors have had professional careers,” Rothstein said. “So what’s happening here at Baton Rouge is really, truly incredible. We have incredible faculty that all have international accolades.”
She said most of the students in the program are not from Louisiana, and LSU Opera has higher than a 50 percent rate of out of state and international students.
“So that says something because they have to pay out of state rate to come here,” Rothstein said. “They are willing to pay that to study with our professors.”In the 1940s, the LSU Opera program was the only one in Baton Rouge, sosupporting LSU was supporting opera in Baton Rouge, Rothstein said.
University students have had the opportunity to sing at BROG events for decades and make great friends with BROG leadership, Borowitz said.
“So what’s nice about that organization, not just the events that our singers sing for them, they get to socialize with these singers and they actually have a very hands on experience with the development of each of these students careers,” Borowitz said.