Addio! Farewell Concert For Barbara Norris

May 14, 2008

Barbara Norris
The Castillo de San Marcos is moving north to be in the mountains.

The Plaza is shipping out to North Carolina.

Barbara Norris is moving to Ashville, North Carolina.

If you are part of the Northwest Florida Opera/Vocal music scene, the first two headlines aren’t any less significant than the third one.

Barbara Norris, founder of our First Coast Opera, super soloist and teacher extraordinaire has decided the grass is greener in Ashville. I have to agree that the arts are held in very high esteem there. It started with a week long Arts Festival called Belle Chere in the late 1970’s. Today, Ashville maintains some of the highest levels of theater, visual art and yes, music in the south. Barbara will fit right in.

Folks that love and will miss her are giving a formal concert weekend to tell her Addio (Good Bye). The concerts will feature Barbara herself in her final performance here in St. Augustine, plus many more of her favorite singers and ex-students. It promises to be a gala evening.

There will also be a silent auction “featuring artwork, gifts and jewelry” before each concert. Winning bidders will be able to take the item(s) they win home with them at the end of the evening.

Addio! A Farewell Concert For Barbara Norris on May 17th and 18th at 7:30 pm, with doors opening at 7:00 pm, and again on May 18th at 2:30 pm, with doors opening at 2:00 pm. Both performances will be at the St. Johns County Center for the Arts, St. Augustine High School at 3205 Varella Avenue, St. Augustine. All tickets are $15. To purchase advance tickets, call FCO’s ticket line at 904-417-5555. For more information, check www.firstcoastopera.com.

Written by MacV · Filed Under Entertainment

Comments

One Response to “Addio! Farewell Concert For Barbara Norris”

Freddy on May 25th, 2008 7:49 am

A letter to the editor was published:

Opera founders will be missed

By BOB FELDHEIM
St. Augustine
http://staugustine.com/stories/052508/opinions_052508_070.shtml

Bob Feldheim reviews theater in The St. Augustine Record’s weekend Compass.

Ten years ago, when opera singer and speech pathologist Barbara Norris and her husband, Anthony Fast, first arrived in St. Augustine, there were many opportunities for Norris to sing, but no opera. Fast, a classical music expert and teacher, quickly established a distinctive reputation as Captain Classics on Flagler College’s WFCF 88.5 FM.

It didn’t take long for Norris to make an indelible imprint on our community. On Valentine’s Day 1999, with Fast as impresario, Norris gave a recital in the Lightner’s swimming pool concert hall, accompanied by organists Shannon McKay and (the late) Janet Graham. It was well-attended and well-received, suggesting that an audience does, indeed, exist here for what she and her husband had to offer.

That fall, Norris invited singers she had become acquainted with from having sung together in the St. Augustine Community Chorus’ spring concert presentation of Mozart’s “Requiem” to join her in a concert of opera arias and ensembles. The response was reticent interest; few had opera experience but were challenged to give it a try. Performances were given to enthusiastic audiences, on Jan. 14 and 15, 2000, in Flagler College’s Flagler Room.

Encouraged, one month later they filed papers to incorporate as (not-for-profit) First Coast Opera. There followed a quick succession of ever-more-ambitious concerts, notably brilliant, full-scale performances, in January 2003, of Puccini’s “Madame Butterfly, in Pedro Menendez High School’s Performing Arts Center. Recognizing the quality of FCO presentations, the Tourist Development Council lent its financial support, which continues to this day. St. Augustine had become the official home of Northeast Florida’s only resident opera company.

In the ensuing years, Norris expanded her personal activities to include teaching aspiring opera singers in her own studio and, as an adjunct to Jeff Dodd’s SAHS’ Center for the Creative Arts, developing extraordinary voices enrolled in the “Master Track” program. Many of her students have gone on to promising careers, returning periodically to embrace Norris for her generous love and expert guidance.

No aspect of opera is easy — financially, logistically, musically, competitively — particularly in the Ancient City where FCO has no venue of its own. Every scheduled performance is a challenge, in the face of enormous obstacles. The pressure inevitably took its toll: Norris suffered a stroke, Fast a heart attack. Happily both have recovered sufficiently to resume active lives, but they had no choice but to relinquish FCO reins to others.

Norris continues to entrance audiences with her magnificent soprano voice, most recently as Josephine in Gilbert and Sullivan’s “HMS Pinafore,” and this past weekend as the centerpiece of “Addio!” at SAHS’ CCPA, surrounded by many with whom she’s performed over the years, as well as current students. Shannon McKay was there to accompany on the keyboard — along with Kathleen Vande Berg. Sam Clein and 11th-grader Zeek Smith –all brilliant keyboard artists.

Why “Addio”? Because Norris will soon be leaving us, relocating to Asheville, N.C. In the “Addio!” program, Norris writes, “It’s been wonderful! A huge thank you is due to the singers and accompanists, who devoted their time and gifts for this concert. And to the audiences, thank you all for coming. If you enjoyed today’s performance, please continue to show your support of your opera company by attending future performances. Opera is the most expensive of the performing arts to produce, and though ticket sales alone will not adequately support FCO, we need you in the seats, and telling your friends, ‘Wow! St. Augustine has an opera company.’”