So much with so little -- a letter from the Managing Director

[The following letter was written by Miriam Browning-Nance, Managing Director, just after The Rape of Lucretia in September 2008. So much has happened in a year, and yet our sentiments are still the same. How thrilling it is to feel so strongly about what one does.]


For those of you who are familiar with POM, you know that this is a labor of love for my partner, Laura Virella, and myself. Far from being just another job or hobby, for the past three years our work with POM has born fruit in one rewarding experience after another. We opera singers are used to feeling a bit, well, replaceable – there are just so many of us (especially sopranos!) and we are often the last element to be integrated into a production. POM has made us feel just the opposite: it has given us and many of our collaborators the opportunity to be involved in every creative aspect of building an opera from the ground up, so that at the end, we can look at the performance experience in a new and exciting light. This was one of my goals when we founded this company: to form, more or less, an opera co-operative, in which everyone involved – orchestra members, crew, designers, directors, singers and audience – can feel they share part of the ownership. This makes our triumphs, however big or small, all the more jubilant.

Opera is all about transformation: In our first season, 2006, we took Laura’s crazy idea and the help of a bunch of creative friends, and transformed them into two productions of astonishingly high artistic quality. Last year, we took a school gym in Spanish Harlem, three ladders, and an audience made up of people of all ethnic and cultural backgrounds, and transformed them into a spine-tingling experience of Die Zauberflöte. And that brings me to this season: for two magical performances of The Rape of Lucretia at The Players, we were able to share with packed audiences our best collaborative effort yet, with invaluable help from a venerable artistic institution. We received more support from colleagues in all elements of the production than ever before: stage management and direction, lighting, audiovisual recording, photography, publicity... Just yesterday we received an e-mail from our lighting designer, Tyler Learned, a professional who worked day and night for most of a week to make the production possible, with the following kind words:

“Personally, for me it was a triumph. I don't think I've ever done so much with so little. I still think of it... Thank you again for an opportunity for such an extraordinary experience.”

So much with so little... That’s precisely what we’ve always prided ourselves on doing, but perhaps the “so little” part is misleading. Because, although we’ve always functioned on a very low budget, we’ve been given so much in other ways: so much help, so much support, so much encouragement from our friends, family and the larger community. We may face an uphill battle, but we have always known we have many wonderful people cheering us on.