A Look Into the Campaign to ‘Keep Portland Operatic’

On March 2, Portland Opera sent out an SOS. The company was in need of funds, and after six decades as the state’s ultimate source of this time-honored art, it made no exaggeration naming its fundraising campaign “Keep Portland Operatic.”

Christina Post, Portland Opera’s director of marketing and communications, made it very clear in her initial press release: “The next act begins now.” Not the last—the next. Keep Portland Operatic is planned for a 16-month run, with interim milestones along the way, leading to the final goal of raising $5 million by the end of next season.

On May 16, just as the company was about to present Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem, an announcement came live onstage: Portland Opera had successfully met its first interim goal of $1.5 million ahead of schedule. With that, the opera could announce the programming for the 2026–27 season. It would open with Verdi’s La Traviata at the Keller Auditorium in November. A December performance of Jesse J. Sanchez’s The Crown Maker would follow at Portland Opera’s newish downtown HQ, the World Trade Center Theatre. And George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess would close the season at the Newmark Theatre in March 2027.

Even with its fundraising goals met thus far, this upcoming season is noticeably abridged. Typically, a Portland Opera season includes at least four shows bookended by two big shows at the Keller in November and May. With candor, the company has been transparent about its need to cut costs.

“I don’t want it to seem as if it’s a contraction,” says Portland Opera artistic director Alfrelynn Roberts. “I want to be deliberate that we can produce at the same level of quality that we’ve done in the past.”

Roberts can hold up each of the upcoming productions as examples of how Portland Opera will adapt to the realities of a tighter budget. La Traviata, for instance, will feature live actors onstage, but likely minimal costuming and no live orchestra. For Roberts, this defines the “concert” approach she plans to apply to each production this season. “We won’t be able to do the visual appeal at the level we’ve done in the past,” she says. “But we’re getting to the heart of the music.”

At the opposite end of the season, Porgy and Bess will follow in the footsteps of Portland Opera’s spring 2025 production of The Shining by diving deep into the milieu of a specific point in 20th century culture. In this case, the production is being staged in the style of a pre-television radio drama, a very novel stylistic choice.

“There’s a Wheaties jingle they’re going to sing,” Roberts says. “We’ll have the Foley artists, all the bells and whistles that a radio play will have.”

Easily, though, Roberts is most excited about The Crown Maker, a newly commissioned piece to debut as part of Portland Opera to Go’s (it’s abbreviated to “POGO”) “Our Oregon” series.

POGO has spent 20 years bringing 50-minute opera productions to schools around the state, and in even numbered years, the Our Oregon series honors Oregonian women of color with newly commissioned biographical operas. The Crown Maker tells the story of artist Eva Castellanoz, who immigrated from Mexico with her family at a very young age, ultimately settling in Eastern Oregon and becoming a beloved community healer and activist. She also kept a specific facet of her culture alive as the only maker of traditional quinceañera coronas in the region.

As with all POGO productions, The Crown Maker is designed to appeal to all ages, and will tour the state (as well as possibly venues in Washington, Idaho and Northern California). By the time the production comes back to World Trade Center—with all its marimba and guitar accompaniment, among other corrido-ready instruments—the cast and crew will have already spent two months on the road, with two more to come in the new year.

“This isn’t just a story for our younger readers,” Roberts says. “All of us can see ourselves in Eva Castellanoz’s story.”

Such is the essence of Portland Opera’s body of work—honoring the art form’s centuries of history and the true diversity of the world around us. Keep Portland Operatic may have many months and millions to go before reaching its goal. Post confirmed that the campaign has accumulated a total of $1,766,703 as of July 22, adding that the next goal is a total of $3.5 million by the end of the calendar year.

Meanwhile, the company is forging on for the summer with its mobile stage, Opera a la Cart, setting up casual evening performances at venues around the city and as far afield as wine country, all through August and into September. As for Keep Portland Operatic, the success of other similar local campaigns gives Roberts hope. Most notably, Portland Center Stage announced earlier this month that it had raised $8 million in 14 months.

“We’re all in this together,” Roberts says. “We’re all trying to create great art in this beautiful city.”