In Anne Arundel County, the number of opera devotees has grown over the past four years. That may be largely a result of Mary Ann Cashman's opera appreciation courses at senior centers in Arnold and Annapolis, and her classes sponsored by Annapolis Opera.
Beginning Feb. 7, on Monday afternoons for 10 weeks, Cashman will teach a World of Opera class on the Arnold campus of Anne Arundel Community College. Adding this course will bring the number of opera students well above 100.
Cashman has increased opera appreciation among students ranging from lifelong opera lovers to novices who had never heard a complete opera. In Cashman, students find a gregarious, exuberant instructor who encourages them to enjoy the art form.
Having grown steadily since 2001, the now 30-member Arnold class has a waiting list, and some students (including myself) who have been there since the beginning say they are addicted.
Former opera neophytes have returned each session, drawn by Cashman's enthusiasm and expertise and to view video productions from unique perspectives.
Although Cashman has taught college classes in voice and acting and is the founder of a professional opera company, she began teaching opera appreciation classes only after being recruited by then-Annapolis Opera President Anna Marie Darlington-Gilmour.
Cashman began offering preperformance lectures on Annapolis Opera productions and later added a series on composers Puccini, Verdi and Mozart. She said she found inspiration in spreading the word about the art form to audiences of varied degrees of knowledge.
"This came about in February 2000 through Anna Marie, and now it seems that my entire life I've been preparing for these courses," she said. "I'm now teaching five opera appreciation classes - three on Monday, starting with the one at Arnold Senior Center, then a new one on AACC's Arnold campus that will cover whatever class interest dictates and a third one for Annapolis Opera."
Opera on video, she said, "enables us to comment on staging, or to stop and play other artists' interpretations of arias for comparison, as the situation presents. ... Even when a video may be dated as to costumes and hairdos - as in Grace Bumbry's Carmen - the piece still has charm, and some early videos are wonderful, as those recorded at Wolf Trap [in Virginia] with Beverly Sills."
