Baltimore Opera

It could have been a party thrown by the Pink Ladies -- that girl gang from the musical Grease. The Pimlico Race Course's Hall of Fame Room seemed to dance in the ladies' signature colors of pink and black, while some guests at the Baltimore Opera Guild's "OperaHop" kicked up a storm on the dance floor to the '50s tunes of the Fabulous Hubcaps. Others browsed a buffet of '50s food, like hot dogs, French fries and ice cream sundaes -- all the while raising more than $14,000 for the Baltimore Opera Company.

Betty G. Hocker, a retired Baltimore opera singer and composer who wrote the "Fort McHenry March" at the time of the nation's bicentennial, died Saturday of complications from dementia at Stella Maris Hospice. The longtime Roland Park resident was 101. The daughter of a businessman and a homemaker, Sara Elizabeth "Betty" Gumpper was born into a musical family in Butler, Pa. Her father played the banjo and piano and had a small band, while her mother also played the piano and sang.

The Baltimore Opera Company says it has received a gift of $100,000 from the family of the late Charles S. Garland Jr., former opera board chairman, and now expects to reach its $1 million goal to avoid bankruptcy.The gift resulted from an emergency campaign started by the faltering company in October to eliminate a current operating deficit of $840,944, which has accumulated in recent seasons. The company is expected to be able to mount as planned Verdi's "A Masked Ball" in March and Puccini's "Madama Butterfly" in April.

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In a generous act perfectly suited to the holiday season, four major arts organizations - the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Washington National Opera, Centerstage and the Hippodrome - will offer a gift of free tickets to patrons of the Baltimore Opera Company, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Dec. 4 and canceled the remainder of its 2008-2009 season. Baltimore Opera is unable to provide refunds for tickets sold to the scrapped spring productions of Rossini's The Barber of Seville and Gershwin's Porgy and Bess.

Letitia S. Bernhardt, a former soloist and founder of the Baltimore Opera Company, died of heart failure May 13 at the Homewood Retirement Center in Williamsport. The former University Parkway resident was 95. She was born and raised Letitia Shenk in Hagerstown. After graduating from Hagerstown High School in 1927, she studied voice at the Peabody Conservatory. A soprano, Mrs. Bernhardt was a soloist and served as musical director for several Baltimore churches for many years. In 1939, she married Elmer F. Bernhardt, who had been head of the city's Central Payroll Bureau and a founder of the Classified Municipal Employees Association.

After 58 years and more than 200 productions, the Baltimore Opera Company will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy-law protection today amid dwindling ticket sales and contributions. The remaining two productions of the 2008-2009 season, Rossini's The Barber of Seville and Gershwin's Porgy and Bess have been canceled. Ticket-holders will not receive refunds. Singers engaged for next season are being released from their contracts, but the company plans to continue fundraising in an effort to resume productions in the future.

The ingredients needed for successful operetta are as follows: A mythical European country, in this case Pontevedro; a plot that will not strain the mind too much; and lots of great melodies. Franz Lehar's "The Merry Widow" has these qualities in abundance, and it's no surprise that it is the most performed operetta in the world.The opera, which made Lehar a millionaire many times over, is still being recorded and performed all over the world, currently by the Baltimore Opera.German 19th-century opera was so full of experimentation that works like "The Merry Widow" offered audiences a welcome breath of fresh air. The year of "The Merry Widow's" premiere, 1905, also saw the birth of Richard Strauss' "Salome."

The Monets now on exhibit at the Baltimore Museum of Art can be seen almost any time you visit Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. The sets and costumes of the current Baltimore Opera Company's stunning production of Verdi's "Don Carlos" can be seen this week only. Tickets for the Opera are easier to get and there's no standing on line.This production of Verdi's great score, which opened Saturday, is beautiful to look at -- as beautiful, in fact, as anything one might find in a museum. It was designed by the same team of Argentines -- Roberto Oswald, who directed, designed and lit it, and Anibal Lapiz, who did the costumes -- who were responsible for the wonderful production of "Salome" a few years back.

The 1992-'93 Baltimore Opera Company season will be characterized by two blockbuster operas that play bookends to a lyric and sentimental one.The season, announced yesterday by the BOC, will open in October with Puccini's "Turandot," continue in March with Donizetti's "The Elixir of Love," and conclude in April with the first Baltimore performances of Verdi's "Nabucco," perhaps the first piece in which the composer unequivocally announced his greatness....

Helen G. Rigler, a former elementary school educator and opera buff, died Saturday of heart failure at Mercy Medical Center. The Parkton resident was 93. The daughter of a Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. draftsman and a homemaker, Helen Gill was born in Baltimore and raised in Boring. After graduating from Franklin High School in 1936, she earned a bachelor's degree in education in 1940 from what is now Towson University. After completing her student teaching at Lida Lee Tall School on the Towson campus, she began teaching at Margaret Brent Elementary School and later at Stoneleigh Elementary School.

Sol Goodman, a retired auto leasing and sales executive who wrote poetry that spoke of the joys of living in Baltimore, died of kidney failure Feb. 18 at Sunrise Senior Living in Pikesville. The longtime Mount Vernon resident was 88. Born in Baltimore and raised on Brookfield Avenue in Reservoir Hill, he was a 1941 City College graduate. During World War II, he was an Army medic serving in France, where he helped treat soldiers suffering from what now is called post-traumatic stress disorder.

Charles Orestus Smith, a retired CareFirst Medicare contractor who was an avid fan of the opera and symphony, died Jan. 3 of a heart attack at his home in the Northway Apartments in Guilford. He was 74. Born in Baltimore and raised in Guilford, Mr. Smith was a 1954 graduate of Polytechnic Institute. After graduating from high school, he enlisted in the Army and was sent to the Army Language School in Monterey, Calif., where he learned Russian. While serving in Japan, he met and married the former Yasuko Takagi in 1958.

Three years ago, a Druid priestess and her Roman lover walked willingly and melodically into a blazing pyre as the curtain fell on a performance of Bellini's "Norma" at the Lyric Opera House . Those epic characters were not the only ones being consumed. The Baltimore Opera Company, which gave that masterpiece an effective staging, soon went up in smoke, too, the victim of debt and disillusionment. A Chapter 11 filing in December 2008 was followed in early 2009 by a decision to liquidate.

Bernice Robinson, a retired bank secretary, died of complications from arthritis and osteoporosis Aug. 3 at her Lutherville home. She was 83. Born Bernice Jeffery in Newark, Del., she was a 1946 graduate of Newark High School, where she played field hockey and basketball and was a member of the school band, glee club and dramatic society. She moved to Baltimore and became a teller and then a secretary to the president, S. Page Nelson, at the old Savings Bank of Baltimore at Charles and Baltimore streets.

We come not to bury the Baltimore Shakespeare Festival, but to praise the outstanding job it did keeping the Bard's work alive for Baltimore audiences for 17 seasons. Parting is such sweet sorrow when the departed one has so entertained, educated and delighted local theatergoers for so long. The company announced last week it was closing due to financial troubles it had been experiencing for nearly a decade and that were exacerbated by the recent recession. Though there has always been an enthusiastic audience here for Shakespeare's enduring masterpieces, they have never been cheap to produce.

When Ron Griffin received a solicitation for Lyric Opera Baltimore a few weeks ago, he had some questions. The organization sounded a lot like the Baltimore Opera Company, which folded midseason in 2009 because of financial problems, leaving Griffin and many others holding worthless tickets. "It was an abrupt end, and it wasn't handled well," said Griffin, a property manager. He and his partner were subscribers and patrons of the old company for more than a dozen years. "I asked what kinds of changes had been made.

Suzanne Ruth Sherwood, the first woman appointed to the Maryland Tax Court, died Thursday at Roland Park Place. She was 85. "In her understated way, my aunt was an early feminist before that word came into existence," said Mrs. Sherwood's niece, Laure Ruth. "She enjoyed being a lawyer, but neither she nor her husband chose the traditional route of joining a law firm, becoming partner and making a lot of money," Ms. Ruth said. "Much of what she did was pro bono. She dedicated her life to public service and charitable works and helping others.