Lincoln Theater Board of Directors member Pam Gormley (left) greets Lincoln Theater member Betsy Heminway at the base of the newly renovated and reopened staircase at the venue’s Theater Street entrance on the evening of Thursday, Aug. 11. (Christine LaPado-Breglia photo)
Approximately 150 people turned out at the Lincoln Theater in Damariscotta on Thursday evening, Aug. 11 – members and nonmembers alike – for the theater’s annual meeting. Guests arrived via the newly reopened, smartly lit, grand old staircase at the venue’s Theater Street entrance.
More than simply a meeting to celebrate the recent renovation of the beloved historic staircase and catch up on the past year’s and future events, the gala event featured lavish hors d’oeuvres supplied by King Eider’s Pub, a wine bar and desserts, and a dynamic onscreen performance by acclaimed mezzo-soprano and 1992 Lincoln Academy graduate Kate Aldrich. To top all that off, Aldrich herself was in attendance as the featured guest of the evening.
After an announcement that longtime board member Ronna Lugosch was stepping down, and the approval of three new board members – Mallory Adams, Nancy Craig, and Ted Silar – Andrew Fenniman, the theater’s executive director, came onstage to speak.
Fenniman reminded the audience that the Lincoln Theater is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and, as such, meets half of its yearly $400,000 budget via such things as ticket sales and concessions and gets the other half from donations. “That’s how we can keep our movie tickets at $6 for members, and popcorn is $3, not $15,” he said.
Fenniman pointed out that almost 50 of the theater’s 487 events over the last fiscal year were free.
The theater will continue to stream concerts from The Metropolitan Opera and programs from National Theatre Live and the Bolshoi Ballet, and will continue to show first-run films. Planning is underway, he said, for a live stage production in November and a spring concert.
Acclaimed opera singer and Damariscotta native Kate Aldrich chats with Lincoln Theater Executive Director Andrew Fenniman before an enlarged publicity shot of Aldrich on the stage of the Lincoln Theater during the theater’s well-attended annual meeting, Thursday, Aug. 11. (Christine LaPado-Breglia photo)
“How many of you came up the restored staircase?” Fenniman said, referring to the beloved old staircase that had long been closed. “Yes – isn’t it wonderful?” Volunteers, including Doug Cameron, Jim Buckingham, and new board member Silar, worked to bring the stair heights up to code, and Fenniman’s idea of adding strip lighting on each stair was implemented.
An art deco chandelier, bought by a donor, is scheduled to be installed over the stairs around press time, he said, taking the place of a temporary chandelier lent to the theater by the Miles Thrift Shop in Damariscotta for the Aug. 11 event.
The building’s ceiling and walls have been insulated as well. On tap is the installation of LED lights in the “movie boxes” on the outside of the theater and restoration of the building’s antique windows to let in natural light and air when desired, thus opening up the possibility of using the theater space for business meetings, Fenniman said.
It was after he showed a video of Aldrich singing the aria “Habanera,” from Georges Bizet’s 1875 opera “Carmen,” that he brought the evening’s awaited guest on stage to join him in conversation.
Aldrich, who lives in Rome, delighted the audience as she talked about the rigors and joys of opera singing, including the technical vocal demands of “bel canto” singing versus the acting and singing requirements of a part such as the expressive gypsy girl Carmen.
“With Carmen, I need to be in decent enough shape where I am dancing around on tables and singing,” Aldrich said.
At one point, Fenniman asked Aldrich to do a little name-dropping of opera singers she has performed with, which led Aldrich to relax her poise somewhat as she mentioned the popular, handsome German opera singer Jonas Kaufmann. “I confirm he is gorgeous in person,” she said, a little shyly.
She went on to talk of the difficulties of fame that Kaufmann faces on a regular basis. “Fans, the machine around him – it’s insane,” she said. “He has to protect himself, so some people may think he’s sort of tough. I have great admiration for him.”
Aldrich then turned directly to the audience and playfully repeated, “I have great admiration for him!” and laughed, before saying that she does not want that level of fame. “I have a family. I love raising my kid,” she said, referring to her 5-year-old daughter Olivia, who was in attendance at the event.
Fenniman asked Aldrich to name her favorite opera houses.
“The Met’s pretty great,” she said. “To be able to sing at The Met is like going to the Olympics. And when you go to the lunch room, it’s like the who’s who of opera.”
Aldrich said that living in Rome is “everything everyone says it is,” praising the city as “romantic,” “beautiful,” and having stellar food, though she said the bureaucracy can be annoying when trying to get, say, a driver’s license.
Rome, she said, “is a nice base to be ping-ponging around from. It’s important to have a base in Europe.”
A question-and-answer period yielded a number of questions from eager audience members, who were curious about such things as what it is like to have a cumbersome microphone set-up strapped to one’s person while performing in an evening dress, whether an American opera singer gets a better reception in Europe than in the United States, and what have been some of Aldrich’s most disastrous moments while performing.
Aldrich said that one of her most disastrous moments happened this summer during a performance of “Carmen” at a football stadium in Poland, when the orchestra was supposed to play certain chords leading into the recitative but the conductor forgot to cue the musicians to play. The awkward lack of music “went on for about two minutes,” Aldrich said. “We filled it with bad acting … until finally he just started conducting again.”
As for being better received in Europe than in the U.S., Aldrich said, “I don’t really think so. In some theatres (in Europe) it can be, ‘Oh, another American singer.’ It’s more of that.”
Aldrich’s description of an elaborate “micro-cord” microphone being strapped into her wig and run down her back and around her waist for certain performances, such as the one at the Polish football stadium, was vivid and entertaining. Working with a micro-cord “can be kind of … PIA,” she said coyly. She said she had to work with the micro-cord system for about a week before the football-stadium performance to get used to the 1 1/2-second sound delay.
Aldrich wrapped up her comments by extolling acting as an “escape.”
“You still are who you are, but you find other sides of yourself,” she said, and she encouraged everyone in the room to try it at some point in their lives.
“Thanks for being a part of the life of our community ‘living room,’” said Fenniman to the audience, before everyone adjourned for a dessert reception to end the evening.
