Reserve Your Seat . . . 
for The Guild of Mercury Opera Rochester's Lecture Series.

by Roy Fisher, Education Chair of Opera Volunteers International

The Guild, a division of Mercury Opera Rochester (NY), provides a variety of volunteer support functions for Rochester’s professional opera company. Notable among these is a program of free opera lectures at local libraries, retirement homes, and social clubs. The Guild lectures are on a variety of opera topics, from bel canto to opera buffa, but they are designed primarily to support the current season of Mercury Opera Rochester. The five docents have presented 29 different lectures during the five years that they have been teaching, averaging about 15 sessions each season.  Attendance at the libraries may run between 30 and 80 persons per lecture.

Five volunteer docents research, prepare and present their lectures as part of the company's educational outreach to win audiences for and support Mercury Opera.  The volunteers are all professionals in various non-musical fields, including a retired physician, a retired English teacher, a retired engineer and a retired lawyer.  Although none has a professional music background, each has a long- standing interest in opera. Several of the group have technical backgrounds and assist the others with their PowerPoint slide presentations and handle and provide technical support during their presentations.

Art Axelrod, the retired computer engineer and Agneta Borgstedt, the retired physician, coordinate the programs. The program topics are discussed at a Guild Board Meeting in February.  Once topics are decided by the board, the docents begin their research to compose their lectures. Careful study, research and preparation yield professional level presentations on the operas or opera-related subjects. PowerPoint slides are created and a play list and set of handouts prepared.  They use extracts from audio CDs and video DVDs to illustrate the topics they are presenting.

When all is prepared, Mercury Opera Rochester's web master puts the handouts and play lists on the Guild portion of the company's web site, and publishes the list of available lectures in the site’s Reading Room, were handouts and play list may be downloaded. 

At the end of each season, members of the Guild board negotiate with the various venues on lecture dates for the following season. The lectures given at the various sites are free to all attendees.  However, many of the venues choose to make a donation to Mercury Opera.  The docents, however, are unpaid – for them, it’s a voluntary labor of love!

and . . . that isn't all . . .

"Beat the Blahs
The Haskell Rosenberg Memorial Series

During the depths of winter, opera lovers in the Rochester Metropolitan area can Beat the Blahs of winter when they assemble to watch a DVD of an opera presented during the current Met season. A series, generously sponsored by the Haskell Rosenberg Memorial, meets at 1 PM on Sundays at Temple B’rith Kodesh in Rochester. Refreshments, donated by volunteer hostesses, are served during intermissions. Accompanying each of presentation is a talk on the day's opera by one of the Guild's docents. This past winter, the operas and talks presented were Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore, Verdi's Il Trovatore,  Dvořák's Rusalka, and Ponchielli’s La Gioconda. Attendees are encouraged to make donations to Mercury Opera.

The series is named in honor of the Guild’s late founder, Haskell Rosenberg, who began the series in 1990, and during his life was a major supporter of opera in Rochester, NY.

For more information on the Guild's volunteer educational support, contact:  Dr. Agneta Borgstedt at: 585.334.2323, e-mail Agneta.Borgstedt@rochester.rr.com or Art Axelrod, 585.377.6133, E-mail artax@rochester.rr.com.