Maestro Kier is animated when conducting live performances.
Joy.
How often do you feel it?
Spend an hour with Craig Kier, and you’ll come away singing it.
Joy is Kier’s life work. So is song. This year the acclaimed maestro celebrates five years as Artistic and Music Director of the Annapolis Opera Company—and the fifth year bringing joy to the greater Annapolis community.
How he got here is a tribute to teachers and to the essence of opera itself.
The Making of a Maestro
Annapolis Opera Maestro Craig Kier, center, with opera staff.
At age seven he was playing piano. The son of two schoolteachers, Kier grew up in Jamestown, New York. At Fredonia State University he majored in music education. But the idea of teaching soon changed when a revered teacher, Phyllis East, recognized his talent: he was at his best playing for singers.
As Kier says, “The thing that really brought me joy was collaborating with people. Not playing by myself.”
He didn’t know it yet, but he had stumbled upon the essence of what makes opera such a unique art form: collaboration with others.
It would take graduate work at the Cincinnati College - Conservatory of Music to light that fire. Majoring in what is now called “collaborative piano,” he had the opportunity to work with “top notch singers and teachers.” But where would this lead? Nearing graduation, one of his teachers suggested he apply to the Cincinnati Opera that was hiring pianists for its annual summer opera festival.
“I auditioned playing the opening of ‘Madame Butterfly’ and ‘Magic Flute.’ And I was hired on the spot,” Kier says. Once there, he admits to having “no idea what I was doing.” But he was fortunate to have a conductor who encouraged him. “I learned how to collaborate, listen to others, and how I could contribute to a greater good. That was the start of my career in opera, and I haven’t stopped since,” he says, “and that was 25 years ago.”
The Birth of an Opera Company
From its earliest colonial times, the arts have thrived in Annapolis. Today the town’s variety of theaters, museums, and music promise something for every taste.
Thanks to artists from the Annapolis Summer Garden Theater Youth Group, the Annapolis Opera Company was founded in 1972. Under the leadership of soprano and local luminary Martha Wright, Annapolis Opera became the first resident company at Maryland Hall in 1979.
Annapolis Opera performs “The Barber of Seville” under the watchful eye of Maestro Kier.
Since then, Annapolis Opera has developed into a fully professional company performing two to three large-scale operas annually and a host of programs both at Maryland Hall and in the community. Kathy Swekel, General Director of the company since 2014, credits former Artistic Director Ron Gretz, along with his colleague Braxton Peters, for his 37-year reign in bringing opera to its highly touted status today. In addition to full-scale productions, children’s operas, a lecture series, and an annual vocal competition round out established programs.
In 2020, when Gretz retired, the search committee culled through more than 70 applicants. The final two each had to perform an opera “from start to finish.” For his audition Kier performed Giacomo Puccini’s beloved opera, “Tosca.”
Says Swekel, “Craig was an easy choice because of the same qualities we had come to know from Ron. As a conductor and music director your goal is to bring out the best in every person whether you’re a singer on stage or a musician in the pit. And Craig does that.”
She describes her role with Kier as a “great team” working with “great young artists and people with different careers from different places.” Both also are problem solvers—never more than when a worldwide deadly pandemic struck.
Maestro Kier conducts/directs Donizetti’s comedy “The Elixir of Love.”
COVID’s Challenge
Unlike many of Annapolis’s cultural institutions, Annapolis Opera not only imports most of what makes up its productions, but the art form itself is unique. Opera brings together all the arts, blending singers, musicians, stage design, costuming, lighting , dance, and an entourage of professional talents to produce it. All come together for each production.
Imagine what might happen if—at the very last minute—it had to shut down.
Swekel recalls that moment the night of March 12, 2020, when she had less than two hours to shut down two performances of Carlisle Floyd’s “Susannah.”
“We had to notify all the performers to get them back where there came from. In six hours, with a staff of two and two board members we rescheduled the entire production and notified hundreds of patrons for another date that ultimately wouldn’t happen.”
Arriving in Annapolis just months later, the new Maestro realized “we’d have to abandon all other plans. Who ever thought one of the most dangerous things to do would be to bring people together in a theater and sing?”
Kier quickly pivoted to a film version of Handel’s “Acis and Galatea,” filmed at popular spots around Annapolis. An online gala and a series of lectures via Zoom came next. State loans helped, but once the crisis lifted, it was back on the stage with all the gusto opera lovers expect.
Embracing the Mission
In its stated mission Annapolis Opera seeks “to be a cultural touchstone for the community, which delights audiences with musical storytelling, engages new audiences with diverse programming that inspires curiosity for the opera; and attracts emerging artists.”
That last element not only infuses Annapolis Opera with palpable energy but also distinguishes it. Kier is always looking for new, promising artists. His background gives him an edge. He has held positions with opera companies across the U.S. including Sante Fe, Atlanta, and Houston and conducted performances at major opera houses both here and aboard, including San Francisco Opera, Wolf Trap, Houston Ballet, the Glimmerglass Festival, Prague, and the Royal Opera House Muscat in Oman.
He recalls fondly one of his first jobs as an assistant conductor with Seattle Opera where he “worked with remarkable young singers.”
“I showed up for the moment. I worked my tail off. Preparing takes endless hours by yourself. Understanding the language, knowing how to sing every single part. I didn’t have a piano at home, so I stayed in the opera house all hours. Eary morning at 6 a.m. And at 11 p.m. after everyone goes home.”
The Annapolis Opera performs a mix of classic operas and, sometimes, tests newer productions each season.
As a full professor of music with the University of Maryland at College Park, he also led the Maryland Opera Studio, the graduate opera program, for nine years. Kier describes it as “a boutique program with an extraordinary success rate of singers who embark on successful careers.”
“Our mission is, of course, to put on stage the highest quality opera possible,” he says, “But it’s also to support emerging talent that is ready and shows the promise of a career, and that we can punch above our weight in everything we do.”
Annapolis audiences are the beneficiary of his career. This year the role of Alfredo in Verdi’s “La Traviata” was played by a former Maryland student. Born in Nairobi, Kenya, Lawrence Barasa met Kier in 2021. Says the tenor, whose performance with an astounding cast brought audiences to their feet, Kier “embraces the imperfections in us as human beings as well. I am glad to call him a lifetime mentor.”
Putting it Together
As a regional company, Annapolis Opera plans its schedule two years in advance. Kier looks for singers who are “on their way up.” They are cast one year in advance. Production meetings begin four months in advance. “It gets most intense just three weeks before, when all the singers are here and in rehearsal until late in the evening.”
The chorus, comprised of mostly local singers, and musicians from the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra are selected months prior to performance. To the surprise of some, Kier notes that “everyone you see on stage or in the pit is paid.”
Another fact about opera: it is expensive. The Friday night/Sunday afternoon performance schedule can cost upwards of $250,000.
Volunteers host singers in their homes, which not only helps with the budget, but also helps the singers feel part of the community. Many maintain lifelong friendships.
Budgetary constraints also dictate what to perform. As Kier says, “parameters” matter, like the size of the orchestra pit, lack of “fly” and wing space. So, “no Wagner,” he says.
He is eager to produce not just what’s affordable, but also, critically, what the local audience wants. That can mean the classics, like the upcoming season’s Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” and Humperdinck’s “Hansel and Gretel” or something new and untested.
Maestro Craig Kier discusses performances during the Annapolis Opera’s annual vocal competition.
The Future
Opera lovers worry over the medium’s future. At most productions audiences are older.
That’s not how Kier sees it: “I’ve been hearing that for 25 years. Come to one of our Friday night performances, and you see lots of young people.”
Optimistic, joy-filled by nature, Kier is less sanguine about what Annapolis Opera needs. The grandeur of its annual performances comes together with a small staff. A pool of dedicated volunteers, and a newly formed Opera Guild help, but Kier understands that part of his role is chief fundraiser. A donor himself, he relishes the role.
“Annapolis is an extraordinary place for a community this size to have such thriving arts. Even Maryland Hall. I’ve been around enough places where communities have nothing like this. But in this country, where arts are not funded like in Europe, it is easy to take them for granted. We need people to understand that this doesn’t happen on its own. If you don’t cultivate and care for it, it goes away.”
Given Kier’s enthusiasm—and his infectious belief in the future of Annapolis Opera—the only place Annapolis Opera can go…is up.
What Others Say
“The fact that he stepped into his role as art director and maestro in the midst of a pandemic, and worked with the staff to make thing happen, says volumes.”—The Rev. Dr. Carletta Allen, Board President
“He seems to bring out the best in everyone. Singers like singing for him. Players in the orchestra enjoy working with him. He’s a terrific teacher. He seems to find in every opera, some 150–200 years old, some element that is completely relevant today.”—Tom DeKornfeld, Longtime board member
“Craig has an extensive national network and has brought strong singers here. It is possible to hear a young singer starting on a career and in a year or two you see that person in major houses around the country. It’s an experience that Craig provides for them…his productions always sparkle.”—Jan Paul and Ellen Richter, supporters
