Opera program scoreson funding, finding home
When Todd G. Patkin heard about professional opera singer Andrea DelGiudice's struggles to keep a youth opera outreach program running in Brockton, he called her to offer condolences. Then he wrote the total stranger a check for $175,000.
''Here was this great, amazingly talented lady doing everything she can for inner-city kids, and first a car dealership backed out of its sponsorship, which really annoyed me, and then the city was lessening its support," said Patkin, president of Sharon-based Autopart International Co. and a Foxborough resident. ''She has tremendous energy and wants to change the world, and so do I."
The unlikely partnership between the opera singer and entrepreneur led to the opening this week of the Todd G. Patkin OperaTunity Performing Arts Center in Stoughton.
The center provides a permanent home for what DelGiudice calls the ''traveling arts caravan" she has headed for the past five years, running programs at schools and art centers throughout Southeastern Massachusetts out of the back of her sport utility vehicle.
The Pembroke native, who now lives in Easton, said she hopes the performing arts center, which plans to offer a full range of after-school and weekend music, theater, and visual arts classes for toddlers through adults, will become a destination for ''Boston-quality arts learning and performance minus the trip to Boston."
Located on the campus of the Striar Jewish Community Center on Central Street, the OperaTunity center was funded almost entirely through donations from Patkin, who has pledged an additional $50,000 in funding this year. DelGiudice is its artistic director.
The center will offer classes at tuition ranging from $50 to $240 a month, depending on the area of instruction, as well as free opera and theater arts classes through a financial needs-based scholarship program.
''We realized the only way we can affect kids who can't afford it is if we teach kids who can afford it," said Patkin. ''And unfortunately middle-class kids are sometimes just as unhappy and needy with both parents working so much and all the other issues in their lives."
About 20 low-income students, some of whom worked with DelGiudice in the Brockton after-school program, will be invited to the Saturday outreach program. They will be taught free of charge and perform along with paying students, said DelGiudice, a soprano who toured with opera companies throughout Europe for 15 years before returning to the United States.
She said she hopes to start a fund-raising campaign to eventually expand the outreach program to more students and help fund their transportation to and from the performing arts center.
The center's staff will work collaboratively with the Brockton Symphony Orchestra and other professional musicians to provide students with the highest quality musical experience possible, said DelGiudice, and every student who registers for a course at the center will be guaranteed an opportunity to work with professional musicians.
Classes also will emphasize diversity and bring together various cultures and types of art, she said. A ''Dance For Joy" night planned for next June will combine choirs and dancers for a night of gospel and spiritual music, while a planned holiday concert in December will feature works from around the world.
As school districts across the region slash arts programs due to budget cuts, the OperaTunity center provides an alternative for parents looking to keep up their child's artistic education, DelGiudice said. While other community arts facilities in the region offer performance opportunities, none have the range of classes offered at OperaTunity, she said.
''There is no place in the area where a kid can be in a choir, dance, take private music lessons, and be in a Broadway show all at once," DelGiudice said. ''For busy parents, that means a lot."
Barry Charton, executive director of the Striar Jewish Community Center, said OperaTunity is a ''perfect fit" for the existing arts wing and theater at the community center. He said the center, which serves between 8,000 and 10,000 people, has offered dance lessons and some cultural activities, but ''nothing at a professional level like this."
The president of Jewish Community Centers of Greater Boston said he hopes to develop similar partnerships at other community centers. ''It's the perfect marriage -- an organization with high-quality arts offerings and a center with space and the aspiration to enrich our members lives," said Mark Sokoll.
For Patkin, who says he is known for hugging employees whenever he stops by one of his auto parts stores, endowing the OperaTunity center also is a chance to ''create a place where everyone feels really good about themselves."
''Every kid here is going to get a hug," he said. ''I see us as a really loving group of people who have come together to make a wonderful difference in this world through the arts."
OperaTunity is scheduled to hold an open house and registration for students today and tomorrow from 1 to 6 p.m. The first day of classes is scheduled for Tuesday.
For more information, call 781-341-2016, ext. 179, or visit www.operatunity.org.
Joanna Massey can be reached at massey@globe.com.
