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Singing for Peace: Surry Opera Company
When Walter Nowick
first founded an opera company in Surry in 1984, it was called
“megalomaniacal” by a Surry resident and greeted with amused
skepticism throughout
Hancock
County.
Called the
“Presumtuous Opera Company,” even by themselves, the group that
rehearsed and performed concert-style operas in their native
languages in Nowick’s wooden barn in Surry, later grew to 80 members
and came to be known throughout Maine, the country and the world as
the Surry Opera Company.
Nowick was born
in Long Island of Russian and Polish immigrant background. He
studied piano at Juilliard School of Music in the 1940s, first
coming to Surry when his Juilliard teacher who summered here invited
him to come up for lessons. He later came to own the Surry farm
where he had once summered.
At the height of
the cold war, the Surry Opera Company helped spread understanding
among ordinary citizens of the U.S. and the former Soviet Union when
it traveled to Russia and Georgia in 1986 to perform “Boris Godunov”
in Russian. The Leningrad Amateur Opera Company returned the visit
in 1989, performing in Surry and touring with the Surry group.
On its 10th
anniversary in 1994, speaking before Congress, Sen. George Mitchell
credited the group with “cultivating international understanding and
goodwill through the performance of great music by ordinary
citizens.”
The Surry Opera
Company was composed of a core of Surry residents and mostly
untrained singers.
“You can do
wonderful things with untrained voices,” said Nowick. “The realm of
music doesn’t belong to professional musicians, it belongs to
everyone.” |
