Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, November 25, 1993                   TAG: 9311250132
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 4   EDITION: HOLIDAY 
SOURCE: MARY CAMPBELL ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

EDYTHE HARRISON SOLD NORFOLK - AND HER HUSBAND - ON OPERA

Stanley Harrison changed his mind after his wife, Edythe, got involved in starting the Virginia Opera 19 years ago. He attended every performance until his death in 1991.

The $10 million Edythe C. and Stanley L. Harrison Opera House, which enjoyed its inaugural gala on Nov. 5, stands as a monument to this couple.

"I wanted to prove that something like this could happen in a place like Norfolk," says Edythe Harrison, the first president of the opera's board.

"This country is made up of Norfolks. It's not made up of New Yorks. The boondocks are going to set the course of the future.

"Life is about choices and how we allocate funds and time. You've got to provide some balance and inspiration. If you don't, people will have nothing to do but sit home cleaning their guns."

The path to the Harrison Opera House, however, was not simple.

Actually, it's a renovation of the old Center Theater. Now gutted, expanded and redone inside, it was built by the government in 1943 for USO shows. Adjoining it was the Arena. The two back-to-back stages were divided by a brick wall, not totally soundproofed. On the same night, the Boston Symphony might be on one side and boxing, wrestling or basketball on the other.

Ever since the Detroit-born Edythe Harrison had married a Southerner and moved to Norfolk, she'd been a community organizer.

"I'm the George Plimpton of the volunteer world," she says. "Name it, I've done it."

In 1974, the piano teacher of one of her three children asked if he could bring some people to her house.

"They wanted me to organize what they had named the Virginia Opera," she says. Her response was, "It would have to be the finest company, the most professional and the highest quality that is obtainable. Opera is so difficult to produce that it would require a lot of financial backing. For that, you have to have value received."

The committee had already planned a performance of "The Elixir of Love" which Harrison says was unintentionally hilarious. She got tough. Anybody who wanted civic opera instead of first-rate opera could get off the board.

She hired an impresario who immediately started spending money, ordering $800 worth of stationery with his name on it. She canceled the order.

Her husband was quoted in the newspaper: "This time I think Edie has gone too far." Privately, he told her, "Opera in Norfolk? You'll be lucky if you sell 12 tickets. Make it 11. I'm not coming."

The impresario brought stage director David Farrar from New York. Farrar chose good actor-singers for "La Boheme" and, after drumbeating by Harrison and much media coverage of continuing controversies, it sold out. Some 3,600 attended two performances in January 1975. Four hundred were turned away.

Harrison, now 59, became convinced there was a market for opera in Norfolk. "And I knew we had to act fast."

She called other American opera companies and asked who ran them. She found boards with committees on costumes and sets. She found business managers at the top.

"I called David Farrar and said, `I'm looking for someone tall, handsome, brilliant, a fabulous musician with a background in opera that I can make Mr. Opera.' Farrar suggested Peter Mark, who was in England setting up the Northern College of Music's string chamber music program. Mark also is married to opera composer Thea Musgrave.

In 1975, Mark agreed to try one opera, "La Traviata."

Andrew Porter wrote in New Yorker magazine, "I think I have never before seen an opera so eagerly and enthusiastically welcomed as `La Traviata,' second production of the new-founded Virginia Opera Association, was in Norfolk. The enthusiasm was not misplaced."

But, Harrison says, the city turned the Center Theater over to the Department of Parks and Recreation which locked the ticket boxes and told Mark he couldn't enter the building. He phoned Harrison, who asked him, "Is the door locked?" No. "Then what's your problem?"

That's when Mark became committed to the Virginia Opera, where he's still artistic director.

The opera's success plus Harrison's tenacity finally put an end to the city's plan to tear down the Center Theater. When it was time to rebuild it, the city pledged $5 million if the opera could raise $5 million.

When the fund raising stalled, $1.4 million short, Martin Grass, president of the Rite-Aid drug chain, and husband of the Harrisons' daughter Jody, gave $1 million. The rest came in.

The former Arena now is a rehearsal stage, plus dressing rooms, offices and workshops.

In addition to the 20 opera performances in Norfolk each year, the Virginia Opera also has eight in Richmond and four in Fairfax. The first of five performances of "Turandot" will opened the four-opera season at the new Norfolk opera house Nov. 19.