Explore the magic at Solo Opera!

Note from Solo Opera Founder and Executive Director, Sylvia Amorino Gonzalez

2025 will be Solo Opera’s 25^th Anniversary. While we are excited to achieve this milestone, it is with great sadness, that after so many years of producing opera, I must announce that Solo Opera will be closing its doors at the end of 2025. We wanted to bring the community one last multi-cultural opera as we celebrated this anniversary- Lucinda y las Flores de la Nochebuena- but we were not able to raise enough funds. We will, however, end with one last free holiday outreach event in conjunction with this Mexican folktale at the Concord Library this Dec. 9^th 6-7pm. See below for information on this event.

Why are we closing? Lack of community, city, state, grantor, donor, and board support are among the many reasons for this heart-breaking decision. The main challenge, though, has been CA Assembly Bill 5.  AB5/AB2257 is a law that requires CA businesses make all workers “employee” status instead of independent contractors (unless they are a true business to business). We have been complying since the law began in Jan. 2020. But the added 25-30% cost for payroll taxes/fees, worker’s comp, and HR paperwork, is overwhelming for our small nonprofit organization that hires workers only seasonally. This also makes it impossible for us to compete with the many other arts companies who are not complying.

Through recent years, we persevered through Covid times and created some beautiful operas, Scalia/Ginsburg, The Four Note Opera, and our largest and most ambitious opera ever- The Three Feathers. But with the recent loss of three major grantors and other funders this past year combined with declining ticket sales to our shows, we are not able to continue financially after next year.

We are so proud of, what will be, our 25 years of creating high quality opera and our mission of educating, entertaining and enriching our community. We have produced 19 beautiful main stage shows, including many that helped foster a new generation of opera lovers (Amahl and the Night Visitors, Hansel and Gretel, The Computer Kid’s Magic Night, Chip and His Dog, The Gift of the Magi, and The Three Feathers, etc.). Our outreach over the years included four Opera in the Park concerts, many galas/concerts, opera scene recitals to youth and seniors, collaborations with four children’s choruses, collaborations with local businesses and nonprofits, opera to the schools and libraries, tickets to disabled/disadvantaged and low-income persons, discounted tickets, parade entries, tabling, pop-up opera, helping to sponsor our city’s Juneteenth celebration, working with Creative Concord, and much more. Our company offered jobs to many, many musicians, singers, designers, and crew over the years.  We are proud to have brought work and economic development to our arts sector and community.

Since we are a nonprofit corporation, it will take most of 2025 to close down and sell/donate our assets. I personally own most of the costumes and props and may also downsize and sell/donate some of mine as well. So, stay tuned for more information on that. We have decided, though, since we worked so hard on creating it, to keep open our brand-new website as an archive of our work and videos- ex. The Three Feathers, which we are so proud of! www.SoloOpera.org

Finally, I would like to thank each and every one of you who supported us over the years with your time, talent, and donations. You are the ones who helped us create the magic of opera. As a small arts organization we’ve been called “ambitious”, “feisty”, “plucky”, and “fighting the good fight” by the press and our audiences. And yes, we have worked very, very hard to keep going. But it is ultimately up to a community and grantors whether a nonprofit opera company can continue.  And at this time, we have to be realistic, the support just isn’t there to continue past next year.

With much gratitude and love-

Sylvia Amorino Gonzalez