Arizona Opera director Ryan Taylor moving on (and up) to Minnesota

Arizona Opera’s turnaround over the past three years has been dramatic, both financially and artistically. So dramatic, in fact, that the architect of that turnaround has been snapped up by a bigger company.

General Director Ryan Taylor will leave Phoenix at the end of this season to take over as president and general director of the Minnesota Opera in Minneapolis, effective May 1.

The news came as a shock to one of Arizona Opera’s biggest unofficial boosters, retired Arizona Commission on the Arts director Shelley Cohn.

“Oh, that is really disappointing,” she said. “This is going to be really hard for the opera. This is a hard transition because he was really digging in deep. He is such a good fund-raiser and has a great vision. This is a really big loss.”

Taylor was promoted to lead Arizona Opera on an interim basis in 2013 following the departure of Scott Altman (now executive director of Ballet West in Salt Lake City). Facing a huge end-of-season deficit on top of $2 million in previous debt, Taylor spearheaded a $1 million fundraising campaign and earned the full-time appointment.

But the real turning point was the launch of the opera’s Arizona Bold initiative in 2014, which promised to bring contemporary operas relevant to the company’s audiences in Phoenix and Tucson. These included two Spanish-language works, “Cruzar la Cara de la Luna” and “Florencia en el Amazonas,” as well as plans for Arizona Opera’s first world premiere, an adaptation of Zane Grey’s “Riders of the Purple Sage,” in 2017.

“I thought ‘Cruzar’ last season was really monumental for them,” Cohn says. “To see all the people who were there and the enthusiasm of the audience was a new step for the opera and their willingness to experiment with new work, and not just be content with the familiar operas that people have seen multiple times.”

Arizona Bold has been an artistic success and helped shore up the opera’s bottom line, with major donors signing on to support specific projects, including that world premiere, and turning the opera’s deficits into surpluses.

Arizona Opera�s bold turnaround marries art, commerce

Robert Tancer, chairman of Arizona Opera’s board of directors, said the company would quickly begin a national search to replace Taylor.

“We were surprised,” Tancer said. “At the same time, we recognize this is a good opportunity for him, and we wish him well. And it’s well deserved. In the opera world, Minnesota Opera is a good company, and Ryan has a history there, so it means something to him to be going back there.”

Taylor, who started his career in opera as a singer, is an alumnus of Minnesota Opera’s resident artist program.

The Minneapolis company has an annual budget of about $9.5 million, nearly double Arizona Opera’s, and is known for producing new and rarely performed works.

Reach the reporter at kerry.lengel@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4896. Follow him at Twitter.com/KerryLengel and Facebook.com/LengelonTheater