Fun head gear was the theme of Kevin Smith's retirement party Feb. 27 at the Minnesota Opera's Minneapolis headquarters. About 175 guests, many wearing the straw boaters favored by Venetian gondoliers, toasted the departing president and CEO at a gala buffet supper. The boaters were a nod to the long time love of Italy that Smith shares with his wife Lynn and their daughters Jackie and Allison.
Opera board members and other officials heaped praise on Smith for his 30 year tenure during which he took Minnesota Opera from insolvency (in his first season) to financial stability and national prominence. Marc A. Scorca, president and CEO of Opera America, a national service organization, praised the Minnesota group as "one of the strongest opera companies in the United States with THE best board in the country." He credited Smith with establishing Opera Europa, a Brussels-based professional agency, and with discouraging Scorca's profiterole addiction.
"Profiteroles are the desert of angioplasty," Smith warned Scorca, who called his pal "an instigator of strategic laughter." Scorca added that Opera America's new offices in New York City will includes a tribute to Smith's leadership.
Among the gifts, both serious and gag, was the prop severed head of John the Baptist that was a gruesome centerpiece of the Opera's 2009-10 production of Richard Straus's Salome. Which brings us back to hats.
Smith has always been "a great opener of doors," said Patricia A. Mitchell, president and CEO of the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts where the Opera regularly performs. A congenial type, he helped negotiate a long-term agreement among the Ordway's chief tenants -- the Opera, Schubert Club and St. Paul Chamber Orchestra -- who had previously bickered over fees, access and scheduling.
In recognition of his door-opening skills, Mitchell handed Smith a top hat and said he would "always have a job at the Ordway." (Ordway habitues know that it's the doorman there who always wears a top hat.)
Smith's successor, Allan Naplan, previously president and general manager of the Madison (Wisc.) Opera, takes over March 1.
