Accomplishments include record Festival Under the Stars ticket sales, 310% growth in sponsorship revenue, addition of five new Board of Directors members, addition of new administrative staff position and the inaugural Luciano Pavarotti Foundation Opera Naples International Voice Competition
NAPLES, FL (June 11, 2025) – As the 2024/25 fiscal year draws to a close and preparations are underway to soon announce the 2025/26 season, Opera Naples proudly acknowledges the successes of its 2024/25 season. The organization enjoyed growth in many areas over the past season, led by Executive Director Melanie Kalnins, who joined the organization in August 2024, along with Opera Naples Artistic and Music Director Ramón Tebar and Luciano Pavarotti Foundation President Nicoletta Pavarotti.
Opera Naples celebrated its fifth annual Festival Under the Stars from February 27 through March 15, 2025, with performances and events occurring in both downtown Naples’ Cambier Park and the Wang Opera Center. The Festival Under the Stars is notable in that it is the only outdoor winter opera festival in the United States. This year, the festival extended over three full weekends including fully-staged performances of Mozart’s The Magic Flute, Puccini’s La bohème and Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Mikado, and ticket revenues grew by 30%, exceeding $300,000. Additionally, Opera Naples enjoyed significant growth, by 310%, in the area of sponsorship revenue from both individuals and corporations. Individual lead sponsorship gifts were made by Nicky and John Pepe, Sally and Tom Gleason, and Robert and MaryJane Oliveira. Significant corporate sponsorship also was provided by Ice Miller LLP, PNC Private Bank, Starkweather & Shepley Insurance, Heatherwood Construction and Naples Trust. Generous grant funding support also came from the Naples, Marco Island, Everglades Convention and Visitors Bureau, Florida’s Paradise Coast, Collier Community Foundation and the Florida Theatrical Association.
The organization also embraced a continued strong collaboration with the Luciano Pavarotti Foundation, in the form of the inaugural Luciano Pavarotti Foundation Opera Naples International Voice Competition. Led by Opera Naples Artistic and Music Director Ramón Tebar and Luciano Pavarotti Foundation President Nicoletta Pavarotti, the voice competition was inspired by the famous competitions the legendary tenor held in the 1980’s and 1990’s in Philadelphia which helped launch the careers of many world-class opera singers. Opera Naples received over 400 applications for the competition, which was narrowed to 19 contestants who competed over three days in January 2025.
Opera Naples and the Luciano Pavarotti Foundation were grateful to partner with the Florida Gulf Coast University Bower School for Music and the Arts, who served as the host for the competition. Four winners were each awarded a minimum of $10,000 in contracts, and they hailed from countries around the globe: Luna Park (soprano, South Korea), Simona Genga (mezzo-soprano, Canada), Minghao Liu (tenor, China) and Cumhur Görgün (bass, Turkey). In partnership with the Luciano Pavarotti Foundation, Opera Naples also brought back its Academy in January, during which emerging singers trained with opera luminaries from around the world and presented two performances of Donizetti’s Don Pasquale.
In the 2024/25 season, the Opera Naples Board of Directors welcomed an impressive roster of five new members to its ranks: Elizabeth Harrington, Eric Kalnins, Jan Kantor, Kathleen Field Orr and Melody Sawyer Richardson. Harrington is a retired partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Global Strategy and China practices and a member of multiple boards of public companies. She is a long-time supporter of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Kalnins is a partner and Naples office founder for the national law firm of Ice Miller LLP. He previously served as a Governing Member for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Kantor is the founder and owner of the business consulting firm Success Systems. He has a long history of supporting the arts in Southwest Florida and has been instrumental in shaping leadership programs across the area. Orr is a partner in the law firm of Ottosen DiNolfo Hasenbalg & Castaldo, Ltd., based in Naperville, Illinois. She is a Governing Member of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and has served on the Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra Board of Directors for over forty years. Richardson is a retired corporate attorney, with a career that extended from Wall Street to New Jersey to Cincinnati. She has served as Board Chair for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Ballet and the Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority.
As Opera Naples looks to the 2025/26 season, the organization is also glad to announce the addition of a new staff position: a Finance & Administration Manager. Nora Lastre Broughton has been tapped for this position and will begin her role on July 1, 2025. Lastre Broughton is an active violinist and has been serving the Southwest Florida Symphony for over nine years, most recently as their Chief Operating Officer. She brings extensive arts administration experience to the organization, particularly in the areas of financial analysis and reporting, budgeting, programming and artistic support.
Opera Naples is bringing its 2024/25 season to a close with an end-of-season match campaign in which all gifts of $150 or more made by June 30, 2025 will be matched up to $40,000, thanks to a cohort of members of the Opera Naples Board of Trustees and Directors which includes Jan Burrus, Susan Mullin and Melody Sawyer Richardson. Donations can be made by calling 239-963-9050 or visiting operanaples.org. Memberships are also encouraged; Friends of Opera Naples members enjoy many perks including invitations to special events, no fees on ticket exchanges, advance notifications of performances and donor recognition in the Opera Naples program book and website.
Commenting on the results of the 2024/25 season, Executive Director Melanie Kalnins said: “I am so grateful to the Opera Naples family and the greater Naples community for believing in our important mission this season. We have enjoyed growth in so many areas and were overjoyed to invite such an illustrious group of new members to our Board of Directors. We are also thrilled to welcome Nora to join our small but mighty administrative team in July. We know her wealth of experience at the Southwest Florida Symphony will serve us well. As we close the fiscal year, we encourage the community to participate in our end-of-season campaign which ends on June 30th. Even though we saw so many successes this season, we are continuing to address the shortfall from the cuts we saw this year in government funding. Small arts organizations rely on this funding more than others and we are truly grateful for all gifts in support of our important artistic, education and community outreach work.”