Arizona Opera leader to leave after 2024-25 season

Joseph Specter, who has led Arizona Opera through eight seasons, will leave the Tucson-born company next summer.

Specter, Arizona Opera’s president and general director since 2016, will remain on board through June 30, 2025, when his contract expires, according to opera officials.

Arizona Opera announced Specter’s departure on its website and in a news release on Monday, July 1, saying that Specter “will be moving on to new professional opportunities over the next year.”

“The board of directors is supportive of Joe’s decision and wishes him nothing but the best now and in the future,” the release stated. “In the meantime, Joe will continue in his leadership role in the organization uninterrupted with the full backing of Arizona Opera’s board of directors.”

Specter on Wednesday said he will remain on the job to allow for a smooth leadership transition.

Specter said his decision to leave was personally bittersweet, but “I think it is a good time for fresh ideas and fresh leadership.”

The announcement comes on the heels of Arizona Opera launching a new long-term strategic plan to respond to the extraordinary financial challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.

After postponing its 2020-21 season, the company saw a seismic drop in ticket revenues and contributions that make up 70% to 80% of the company’s $7.5 million operating budget, Specter said. The situation has been further exasperated when post-pandemic audiences did not return as anticipated.

Arizona Opera’s strategic plan, adopted in January, establishes a framework to address the company’s financial sustainability while continuing to be innovative and impact the communities it serves in Tucson and Phoenix.

The plan kicks off with the streamlined 2024-25 season, which will present just three planned operas and one Tucson performance of each — on Saturday afternoons. Tucson for more than a decade has gotten two performances, on Friday evenings and Sunday afternoons.

In addition to three operas, Arizona Opera next season will launch “Beyond Downtown,” a new collaboration with San Jose, California’s Opera Cultura and New York’s On Site Opera. The program, which is still being developed, will present “energetic and unexpected” site-specific opera performances to reach new and more diverse audiences, Specter explained when he announced the season in early May.

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The company actually put cost-cutting measures in place during the 2023-24 season when it eliminated one of Phoenix’s three performances.

Specter described the moves as similar to a sports team hitting reset following a losing season. Next season, he said, is the rebuild year that will allow the company to catch its financial breath and establish the steps necessary to become artistically and financially sustainable.

Specter, a former opera singer, came to Arizona Opera after leading Austin (Texas) Opera from 2012 until 2016.

When he arrived at Arizona Opera, the company, under former leader Ryan Taylor, had eliminated more than $3 million in debt and was financially sound. It also had commissioned its first work, Craig Bohmler’s “Riders of the Purple Sage.”

Specter spearheaded the world premier of that opera and went on to champion two more commissions: Clint Borzoni’s “The Copper Queen,” which was to have been premiered in the 2020-21 season; and last season’s “Frankenstein” by Gregg Kallor.

During the COVID hiatus, Specter pivoted and turned “The Copper Queen,” set in Bisbee’s famed haunted hotel, into a film that was released in October 2021.

Specter said he has no immediate plans for his next move.

“I love this company deeply. There will always be a piece of my heart with Arizona Opera,” he said, calling his decision a personal one made with his wife and two daughters. “I’m looking at this as a beautiful cadenza.”

At the end of his tenure, Specter will become the second longest-serving leader in the company’s 52-year history. Glynn Ross holds the record after serving as general director for 15 years, from 1983-98.

A national search will be conducted for Arizona Opera’s next president and general director.