Valley Light Opera Celebrates 50 Years

Ordinarily when I write a commentary in The Indy I am talking about town issues.Today I am in a celebratory mood. I was a part of the creation of Valley Light Opera (VLO), which gave its first performance in 1975 as a company specializing in Gilbert & Sullivan. In those days, Gilbert & Sullivan light operas, written in the late Victorian era, were still tremendously popular in the United States both because of their intrinsic delights and because they were perfectly designed for both amateur and professional performers. They were also perfectly designed for family audiences.  If their essential satire was markedly British, it was easily transferable to American settings. And their unique combination of silliness and beauty worked their way into ordinary American hearts from the late Victorian period to the 1970s, when a group of Amherst residents met in the living room of Bill and Sally Venman on a cold March day to see whether middle-aged enthusiasts could create a company and present a show. Turns out that we could, and that November we presented the beloved light opera, H. M. S. Pinafore.

And in just a few weeks that company will celebrate its fiftieth anniversary by doing it again.

From 1975 until 2012. the VLO performed every November on the Amherst Regional High School stage. In return for liberal rehearsal arrangements we agreed to supply that stage with badly-needed technologies and fittings to support professional level productions. Over the years a significant part of our income was used for that purpose, benefitting not only our company but also the high school’s outstanding dramatic and musical presentations.

Over those first years, we played to sold-out houses as folks came to see their friends and neighbors as sailors and pirates, fairies, little maids on holiday from school,and stuffy aristocrats.  We attracted professionally-trained singers who gloried in the opportunity to sing Sullivan’s beautiful music accompanied by a full orchestra of superb musicians and in costumes designed and built by VLO’s soon-to-be-legendary costumers.

VLO has remained rooted in its community, even as that community has grown larger, beyond Amherst and even beyond the Pioneer Valley.  We have been ourselves a community; as members of the company grow older they return year after year and are joined by young artists who rejoice in the familial feeling.  Several members of this year’s production also performed in the shows of the ‘70s.  We sing carols in the  holiday season for senior living communities, we clean and paint our North Amherst storage barn together when the weather is good, and we sing at memorial services for members of our company no longer with us. We are a company that acts like a family.

Our community has grown larger to encompass much of New England.  We have moved to the elegant Academy of Music in Northampton. Our repertoire has embraced other musical theater to complement Gilbert & Sullivan. But more than ever we have remained rooted in community, aspiring to the highest possible performance and artistic standards, and feeling deeply our sense of being a company.  I conducted my last show for VLO in 2017 but it is no accident that throughout this commentary I have used the word “we” to indicate my commitment to the VLO and my gratitude to my comrades in 1975 and 2025. 

This 50th anniversary year is the perfect time to celebrate our Amherst roots. As in 1975 the opera is H.M.S. Pinafore, the perfect show for the family to enjoy together: short, silly, and beautiful.  Come to the Academy of Music on November 6 and 7 (evenings at 7:30 ) and 8 and 9 (afternoons at 2).  I will be speaking at the matinees one hour before the curtain.  If you come then, be sure to say hi! And bring your sisters and your cousins and your aunts!  Tickets in advance at the Academy website or at the performance.