Image courtesy of Elizabeth Cortes.
Elizabeth Herlitz Cortes, the new Interim Director of Development and Community Engagement at Opéra Louisiane.
“Puccini is the gateway drug to opera,” swears Elizabeth Herlitz Cortes, Opéra Louisiane’s new Interim Director of Development and Community Engagement. She remembers vividly the moment her addiction began, singing in the chorus for an LSU Opera performance of La Bohème. “It was the second act, and I just started bawling, weeping,” she said. “I was so moved. I was like ‘This is what I want to do for the rest of my life’.”
She’d already known she was going to be in music; she had been playing the violin for sixteen years and started training in voice in high school after observing an LSU Opera dress rehearsal performance of The Ballad of Baby Doe. She’d performed with the Baton Rouge Little Theater (now Theatre Baton Rouge) and had been voted “Most Likely to Get on Broadway” in her class at The Dunham School. But this moment in the middle of La Bohème, this is what sealed Cortes’s fate as a devotee of opera.
“That became my goal,” she said. After LSU, she attended Bowling Green University in Ohio to pursue a Masters of Music, where she became a member of the Toledo Opera Young Artists Program. “I was singing over three hundred performances for kids’ shows,” she said. “I was singing everywhere. And for the rest of my life, I know I have high notes at 8 o’clock in the morning, a high C at 8 am. Your technique sets in.”
Courtesy of Elizabeth Cortes
Wine Pairing at the Crowne Plaza left to right is Richard Hobson (Southern University), Elizabeth Cortes, OLI Board Chair John Jackson, and OLI Vice Chair, Kathy Baker.
Years later, having performed with numerous opera companies and music organizations, an opportunity as the Director of Development for Spotlight on Opera at Shreveport’s Centenary College brought her back home to Louisiana. There, she began to realize the power of her passion for opera, her ability to bring people to the art. “Right out of the gate, I believed in the power of opera so much, and I was able to verbalize the invitation, the why,” she said.
The why, she explained, is that opera is an access point to all the arts that begins with the universal language of music. “Opera has a way to bridge all of these gaps, regardless of your political lines, age group, life experiences—for three hours we are all sitting in the same auditorium and we are able to connect with our humanity, to connect on the events that change us fundamentally as people,” she said. “At some point in time, we have all experienced passion, grief, anger, rage, joy elation. No other art form can do it like opera.”
In this new role at Opéra Louisiane, which brought her back to the hometown that introduced her to the art, Cortes plans to preach the gospel of “more opera!” With an overarching goal of making opera more accessible to more demographics in the Greater Baton Rouge region, she hopes to break down the barriers that make the artform intimidating or unfamiliar. “Sometimes you have to teach people how to enjoy the artform, to connect the dots,” she said, adding that she plans to maximize Opéra Louisiane’s presence in the community through local events and outreach efforts. “The majority of Baton Rouge hasn’t grown up with opera, so it’s about making it fun and enjoyable, recognizable. It needs to be commonplace again. It’s time to double down.”
Learn more about Opéra Louisiane at operalouisiane.com, and don’t miss the chance to experience Puccini, the gateway drug, at the organization’s upcoming fundraising event “Dreams of Love: A Puccini Celebration” on September 5.
