As Seattle Opera's "Ring" festival approaches with 12 sold-out per-formances beginning on Aug. 7, the man whose unique vision and drive ushered in this rite of Wagnerian veneration has died.
Glynn Ross, Seattle Opera's founding general director, died July 21 in Tucson, Ariz., of complications from a stroke.
He was 90.
Mr. Ross held the reins as Seattle Opera's general director from the company's inaugural season in 1964 through 1983. A silver-tongued, energetic impresario with magnetic charm, he convinced the public that opera was an approachable artform and helped build the Seattle Opera into a cornerstone of the local arts scene.
With his uncanny ability to persuade potential audience members and funders alike, Mr. Ross was instrumental in the survival and growth of the new company. He and his marketing team created accessible, attention-grabbing and sometimes controversial ad campaigns - e.g., "Get Ahead with Salome" for the production of Strauss' "Salome."
He approached the act of producing opera boldly, with world premières of such modern operas as Carlisle Floyd's "Of Mice and Men" and The Who's then-new rock opera "Tommy," which featured Bette Midler.
A pioneer of English trans-lations for opera, Mr. Ross favored that productions be performed in the original language with a second cast of principals singing an English version. Seattle Opera has continued the tradition of two casts with different principals, although supratitles now provide the English translation.
Mr. Ross' most startling concept, and the one that catapulted the Seattle Opera onto center stage internationally, was his formation of the Pacific Northwest Wagner Festival in the summer of 1975.
All four operas of Richard Wag-ner's "Ring" cycle were to be performed within a week, as Wagner intended. This was a schedule unheard of beyond the Bayreuth Festival (which was founded by Wagner himself), and a daring act for a company in its infancy with a limited budget.
Although the "Ring" cycle - performed every summer before switching in 1984 to a four-year cycle - was fundamental to Seattle Opera's growing international fame, it also may have contributed to Mr. Ross' undoing. Some people worried that the "Ring" was siphoning resources from the rest of the season; others complained that he had no taste. There was concern about the exorbitant expense of his idea for a specially constructed facility in Federal Way to house the "Ring."
In 1983, the Seattle Opera board retired Ross, two years before his contract expired. He took his skills to the debt-ridden Arizona Opera and, using many of the marketing tactics he employed in Seattle, turned the company completely around. He even staged the "Ring" there. He retired from the Arizona Opera in 1998, at age 83.
Glynn Ross' imagination was perpetually in motion, and some of his ideas had a profound influence on the arts beyond the Seattle Opera. Among the concepts he turned into reality is the Pacific Northwest Ballet, which he founded in 1972, initially administering it through the Seattle Opera. Mr. Ross' sagacity also resulted in the creation of OPERA America, the national service agency uniting the country's opera companies, in 1970.
Glynn Ross was born Dec. 15, 1914, to Herman and Ida Aus (which later became Ross) and raised on a Nebraska farm. In 1937, he began studies at the Leland Powers School of Theatre in Boston. A mere three years later, he embarked on his professional opera career by directing Gounod's "Faust" at the Los Angeles Philharmonic Auditorium. The following year, he founded the opera department at the New England Conservatory.
In 1942, Mr. Ross signed on with the United States Army and was posted to Naples, Italy. After the war, he stayed in Naples as stage director at Teatro San Carlo, becoming the first American to direct in a major Italian opera house. Also in Naples, he met and married Angelamaria "Gio" Solimene.
When Mr. Ross and his family returned to the United States in 1948, he directed productions all around the country: the San Francisco Opera, the Los Angeles Opera, Fort Worth Opera, New Orleans Opera Association and the Opera Company of Philadelphia. He was a working observer at the Wagner Festival in Bayreuth, Germany, in 1953 and 1954. His Seattle debut came in 1953, with the Northwest Grand Opera Association, Seattle Opera's predecessor. In 1958, he headed back to Naples to serve as a stage director at San Carlo.
Mr. Ross is survived by his wife, Gio Ross; children Stephanie Rogers, of San Francisco; Claudia Ross-Kuhn, of Seattle; Tony Ross, of Des Moines, Iowa; and Melanie Ross, who is Seattle Opera's company manager; nephew Roger Aus, of Omaha, Neb.; and seven grandchildren.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to Seattle Opera's Wagner Reserve Fund or the Arizona Opera. Memorial services will be announced.
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