Rhymes with Opera Co-Founder Robert Maril '02 on Cover of Opera News

July 24, 2016

Robert T. Maril, a 2002 graduate of DePauw University, is among the "Game Changers" pictured on the cover of the August 2016 edition of Opera News. The magazine notes, "The entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well on the New York opera scene, as the fresh approaches of three of Manhattan’s up-and-coming young producers attest."

The story Venture Opera, Utopia Opera and Rhymes with Opera. Matthew Sigman writes, "Robert Maril, a cofounder of Rhymes with Opera -- and yet another baritone -- was raised in Oklahoma, studied at DePauw University and received a master’s in music from the Peabody Conservatory in 2004. He defines RWO as 'a contemporary ensemble that commissions new works by emerging composers.' It performs most often in the seventy-five-seat Bank Street Theater in Greenwich Village. With, say, seven performers and six crew, the ratio of audience to company may be five to one. 'The theater is small,' Maril acknowledges, 'but new music fans in New York City have big opinions. A lot of our audience is composers and musicians and their friends -- everyone you would expect to come to an indie opera production.' ... While Venture and Utopia stick to more traditional fare, albeit with highly divergent degrees of interpretation, Rhymes with Opera sits on the cutting edge of innovative repertoire. Where else would you find (George) Lam and John Clum’s Heartbreak Express, a new opera that follows four Dolly Parton 'superfans' waiting to meet their idol for the first time?"