Richard Gaddes, a British-born opera impresario who nurtured young talent as a director of companies in Santa Fe, New Mexico and St. Louis, died Dec. 12 in Manhattan. He was 81 years old.
His death, in a hospital, was confirmed by the Santa Fe Opera, of which he served as general director for eight years, and by the San Luis Opera Theatre, of which he was a founder. The executor of his estate, Maria Schlafly, said he died after a brief illness.
Leading the two companies for several decades, Gaddes (pronounced GAD-iss) helped launch the careers of younger stars such as Thomas Hampson, Christine Brewer and Frank Lopardo, and brought in notable artists well known in Europe, such as soprano Kiri Te Kanawa and conductor Edo de Waart, before audiences in the United States.
His generous and open-minded acceptance of an art form that he considered encompassing all others stimulated his attempts to open it to new artists, new audiences, and new works. In Santa Fe, she offered discounted tickets to New Mexico residents and put on a production of “The Beggar’s Opera.” at the city’s Cultural Museum with mainly local artists.
“I don’t think I would be doing what I’m doing if it hadn’t been her leap of faith,” said Brewer, who had been a school music teacher before Gaddes heard her sing at a competition in St. Louis and decided to take a chance on she. She didn’t win the contest, but Mr. Gaddes sent her a check anyway.
“Richard just said, ‘I heard it in your voice.’ He was very supportive,” Brewer said in a phone interview.
Invited to create an opera company in St. Louis in the late 1970s, Gaddes had an idea that contradicted local expectations of grand opera: use the new company to engage young American singers at the beginning of their careers. His idea turned out to be fruitful.
“I recommended to them that instead of doing shows with elephants, camels and mafia scenes in large spaces, what they should do is have a choral company that features the cream of the crop of young American singers,” Gaddes said in an interview. with the National Endowment for the Arts, which honored him in 2008.
Conductor Leonard Slatkin wrote in an email that the St. Louis company “became a destination point for those beginning their careers.” He added that Mr. Gaddes “had an encyclopedic knowledge of the repertoire and knew what could and could not be done.”
Gaddes followed a similar democratizing approach to broadening the audience in Santa Fe. He had already had a long career there before becoming director in 2000, a position he held until 2008.
“I felt like there was a slight attitude of elitism,” he said, noting that the business, located seven miles outside of town, “didn’t have much to do with the locals.”
His initiatives, including the reduced-price ticket plan, transformed the audience from 38 percent New Mexico to more than 50 percent.
“The wonderful thing is that Richard has really taken the reins of a new era in which the contemporary opera piece that we all feel we are obliged to do does not have to be an act of suffering,” director Peter Sellars said in an interview. After Mr. Gaddes was honored by the NEA “It’s not like having to have invasive surgery. In fact, it is a pleasure.”
Richard Gaddes was born on May 23, 1942 in Wallsend, a former coal mining and shipbuilding town near Newcastle in northern England. His father, Thomas, worked in the local shipyards; his mother, Emily (Rickard) Gaddes, was a homemaker.
He showed an early aptitude for music (his parents sang in local choirs) and his mother, defying his father’s wishes, paid for his train ticket to London for an audition at Trinity College of Music (now the Conservatoire of Music and Dance Trinity Laban). , where he was immediately accepted. He graduated in 1964.
To earn money, he turned pages at the Wigmore Hall, then London’s leading chamber music venue; he started a series of lunchtime concerts at the hall, which became immensely popular; and he went to work for an artist management company.
Gaddes credited his days at Wigmore Hall with sparking his interest in helping young singers. “I turned the pages of many great accompanists, including Gerald Moore,” he said in the 2008 interview. “I sat at the piano during the cycles of singers like Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Fischer-Dieskau, the Angels, Hans Hotter. An amazing, amazing exposure to music that can’t be bought.”
Discovered by director John Crosby, founder of the Santa Fe Opera, on a trip to London, he was eventually recruited to become the company’s artistic administrator in 1969, at age 25.
He became founding general director of the Saint Louis Opera Theater in 1976 and, under his direction, became the first American opera company to receive an invitation to the Edinburgh International Festival. He returned to the Santa Fe company in 1994 and became its second general director in 2000.
Mr. Gaddes is survived by his brother Harry. Another brother, Simon, died in 2011.
