Fall/Winter 2006 - Mendocino Art Center

Pam Hudson and The Beginning ofThe Gloriana Opera CompanyPamela Hudson was a major social activist on theMendocino Coast during the 1970’s and 1980’s. Shehelped innumerable people in her job as a psychiatricsocial worker and her public work has had a profoundand lasting effect. She instigated the Coast’s first “free”clinic, the ancestor of the present Mendocino CoastClinics in Fort Bragg, and founded The Gloriana OperaCompany. This 1978 interview with Bruce Levene commemoratesGloriana’s 30th anniversary in 2006.In the early 1970’s a conductor named CharlesPerlee came to the Coast and Mimi Vashkulat said perhapswe could do some music here, some choral work.I was active with the Mendocino Church Choir andwas recruited to sing in Faure's Requiem. Well, workingwith Charles Perlee was such a thrill and he wasvery complimentary. I bought the recording and studiedat home and worked like mad. Charles encouragedme to take lessons, so I studied for two years, drivingall the way to San Francisco for lessons.I was in three other productions here with CharlesPerlee directing them: Two Menotti operas, The OldMaid and the Thief, and The Medium,and Puccini's Suor Angelica. I hadenough experience in theatre, designingthe set, dancing and acting, to realizethat the moment I was in an opera I wasin the culmination of all the theatricalarts and in all performing arts. As far as Iwas concerned, to be in opera you haveto be a singer, a dancer and an actor oractress. And it was the highlight of everything.Then I began going to the SanFrancisco Opera season, despite myaging vehicle. Two years ago (1976),Barbara Lane and I were driving backand forth and seeing them and rhapsodizingand singing all the arias all theway home to keep ourselves awake onThe Mikado, 1977.Poster by Mervin GilbertHighway 128. Allof a sudden I said,"Gee, you know,there's some reallytalented people uphere. There's asinging waiter(Otak) at theM a cCallumHouse who has areally marvelousvoice and can singGilbert andSullivan by heart.And it's reallyBarbara Lane, Sunny Boyd, &Pamela Hudson as The ThreeSisterskind of charming. It would be great to have musicalsor operas in the summertime up here."Barbara says, "Oh Pamela, there are a great manysingers here. Wouldn't it be fun to do something likethat in Mendocino?" And I said, "Why yes, it certainlywould. We should have opera up here. We can't affordCharles Perlee, but those of us who arealready working and living here mightbe able to get something together andwe can present a viable vehicle for allthe singers." She said, "Yes, I think that'sgreat.”So a month goes by and it's percolatingin my head and I'm saying,"Pamela, you have never even seen aGilbert and Sullivan production. Theycould be hokey." And I thought, "Yeah,I think I'd like to see what they're like.""But Pamela, you've never done anythingin the way of production before.""Well, yes, but I'm a Mills College graduateand anything is possible." So Iwoke up in the middle of a Decembernight with this great flash saying,28