If you have the heart of a gambler with the talent to carry off a tennis doubles tournament, you could be running a company like the East Bay’s West Edge Opera.

Meet Mark Streshinsky, general director of spunky West Edge, who is selecting the best possible creative team for a world premiere opera a good two years down the road. All without mirrors, tricks, or foundation underwriting. There’s both the heart and the gambling. And then, resembling a tennis tourney, there’s 22 different creative teams competing in phases for the grand prize, to write an opera that will be staged. Already winnowed down from a list of 81 teams of composers/librettists with the involvement of West Edge’s opera-savvy curators (i.e., their jury) overseeing the entire process.

The unique process that this unusual Oakland summer-season troupe has dreamt up, starting from scratch, could be a template for similar adventurous companies around the country that are, well, low on scratch. Call it the Competition on the High C’s, launched by entrepreneurs thinking outside the box during this fateful year of mandated theater shutdowns.

Interested artistic teams were asked to submit two-minute videos pitching their project to the West Edge group of curators, along with brief videos introducing their other works. “For this project, we have to consider not just the artistic strength of the projects, but also how well the artists can speak about their own work”, says Streshinsky. “It’s not just about the end product, it’s about how we get there. But we don’t want that to create even more barriers to the art form. Part of the idea is to change who gets to be the gatekeepers of new work.”

Composer Brian M. Rosen, one of his curators, added, “A program like this could bring creators closer to the people who care that these works are still being made. That sort of interaction could keep creativity going while we’re trapped in our homes.”

The funding comes from the public given a look at the creative process——called angels in the world of theater, but here, subscribers. By making a monthly cash commitment, from $15 on up, they get access to the teams, to their interviews, to snippets of their work, all under the rubric Aperture, while the curators will winnow the number of teams down to eight, then four, then the champion team, which gets a welcome grant ($60,000) to produce the new work. The criteria for advancing are based on existing musical snippets, vocal samples with singer, interviews and eloquence at explaining their dream project.

The teams reflect a broad variety, in age (from 18 on up), gender and diversity (including the major racial and ethnic components of America). The best-known of this group is likely the prolific Mark Campbell, who had been librettist for the opera “Silent Night” produced at Opera San Jose down the road from West Edge.

The proposed opera titles are fascinating, including “The Other Me,” “The Changelings,” “Onset Was Sudden,” “A Bridge of Magpies,” “Sonic Biogenesis,” “The Pope’s Jews” and “This Is Not That Dawn.” As varied as the creative teams themselves.

The composers, in no particular order, are Matthew Recio, Damien Geter, George Tsz-Kwan Lam, Andy Teirstein, Michael Zapruder, Luna Pearl Woolf, Ronald Walton, Nicolas Benavides, Brian Lowdermilk, Kamala Sankaram, Byron Au Yong, Clint Borzoni, Linda Bouchard, Kyong Mee Choi, Yotam Haber, Mark Hartman, Ryan Suleiman, Justine F. Chen, Djoré Nance, Guillermo Galindo and Omar Najmi.

The eight WEO curators comprise some prominent names, including Streshinsky’s predecessor now music director, Jonathan Khuner, and Oakland Symphony director Michael Morgan.

The company asserts that it looks at the art form through a new lens, re-imagining tradition to connect with a modern audience and create innovative experiences of the highest quality that respect the original spirit of the work. West Edge Opera had been founded in 1979 by Richard Goodman of the Cal faculty.

MUSIC NOTES—Where does Music Director Khuner find his inspiration? We met him by chance a week ago hiking the ridges of Tilden Park, Berkeley, with vistas of Mts. Diablo and Tam, plus the bay, the Golden Gate, and exotic lands beyond. And breathing fresh mountain air, mixed with the smell of fir trees. Inspiration in the air!

OPERA PREMIERE PROJECT “Aperture” by the East Bay’s West Edge Opera, on-going. For info: www.westedgeopera.org

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