By Christopher Blank - The Commercial Appeal

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Michael Ching, general and artistic director of Opera Memphis, is stepping down after 18 years.

His wife, University of Memphis professor Barbara Ching, recently became chair of the 60-person English department at Iowa State University in Ames, a prestigious position that Ching says will allow him to focus on composing.

Ching, 51, will finish out the season with the company, conducting "Madame Butterfly" on April 17 and 20.

With a $1.4 million budget, Opera Memphis is a comparatively small regional company. Chartered in 1953, its biggest growth came in 2003 with the opening of the Clark Opera Memphis Center in East Memphis.

Ching says his job comes with artistic and financial challenges, as audiences shrink and competition for entertainment dollars grows.

"We need to get butts back in seats," he said. "The very word 'opera' has some negative connotations that we have to change."

As a composer, Ching's work includes "Corps of Discovery" (2004), which celebrated the Lewis and Clark bicentennial, and "Buoso's Ghost" (1997), a comic sequel to "Gianni Schicchi" that is getting its 12th regional staging this year.

Opera Memphis recently received a $15,000 grant from the First Tennessee Foundation to stage Ching's new a cappella opera "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at the new Playhouse on the Square next season, though Ching says the board will decide today whether to continue with that production after he's gone. "Aida" and "The Barber of Seville" are also planned for next season.

Ching submitted a list of candidates to the board of directors. He hopes his replacement will be someone committed to living in Memphis full time.

"I believe in a resident leadership," he said. "I would never propose to run the company from Ames."

Longtime board member Ed Kaplan said the board should remain flexible in filling the position, even splitting the job into two positions -- an executive and artistic director -- if necessary. He said it took three to six months to hire Ching in 1992, and it will likely take that long to find a replacement.

"We're going to miss Michael," Kaplan said. "In addition to being a good conductor and artistic director, he got out there in the community, and that always helped our image. We're losing an excellent fellow."