Gregory Trupiano—December 13, 1955 –
February 18, 2020.Greg Trupiano, born in Brooklyn, New York, passed away suddenly in February,
2020. He was Director of Artistic Administration at Sarasota Opera in Florida.
He worked there for 33 seasons while maintaining his residence in
Brooklyn. Mr. Trupiano made tremendous contributions to the arts community,
especially in New York City. He assisted and consulted with several opera and
theatre companies and worked various theatre jobs around the City from
stage manager to producer to director. Greg’s lifelong passion for and
knowledge of Walt Whitman inspired him to launch the Walt Whitman Project,
devoted to the performance of Whitman’s words to the public. [Photo credit, Matthew Holler]
I
A man of contrasts. This personality
trait enabled Greg intellectually and emotionally to take in Walt Whitman,
the history of a nation, New York City, and particularly Brooklyn. Juggling
overwhelming concepts?! No problem, Greg fearlessly rushed right into the
middle and then managed to step into the light of truth. Being with Greg when
he uncovered a fact that didn’t fit logically or hearing him tell stories that
on the surface didn’t make sense, Greg would notice my furrowed brow. He would
pause with a disarming, sly smile, eyes wide with pleasure. He radiated
calmness as if to say, life is complex, it’s okay, together we move forward. He
possessed clarity.
Working with Greg was a joy. He
was cheerful and prepared. Everyone who associated with Greg knew about his
high professional standards and formidable organization skills, skills needed
to bring a new opera to life. When Greg was not immersed in American Opera
Project’s risky ventures, or in a NYC theatre project, he was an expert in
realistic restagings of 19th century Italian grand opera.
Greg taught me about operatically
trained voices. He had a command of the technical aspects and could evaluate
superior qualities in a human voice. When we finished auditions at AOP
headquarters or perhaps after an evening performance, we frequently went to a
diner—Greg was familiar with diners in every dark corner of the city—and it was
fun and illuminating to compare notes and catch up about concerts and operas
that we had attended. For hours we could discuss composers, rising vocal
talents, iconoclastic productions, international opera trends, and on and on. Greg
had the latest news about singers coming onto the scene, operas premiering
around the country (and in Europe), and the gossip about opera powerbrokers,
who was in, and who was out (in every meaning
of the phrase).
Given Greg’s vast knowledge about
opera’s cutting edge, to me it seemed a mistake that Greg was not employed by
the big NYC opera companies. At AOP, he volunteered on projects for years,
generously returning his small fees to the company. It often struck me as
incongruous that his main work was at a conservative opera company in Sarasota,
Florida, a “snowbird” resort town, known for programming traditional “warhorse”
operas.
At AOP, Greg’s
satisfaction came from developing operas from the ground up, for example, Paula
Kimper and Wende Persons’ Patience
& Sarah, which premiered at the Lincoln Center Festival in 1998.
(Anne Whitehouse was part of our team, too.) Through The Walt Whitman Project,
which he founded with Lon Black, Greg established a successful track record of
producing poetry in outdoor settings, finding a home base at Brooklyn’s Fort
Greene Park, a landmark park that lists Walt Whitman among its founders.
Greg continued to surprise me after
more than thirty years. There was always new information coming from
him: deeper, more multi-layered understandings of history and tradition,
which bore fruit in Sarasota Opera’s Verdi productions. Greg possessed the
spirit for the clash of opposing forces and shared his passion with anyone who
would listen, in a theater lobby or on a neighborhood sidewalk. His
sensitivity and empathy convinced skeptics of the power of poetry and
avant-garde music theatre. In casual conversations, Greg generously revealed
himself to others and teased out a commonality of interests. Every day I
remember and try to use this tool.
-Charles Jarden, Director of Strategic
Planning, American Opera Projects
II
I’ve never known anyone like Greg
Trupiano, and I don’t expect I ever shall. We met when I joined American Opera
Projects in 1995. The programs Greg conceived for American Opera Projects were
original, innovative, and memorable. Conversations with Greg about
music—genres, compositions, composers, performers, productions—fascinated me.
He helped me to become a more discerning listener.
As F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote of his
character Jay Gatsby, Greg sprang from his Platonic conception of himself. Much
of his learning and expertise was self-acquired. He was the most knowledgeable
person about music, Walt Whitman, and the history of Brooklyn that I have ever
met. He founded the Walt Whitman Project to realize his dream of awakening
today’s readers to the beauty and humanity of Whitman’s writing and to connect
Whitman’s New York to the current metropolis. Greg’s walking tours of Fort
Greene Park and the Prison Ship Monument and Walt Whitman’s Brooklyn are the
best walking tours I ever took, enriched by his encyclopedic knowledge and
enlivened by the inclusion of musical performances and readings and prints and
photographs depicting the sites we were visiting in times gone by. Like opera
singers, Greg eschewed microphones on these tours, and for our edification and
amusement, he corrected the errors on the historical plaques.
For decades, Greg kept to a set
routine, dividing his year between Sarasota and New York City. At the Sarasota
Opera, he nurtured many careers and was devoted to the summer opera camp he
began for children. Despite his learning, Greg was never pedantic. He was modest
and disinclined to talk about himself. He had a genuine interest in others.
Aside from his long-distance commutes between New York City and Sarasota, he
rarely traveled anywhere, and yet he was one of the most open-minded and least
provincial people I have ever encountered.
He had simple tastes. He liked diners
and Chinese restaurants. Other than books and music, he did not acquire
possessions. His devotions were deep and sustaining. He could be counted on to
be punctual. He showed up and forged connections between like-minded people in
different artistic communities. His programming was diverse before diversity
became a goal. In recent years, he was increasingly committed to education and
young people.
As Greg nurtured the careers of many
singers, he helped me become a better performer of my own work. Participating
in his Walt Whitman programs, I noticed that the singers were invariably better
readers than the writers. They came prepared and rehearsed, whereas the writers
winged it, and the results showed. I began to understand the many connections
between singing and speaking, and I tried to think as a singer when preparing
for a reading of my work. When I give a reading, I think of Greg. It is a way
for me to keep him with me as a sustaining spirit.
-Anne Whitehouse, writer and former
Development Consultant, American Opera Projects
III
Trupiano. That’s how Greg Trupiano
signed every missive to me, never Greg. As if we were on a high stakes mission
together. And indeed we were. There was a lot to do and time was of the essence.
Trupiano was my comrade on a trajectory to, as Whitman would say, “Unscrew the
locks from the doors! Unscrew the doors themselves from their
jambs!”
Trupiano was an Advisory Board member
of Compagnia de’ Colombari and, signing on to that role, he became a rare
friend to me, to Compagnia de’ Colombari and to all the projects including More
Or Less I Am, the opera Judith, The Merchant of Venice and
all the others. He listened hard to all of us at board meetings. Civility and
practical wisdom marked his every contribution to the company, but nothing
replaced his particular joy at witnessing the performances of the actors and
singers themselves. They were the heart of the company and their presence was
paramount to him.
The Whitman Project was Trupiano’s
“urge and urge and urge, always the procreant urge” in which he single handedly
brought Walt Whitman into the consciousness of New Yorkers as a force to be
reckoned with. In a persistent grassroots movement, he led countless tours of
folk around the many neighborhoods of Brooklyn, freely offering knowledge of
Whitman and New York history. His lucky auditors always left these itinerant
gatherings ecstatic: deepened in their knowledge and renewed in their New York
citizenship. If it were up to me, I would designate Trupiano a New York
landmark.
Trupiano’s other great love was the
opera: he was Associate Artistic Director at the Sarasota Opera where his
knowledge was indispensable and where he galvanized a great variety of singers.
He was a go-to repository of all things operatic and theatrical. Yet, making
connections and bringing people together to serve shared missions was of
greatest delight to him. A democratic soul, he relished meeting people, more
than anybody I know and, remarkably, kept everyone’s name and history perfectly
unmuddled.
Words mattered to Trupiano. If we spoke
of something happening, he always kept his word, a surefire bond in a slippery
time. I was a beneficiary of that integrity and attention. When Greg Trupiano
left us suddenly in February 2020, I was struck by the vast resounding silence
his absence carved. Yet just now, now, I begin to hear him challenging
and encouraging us all in this extraordinary American moment—along with his
beloved Walt, “What is known I strip away….I launch all men and women forward
with me into the unknown.”
-Karin Coonrod, Founding Director of
Compagnia de’ Colombari
IV
Two of the most important events of my
life happened in 1981. In May, I moved to New York City. Three months later,
August 15, 1981, I met Greg Trupiano. We were at a theatre party in the East
Village. This wasn’t a love at first sight story, but within a year our
relationship evolved into something beautiful and Whitmanic that lasted 38
years. August 15 became our anniversary date. To Greg, the Ides of August.
On my first day in New York, I knew I was finally home. Then Greg appeared and
became my custom Welcome Wagon. He was a native Brooklynite, he loved his city,
and he was eager to show it to me. “He was a welcoming presence” wrote a friend
after his passing. What made him so welcoming? These other descriptors used in
tributes to Greg will explain: kind, gentle, respectful, compassionate,
trustworthy, supportive, generous, inspiring, funny, professional, organized,
smart, a treasure, a true gentleman, an incredible human, a true ray of
sunshine, a class act, one-of-a-kind.
In our early years, we were together all the time, working at the same job
during the day (William Morrow Publishers), rehearsing plays together (me
acting, Greg directing), and seeing performances together (theatre, opera,
cabaret, film). For most of the 1980s, we were in a theatre or opera house an
average of 5 times a week. Broadway, Off- and Off-Off- Broadway, The Met, New
York City Opera.
We wandered the city together. We visited the popular touristy and sought the
obscure. Many of our jaunts were in Downtown Manhattan and the West Side when
Battery Park City was just landfill.
In the late 1980s Greg started getting out-of-town jobs in opera so we’d be
apart for up to 5 months in a year. For 33 years, Greg worked at Sarasota Opera
in Florida and was a vital force there as Director of Artistic Administration.
We managed these relationship fluctuations with ease which was a testament to
the strength of our partnership.
Greg was a fervent Walt Whitman ambassador. He loved people. He created
community. He had a zest and reverence for life. He embraced Whitman’s words on
democracy and the spirit of America.
In 2000 Greg launched The Walt Whitman Project. We produced readings, tours and
related events. Greg’s specialty was Whitman during his Brooklyn years. He
created tours of Downtown Brooklyn, Brooklyn Heights and Fort Greene Park. We
commissioned composers to create music based on, or using, Whitman’s words.
Greg’s intention was to bring the words of Whitman, spoken and sung, to the
people. It was an expression of his celebration of life that he shared with
Walt.
There were some sticky years in Greg’s health story. He almost succumbed to a
subdural hematoma in 2014. In July 2017, Greg began a new chemotherapy regimen
for chronic lymphocytic leukemia that he had been managing since 2004. As a
result, he regained a vibrancy not experienced in several years. His death in
February 2020 was sudden and unexpected.
It was easy for Greg to bolster people’s spirits. He freely gave moral support
and career guidance. He was a good listener. He could make you feel safe and
quickly garner your trust. It made him a positive force for so many people. I was
a fortunate recipient…24/7.
I’m still receiving. I was always intrigued by the final, periodless line in
Song of Myself, and after Greg’s passing it has even more significance.
“I stop some where waiting for you”
-Lon Black, Greg’s life partner and
Artistic Director of The Walt Whitman Project
