Opera

 2-5-10

Opera?  Yes, Otsego County has opera.  And chamber music.  And the Cooperstown and Oneonta concert series, that bring in everything from Irish Dancers to Balinese gamelan.
But rock ‘n’ roll?  Not much, particularly in the summers when SUNY Oneonta and Hartwick College are out.
That is likely to change, perhaps as soon as next summer, the result of a partnership between Tom Cormier of Burlington Flats, new owner of the Oneonta Theatre on lower Chestnut Street, and Jon Weiss, a rock promoter from New York City who has lived in Franklin for the past half-dozen years.
You may be unfamilar with the Indie band “Arcade Fire,” or “Arctic Monkeys” – its first hit, “I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor” – and “Clap Your Hands And Say Yeah.”
Well, you soon may get to know them.
It happened like this:  Last summer, when Cormier’s purchase of the one-time vaudeville house – more recently, cinema – was in the news, Weiss, up on Franklin Mountain with wife Kitty, daughter Io, 9, and two German shepherds – read a news article about it.
The story resonated:  Weiss had been promoting concerts since age 15, and had partnered in the development of Warsaw at The Polish National, a former ethnic club, as Brooklyn’s Green Point neighborhood developed into an arts community.  He developed the Cavestomp Festival, an annual weekend celebration of ‘60s music.
“It reminded me a lot of my Brooklyn experience,” he said, adding that reviving a theater “comes with a lot of challenges, on many, many levels.”
He called Cormier, whose background was in satellite technology – his local company has the contract to install Hughesnet Satellite dishes in all of New York and all of Pennsylvania outside Philadelphia, up to 1,000 a week – and the combination of talents suggested a partnership would make sense.
Cormier – he moved to northern Otsego County 10 years ago and is raising three sons, David, 13, Josh, 11 and Jacob, 7, with wife Karen – had been looking for investment real estate in Oneonta when he stumbled upon the cinema.
“It’s very solid, and I spent a lot of time creeping around it before I bought it,” he said of the building.  The three storefronts and six apartments convinced him he could make a go of it, whether or not the theater was redeveloped.
At the outset, Cormier partnered with the Friends of the Oneonta Theatre, a local citizens group headed by Patrice Macaluso, who chairs SUNY Oneonta’s theater department, that was trying to find a use that would save the cinema.
But Macaluso said that, as the Cormier-Weiss partnership developed, the Friends amicably stepped back.
Once the partners firm up plans, Macaluso said, the Friends may be able to screen vintage movies there, as planned, but for the time being its volunteer-driven mission wasn’t a comfortable fit with the profit-making venture.
The Oneonta has 677 seats; only the occasional “Titanic” fills that space.  Since the Oneonta’s heyday, such movie palaces have been replaced with first-run venues of 150 seats in a complex of 8-9 theaters, Cormier said.
He praised the help he’s received from the Friends, but said, “You have to have diverse use of the building. You have to have diverse programming.  Just being a movie theater didn’t make sense.”
Not just programming, but audiences, the partners said in an interview in the Oneonta’s lobby the other day:  Not just college students, but local folks, baseball-camp families visiting in the summer, and families like theirs.
Bands like to have tonight’s gig within three hours or so of tomorrow night’s.  The Oneonta is ideal in this way, Weiss said, located as it is within a sphere that includes New York City, Albany, Utica, Syracuse, Binghamton and Scranton.
Weiss sees a demand for live music beyond rock – country western, folk and, to a lesser degree, jazz, as well as movies and theater.
Walking through the yawning interior space, Cormier pointed to the pillared walls and high ceilings – all that will remain.  The original orchestra pit, hidden for years, is now being reopened.  The wall that separated the stage from the audience was one of the first things to go.
Looking skyward toward where the balcony used to be – it was closed in by a former owner to create a second, smaller screening room – Cormier said that will be removed to restore the theater to its full glory, just not yet.
Removable seats will be installed in the first 30 rows, concert attendees, as it their wont, can enjoy the music on their feet.
The theater is surrounded by commercial uses – Key Bank at Chestnut and Main, professional offices to the west, the Armory behind, so any noise impact should be minimal.
However, the partners pointed out they are both “family men,” and said they will be sensitive to any community concerns.
“We don’t just want to be tolerated,” said Weiss, “we want to be liked.”