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Surprise! Singers turn the Mall into an operatic stage.
by Derek Kravitz
It was a little after 1 p.m., and
many of those sitting outside at the Cafe du Parc restaurant on Pennsylvania Avenue NW had no clue why a 6-foot-tall man was walking around dressed like a ghost or why another man, wear- ing a black jacket and bluejeans, suddenly began drinking from an empty skull. That’s when someone yelled,
“Hey, Hamlet!” And the opera be- gan. Performers with the Washing-
ton National Opera’s Domingo- Cafritz Young Artist Program staged five-minute impromptu sketches Saturday afternoon of “Hamlet” and the recognizable Libiamo drinking song from Ver- di’s “La Traviata” at the outdoor restaurant at the Willard Hotel and the gardens of the Smithso- nian Castle. The surprise performances, which drew hundreds of curious tourists and passersby, are part of the opera company’s efforts to make the art form more acces- sible to people who wouldn’t know the difference between a bass (the lowest vocal range) and a soprano (the highest), said Mi- chelle Pendoley, a spokeswoman for the opera company. The yet- undefined three-part series is funded by two donors who want opera to be appreciated by a mass audience.
“I recognized it, but I’ve never
been to the opera, so this was great. I was just walking through the gardens and they were there,” said Meg Denton, 51, of Provi- dence, R.I., as she sat outside the Smithsonian Castle. “I thought it was performance art, but then they started to sing.” During the surprise perform- ance at the Willard, crowds formed as the singers belted out portions of the French operatic version of “Hamlet.” Seated at a table, 10-year-old Francis Bohlke of Cincinnati watched intently as two of the performers passed a skull back and forth; he pulled his dress tie over his eyes in mod- est disapproval. Moments later, when “La Traviata” began, Fran- cis slowly started bobbing his head.
I did,” he said.
“I don’t know why I liked it, but Emily Albrink, 28, a soprano
who finishes her second and final year in the Young Artist program this month, said she was skepti- cal about the success of such a stunt (she thought audiences “wouldn’t get it”), but her opinion changed after a similar surprise performance at a Whole Foods store in the Baltimore area in late March. Singers dressed in store-issued aprons suddenly began singing in the produce section, surprising customers, as recounted in a You- Tube video. “Most people think of opera as this stilted, inaccessible, high-art thing that can only be seen after
MARK GAIL/THE WASHINGTON POST
Washington National Opera soprano Emily Albrink performs the Libiamo drinking song from Verdi’s “La Traviata” at the Smithsonian Castle on Saturday. Albrink is in her final year of the Young Artist program.
you plunk a few hundred dollars down on a seat at an opera house,” Albrink said. “But these type of performances really open it up. People can see that we are young and look like them. We’re not all old, fat guys.” There are a few odd, “American
Idol”-esque stories out of the group. Consider 36-year-old ten- or José Ortega of Chihuahua, Mexico, who worked at the corpo-
rate headquarters of Wal-Mart for seven years before finding his voice during a chorus elective at law school in Arkansas. But there’s also bound to be a
few stereotypes that fit, especially in a program founded by Plácido Domingo, the Spanish tenor most known for his work with José Carreras and Luciano Pavarotti in the acclaimed Three Tenors. The two baritones in the Do-
mingo-Cafritz program who per- formed Saturday, for example — Aleksey Bogdanov and Oleksandr Pushniak — were born in what is now Ukraine and clock in at more than 6 feet tall and 200 pounds. By the way, the Washington
National Opera’s production of French composer Ambroise Thomas’s “Hamlet” begins Wednesday. Tickets start at $50.
kravitzd@washpost.com
FBI considered moving headquarters to Greenbelt, papers reveal
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economy tanked” to move the headquarters from the aging J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building on Pennsylvania Avenue NW. Many sites were under consideration, he said, but he did not know whether Greenbelt was among them.
Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-
Md.) was “very much involved” in pushing for a relocation to Maryland, Carter said. “I’m not aware of Greenbelt,” he said. “National Harbor was one of the areas.” Carter said the talks surround- ing a move have not advanced since the economic downturn, and he would not identify any other possible relocation sites. “I’m not aware of imminent plans to relocate the FBI at this time,” he said. “Nothing has been decided.” Jon Peterson, senior vice president and owner of Peterson Cos., the developer of National Harbor, said a bid was submitted for FBI office space. The propos- al was for 100,000 to 200,000 square feet of office space, not for the entire headquarters, Pe- terson said. Rachel MacKnight, a Mikulski
spokeswoman, said the senator is aware that the FBI’s head- quarters does not meet the agen- cy’s safety and security needs.
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“The building is literally crumbling around them and cannot support the high-tech needs of the bureau,” she said. “Employees are also located in over 16 annex offices in the area, which reduces their effective- ness. So the senator asked GAO [the Government Accountability Office] to review the Hoover building and the FBI’s other lo- cations, and assess the benefits of a consolidated headquarters. The GAO is working on this analysis.”
An FBI move to Prince
George’s would be a boost to the county, which county officials say has not gotten its fair share of federal leases and office space. For years, Prince George’s offi-
cials have argued that the county has fewer government leases than other jurisdictions in the Washington region, even though
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it has more available land and of- fers lower rents. The National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education and the University of Maryland Real Estate Development Pro- gram found in a 2007 study that even though Prince George’s has 33 percent of the region’s land area and 23 percent of the popu- lation, it has attracted only 4 percent of the federal leasing dollars spent in the region. Greenbelt Ventures, the devel- opment company that is suing Metro, planned to build Green- belt Station Towne Centre, which would include hundreds of residential units, 800,000 square feet of retail, 1 million square feet of office space, a ho- tel and a conference center. The proposed development is
240 acres, divided into two sec- tions. The southern portion of
ROBERT McCARTNEY
Preakness takes off the wet blanket but keeps the lid on
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They offered the lure of cheap al- cohol to attract a crowd, and at- tendance was up 23 percent. But they also forced people to wait in line to be served. Waits ranged from 5 to 30 minutes and seem to have controlled con- sumption. “They’re doing a good job of
keeping the in-between,” said Scott Goodman, 23, of the Dis- trict. James Mack, 21, of Baltimore complained that the lines were “ridiculous,” and he wished that race officials would go back to letting people bring all the beer they want. But he added: “I un- derstand why they’ve done this. I got knocked out a couple of times” in the past by thrown beer bottles. The results are a relief to the
Maryland Jockey Club, which runs the race. Last year, when BYOB was banned, attendance dropped by 31,000 from the pre- ceding year. It cost the club about $1.5 million. This year, race organizers went the other way, crafting a market- ing campaign designed to signal that some rowdiness was wel- come again. The slogan was “Get Your Preak On.” The campaign sparked con- cern that the Preakness’s bad old
days might return. A few fights were reported. A police sergeant said four people had passed out drunk in the portable toilets (which is still better than racing across the tops).
Compared with the past, that’s
a huge improvement. “From all indications, the infield is on its way back to where we want it to be,” Jockey Club President Tom Chuckas said. A lot is at stake. The Preakness is the main moneymaker in Maryland horse racing. It sub- sidizes live horse racing at Pim- lico and Laurel for the rest of the year. The change in attitude toward women was noteworthy. “When I was watching the band, I was on someone’s shoul- ders, and there was no pressure to flash,” said Tricia Bosnic, 23, of Eldersburg, Md. Her friend Katie Bankard, 24, also of Eldersburg, chimed in: “In the past, people would have been throwing cans and shouting: ‘Flash! Flash!’ ” Only a handful seemed to miss the old days. It was “more lively” before, said George Grabes, 23, of Rockville. But his friend Margo Josephs, 21, of Baltimore, dis- agreed. “This is a little more safe, and I still had a very good time,” she said.
mccartneyr@washpost.com
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the property, where residential development is planned, is pri- vately owned by Daniel I. Colton and the estate of A.H. Smith Sr. Two years ago, the FBI launched an investigation of the project, raiding two government offi- cials’ offices, a former council member’s home and a fire offi- cial’s office. Greenbelt Ventures was inter- ested in the northern portion of the property, 78 acres of Metro- owned property that abuts Greenbelt Station. In December 2000, Metroland Developers agreed to pay Metro $6.4 million for the property. Under the joint development agreement, Metro- land Developers would build parking at the station. In 2006, Greenbelt Ventures, which in- cludes Annapolis-based develop- er Walter Petrie, entered into a membership interest purchase and sale agreement with Met- roland to assume control of the development. The deal, which had to be approved by Metro, was for $40 million. After months of delay and re- quests to change the original agreement made with Metro- land, Metro declined to give the go-ahead. Greenbelt Ventures is suing Metro for breach of con- tract, saying the agency “deliber- ately misled and deceived” the development company by not signing off on the project.
“Even though we believed that it was promised, it didn’t hap- pen,” said David Sheehan, a Bal- timore-based attorney who rep- resents Greenbelt Ventures. “[Metro] has taken a project that has tremendous promise . . . one that was catapulted from suc- cess, to one of the worst.” Metro spokeswoman Angela
Gates said the agency does not comment on ongoing litigation. In Metro’s motion to dismiss
the lawsuit, the agency says Greenbelt Ventures has no grounds to sue because Metro’s joint development agreement was with Metroland. The agency says that Metroland asked that the membership interest pur- chase agreement with Greenbelt Ventures be terminated. Petrie wrote a letter to Beall arguing that the agreement is still in effect. “Your failure to tell us about the FBI opportunity, your failure to include us in any discussions or meetings at the FBI or WMATA . . . seriously under- mines the legitimacy of your pro- nouncement that the Agreement is terminated,” Petrie wrote in a January letter to Beall. Beall did not return calls seek- ing comment.
wigginsovetta@washpost.com
Staff researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.
SUNDAY, MAY 16, 2010
Many charities could lose tax-exempt status soon
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danger of losing their tax-exempt status Monday, and an additional 126,000 by the end of the year, as filing deadlines linked to various kinds of fiscal years pass. That figure includes nearly 20,000 groups in the District, Maryland and Virginia. The law does not affect church- es and church-related organiza- tions. The Urban Institute’s database includes many familiar names – those of alumni groups, neighbor- hood PTAs, community theaters. The D.C. list reads like a cross sec- tion of life in the region: rhino rescue efforts, softball leagues, child-abuse prevention networks, garden clubs, Zairean democracy movements, the International So- ciety of Arachnology (“the pre- mier international scientific soci- ety for the study of arachnids, ex- clusive of mites”). “I’m hoping that most of the or-
ganizations that fall off the list are no longer out there,” said Lois Lerner, IRS director of exempt or- ganizations, which would leave the agency with a far more accu- rate sense of the sector. But there are those, like the Suspicious Cheese Lords, that are still very much alive. In fact, the small music ensemble has been increasingly successful, with a growing international following of scholars and musicologists. It even held a private performance for the pope. The group, which took its name from a loopy trans- lation of a Latin title, researches and performs little-known and previously unrecorded works by Renaissance composers. A couple of years after it formed over dinner in Columbia Heights, a law student in the group said members should file for nonprofit status so their mea- ger income wouldn’t be taxed. They did so in 1998, and for about a decade afterward, their well- under-$25,000-a-year in revenue ensured that they weren’t re- quired to file a federal tax return. But then the law changed. Groups like the Cheese Lords, with small annual revenues, don’t need to complete a lengthy tax re- turn; they simply must fill out an “electronic postcard” of eight questions seeking basic informa- tion. The 12 members of the Cheese
Lords didn’t notice. They were busy researching ancient music at the Library of Congress. “It’s the most beautiful music,”
West said, “this type of harmony, Renaissance polyphony, with dif- ferent people making different lines, weaving wonderful tapes- tries of sound that just envelope you like smoke.”
Such groups are often all-vol- unteer and frequently change leadership, said Tom Pollak, direc- tor of the National Center for Charitable Statistics at the Urban Institute. “These people are working in communities,” said Tim Delaney, president and chief executive of the National Council of Nonprof- its. “They’re not hanging out in law libraries figuring out how fed- eral tax law has changed, forcing them to file new forms.” Of course, it’s not like this has been a secret. In addition to the traditional
letters, news releases and notices online, the IRS has for the past three years reached out to small- town libraries and congressional offices, to federal employees and remote radio stations as well as using Twitter and podcasts. For all those that don’t file the IRS short form or a tax return, or apply for an extension by the deadline, tax-exempt status will be revoked. Nonprofits have three years to comply with the law. Those whose status is revoked can apply to have it reinstated, and if it is restored before the end of the year, the IRS won’t notify donors or others of the change. But that will cost most nonprof- it groups an $850 filing fee, and the time it takes to win reapproval is likely to be lengthy, Delaney said. They’ll have to ask questions including, “ ‘Were past contribu- tions deductible or not? What do we tell our board members? Can we be accepting contributions?’ It opens a whole can of worms,” De- laney said. Or, as West said, “That would be a royal pain in the rear end.” And so he told the other mem- bers of the group: “Okay, every- one, we have to take care of this — today.” The members of the en- semble include lawyers, a doctor, students — and an accountant. Is he the one who handles the
JONATHAN NEWTON/THE WASHINGTON POST
In the infield at Pimlico, fans sing along to the Zac Brown Band. The mostly young crowd drank heartily and steadily. But the day at the races wasn’t marred by some of the excesses of the past.
books? “I’m not sure,” West said. “I’m on the artistic side.”
kinzies@washpost.com
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