Carrie Murphy: And Now, a Word from our Sponsor

by Tom Carlisle


(spon/sr) n. 1. one who vouches or is responsible for a person or a thing. 2. one who makes an engagement or promise on behalf of another.

Stretching the dictionary definition, one could say that Carrie Murphy is our sponsor: she is the contact between Supers and opera management, and when we do our best onstage, it is a reflection on her.

Carrie was born in Indian Hills, Colorado, and she lived there until she was fifteen years old. Her home town is approximately 15 miles southwest of Denver, just over the first range of mountains from the metropolitan area, and has a population of about 2,000. She is the youngest of eight children--four boys and four girls. Carrie claims that rather than having been picked on, she was spoiled rotten. Until the age of fifteen, she “ran around the mountains with her older siblings and took over the area like roving gypsies.” Today her parents live in a small town in southern Colorado, where her father is a project manager for Habitat for Humanity: buying properties, staffing projects, and seeing to it that houses are built for the underprivileged. Her mother has been a clerical worker and an office manager, but her main occupation was raising eight kids.

Carrie has a Bachelor's Degree from Adams State College, Colorado, in Theater Arts/Speech Communication with a minor in Vocal Performance. She is a soprano, although by her speaking voice, you might have guessed that she has a lower register. She can hit all of the high notes, but she claims that her coloratura was not so great. Ironically, her vocal studies ended when she began to work for the San Francisco Opera.

Other members of her family are equally talented. Carrie's oldest sister plays acoustic bass in her family's bluegrass band, Second Wind, which recently cut their first CD, entitled Storm Shelter. CDs are available for sale upon request. Carrie's nephew Travis, also in the bluegrass band, was the 2003 National Mandolin Champion.

Ten years ago, Carrie visited friends in San Francisco, and she fell in love with city and decided to make it her home. She found a job with the Center for the Arts at Yerba Buena Center and worked there for about two years before moving on to ACT for another two years. In 1998 Carrie joined the San Francisco Opera Center, where Rick Harrell and David Odenkirchen had tapped her for the Administrative Associate position.

She had never paid much attention to the San Francisco Opera in-house job postings until the Artistic Administrator, Brad Trexell, asked her why she had not applied to be his assistant. He told her to get her resume in right away, and in 2002 she began working for Brad in her current position, working with the artists and their agents, looking after the artists’ needs, and occasionally negotiating contracts. She is often on duty during performances, distributing payments to the artists or making curtain speeches.

During the budget crunch of 2003, Carrie was given the job of Super Coordinator. Her first challenge was to become familiar with the people under her charge as quickly as possible, which took time and patience. Today she thinks she knows about half of the over 400 Supers in the database.

Contrary to first impressions in the House, Carrie is not completely absorbed by opera. Although she studied classical voice, Carrie prefers to listen to other kinds of music, such as Broadway, bluegrass and hip-hop. A member of the San Francisco Film Society, she is also the Festival Coordinator of the Fearless Tales Genre Festival for horror/sci-fi/fantasy and film noir, which just completed its second year.

Carrie loves cycling, and began to follow the sport about four years ago. She even attended the Tour de France in July 2003 and says that the adventure was delightful and unforgettable. She rides occasionally, but has no plans to race. Carrie also creates beaded jewelry, giving most of her work to family and friends.

Carrie states that one of the hardest parts of being the Super Coordinator is knowing how frustrated the Supers become as the number of roles decreases each season. As for the future, it is hard to say how the new General Director Designate, David Gockley, will run the company. However, Carrie believes that change is exciting and always leads to personal growth.