Company selects interim director.

Byline: Bob Keefer The Register-Guard

EUGENE OPERA

The financially strapped Eugene Opera will put on one show next season - Gilbert and Sullivan's "Pirates of Penzance" - under the direction of a newly named interim artistic adviser: Mark Beudert.

Director of the opera program at the University of Notre Dame, Beudert is a tenor familiar to Eugene audiences from his work with the Oregon Bach Festival and the opera. He lives here with his family while maintaining residences in Indiana and New York.

Beudert is quite familiar with "Pirates," which Eugene Opera will stage Dec. 29, 30 and 31. In the early 1980s, he sang in the New York production of the operetta that featured Kevin Kline and Linda Ronstadt. "I put myself through college singing in 'Pirates,' ' he said.

Beudert is also director of Bel Canto Northwest Vocal Institute at Portland State University.

He takes the artistic reins at a troubled time for the opera, which laid off artistic director Robert Ashens earlier this year when the organization found itself $30,000 in debt following "Hansel and Gretel."

The opera board cancelled most of next season, got rid of its staff and turned day-to-day operations over to former board member Philip Piele, who works as a $1-a-year executive director.

"We're in transition mode," Piele said. "The board has decided we're going to operate on a show-by-show basis for a while."

Last week, the opera secured a one-year waiver from the city of Eugene of its requirement, as a resident company of the Hult Center, to present at least three productions a year.

"Pirates" will feature soprano Christiane Noll, who sang in the Broadway production of "Jekyll and Hyde." The conductor will be Nicholas Carthy, music director of CU Opera at University of Colorado.