Bravi for This Duet: Carla Koeffler & John Suhre

By Sylvia Whitman  |  Photo by Nancy Guth

“Opera is the quintessential use of the human voice” – John Suhre

When opera aficionados John Suhre and Carla Koeffler were casting about Florida for a retirement town, Sarasota was in the running, of course, offering culture, nature, and an airport for international travel. Friends tried to lure the couple to Naples, but John says Sarasota Opera was “a selling point—if not the main selling point.”

Carla wasn’t instantly sold, however. A marketing director who had moved and traveled for work, she had attended performances at New York’s Metropolitan Opera House, Washington’s Kennedy Center, and Chattanooga’s gilded Tivoli Theatre. She found Sarasota Opera’s downtown complex unprepossessing. “It looked like a Florida building,” Carla explains. “And I thought, I guess that’s what they can afford.”

Inside, that underwhelming first impression of the facade gave way to a wow. Seated in the balcony, “I was absolutely blown away by the acoustics, and the intimacy of the theater,” Carla remembers. “The sound was like arms wrapping around me.”

John and Carla came to their love of opera separately. John had always liked music: in high school he played trumpet and tuba, and he sang in a community chorus. But in 1978, when he found himself in the third row at the Kennedy Center listening to Beverly Sills in The Barber of Seville, he was transfixed.

“For me, opera is the quintessential use of the human voice,” he rhapsodizes. Government lawyer by day, he became a diva and divo devotee by night. Even recordings of Pavarotti’s rendition of “Nessun Dorma” give him goosebumps, he says.

Carla, too, discovered opera as a musically-inclined adult. Her parents had taken her to concerts as she grew up in Milwaukee, and in college she played guitar and sang folk. “Mercifully, I gave it up,” she says with a laugh. A chance listen to Pavarotti’s greatest hits on a business trip piqued Carla’s interest, and then she experienced Wagner at the Met. “The pageantry is magical,” Carla says. “Operas are miracles. If God hadn’t given voice to Puccini, to Verdi, life wouldn’t be what it is today.”

John and Carla had dated in D.C., parted, and then reunited more than two decades ago—with opera an unexpected bond. They both prefer what Carla calls the “beautiful and cherished classics.”

“Opera is kind of an acquired taste,” says John. “It’s long, all in a foreign language, full of silly stories. They’re fairy tales set to music.”

“They were written hundreds of years ago,” Carla points out, “so there’s so much history to them. But the performances today are beautiful: lighting, set design, costumes—the full package that modern audiences demand.”

In their six years in town, John and Carla have become mainstays of Sarasota Opera. In addition to subscribing to each season’s five shows, they’ve sponsored up-and-coming vocalists through the Apprentice Artists Program—Jonathan Harris, for instance, a bass-baritone from New Orleans, in winter 2018. They’ve also co-produced several operas. The intimacy of the underwriting mirrors the intimacy of the performances.

“In Sarasota, you can be involved in more things for a reasonable amount of money,” Carla says.

“The season is a major part of our social life,” says John. “It’s a family affair.” With the producer credit come invitations to rehearsals, lunches, lectures with the maestro, and a special dinner on stage. John especially enjoys meeting the “amazing” artists. “It’s not an easy profession to break into and stay in,” he says.

John and Carla donate time and treasure elsewhere in the county. John is president of their Palmer Ranch homeowners’ association. Equestrienne Carla serves on the board of InStride Therapy in Nokomis, where the couple volunteer as “side walkers” for disabled clients who ride horses during hippotherapy sessions. Carla also tutors English for speakers of other languages (ESOL).

But their involvement with Sarasota Opera combines philanthropy with entertainment. They love the organization’s traditionalist bent—no modernist interpretations of the tried and true.  “They stage these operas the way they were meant to be staged,” says John.

At the same time, he and Carla appreciate the lack of pretention here. Although co-producers might wear gowns and tuxes on opening night, no one looks askance at patrons in khakis and boat shoes.

“It’s an approachable art form,” says Carla, who approves of the varied price points on tickets. “There’s an entry point at any budget level, so you can come see if you like it.”

Being a benefactor helps ensure the success of the opera—a deeply satisfying feeling for John. “I’m cheered when I see young people in the theater,” he says. “I don’t want opera to go away.”

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