Louise Pettitt, leader in area arts, dies

ATTLEBORO -- For more than 40 years, Louise Pettitt uplifted audiences and furnished inspiration to hundreds of amateur performers through the dozens of operas, operettas, pop concerts and productions of sacred music she directed.

Now Pettitt's voice, at times an operatic soprano and at others a beckoning to to culture, is at last stilled. Pettitt, who founded the Chaminade Opera Group in 1959, died unexpectedly at her Holden Street home Saturday leaving a gap in the city's arts community that friends say will not be easily filled.
`` She was dynamic, dramatic, a true powerhouse,'' said The Rev. Sandra Fitz-Henry, pastor of Murray Universalist Church where Pettitt performed as choir soloist for many years. `` She had a great musical genius.''

Although famously sensitive about her age, Pettitt was often described as ambitious yet sunny.

She directed the Chaminade Opera Group and Chaminade Oratorio Society and in the past had also directed the Norton Singers and worked with other groups. At the time of her death, Pettitt had been rehearsing a fundraising production for the opera group that had been scheduled next month at the Attleboro Art Museum.

Over the years, Pettitt's groups delivered productions large and small ranging from `` The Merry Widow'' and `` Carmen'' to `` The Magic Flute'' featuring highly-talented local casts. Her operatic productions seldom made compromises, and often included casts of 40 or more members, orchestras and painstaking costumes and sets.
 

Pettitt also sang and give private voice lessons throughout most of her life.

With her partner and strongest supporter, husband George A. Pettitt Jr. who died in January, Pettitt and her husband were regarded by many as Attleboro's first couple of music and culture.

Friends described Louise Pettitt as driven but possessed of an ability to lead through encouragement and positive reinforcement.

`` Always she had a can-do attitude,'' said long-time friend and Chaminade performer Lisa Hirsbrunner. `` She wouldn't say `you can't do this,' she would say `of course you can.' She was very encouraging to people.''

Hirsbrunner said she met Pettitt after learning about the opera group and being inspired. She took lessons for two years to Pettitt's constant encouragement and eventually joined the troupe.

`` I just got hooked,'' she said.

Nevertheless, Pettitt displayed a quiet determination which seemed to see her through even the most difficult obstacles facing a small theater group --including a fire in a storage area some years ago that destroyed sets and props belonging to the company.

If Pettitt had frustrations molding local amateurs into a respected local opera, she failed to show them. In publicity interviews, she frequently referred to her actors and singers as `` sparkling'' and `` talented.''

Although she loved the opera and classical music, Pettitt refused to display a superior attitude toward less formal art forms and strove to make her productions accessible to average audience members. In an interview, Pettitt once drew a parallel between opera and MTV, noting they shared similar characteristics.

Even in her later years, Pettitt continued to innovate scripting operas in English to make them more understandable and deviating from the group's normal schedule to stage a springtime production of `` The Gondoliers'' in 2003 to test the popularity of the art form at other times of year.