Baltimore Opera Company Bites The Dust? Florida Grand Opera, MET, Sweating As Well.

NYCO sweating bullets?

Heavily-subsidized Italian opera houses in panic facing the knife of government cuts?

Bad times in Baltimore as well. After losing longtime general director Michael Harrison, the Baltimore Opera Company seems to have reached a very bad spot financially, nearing bankruptcy: Opera Chic is told that the chorus for Norma is facing the news that the company "is funded through November and that's all they know at this point...".

Florida Grand Opera is also cutting down two of its operas, and then, even the MET is about to excise four from their 2009-10 season as well.

Comments

[Victor]

Very sad for Baltimore; it's a hard life out there for companies with good management. Badly managed companies stand no chance in this bleak financial environment.

[The Real Gay Divorcee]

A leaner, meaner Met? If only.

[Tanya]

Well, everyone has to streamline in these days of the economy crunch. The Metropolitan shouldn't be exempt from this harsh reality.

[Miguel]

You know, it's funny. I always thought that the Metropolitan Opera produced an INSANE amount of shows for each season. It's really almost gluttony considering the number of productions they offer to the public. It's almost too much. I'm glad that they're cutting down and reorganizing their focus. In the long run, it's all about sustainability.

[Dearly]

I've also heard these rumors about the Met cutting the fat from their next season.

But why does the art have to suffer? Can't they just layoff a few of the lazy layabouts in Administration? Why make the singers suffer for the Admin's selfishness? Surely there are some program assistants or lackeys that can get cut from the payroll.

[PM]

Well, even without the FGO's reason blamed on a budget crunch, their staff is basically incompetent, so I'm surprised to hear it took this long for their season load to suffer.

[hitman]

Everyone panic! If the Metropolitan has to cut shows, this must be the first sign of the opera apocalypse! No one is safe! :)

[Pippo]

I don't see how MET Opera will have any problems raising money in the future. New York City is full of excuses to have grand galas and fundraisers, and there are tons of old, dried out socialites who have nothing better to do with their money. Gelb needs to get into wooing mode and start making promises!

[Anon]

Dear OC, I've heard that the list includes Janacek's From The House of the Dead and Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth. Not a huge loss, I say.

[Nesbit009]

This is actually good news. Now maybe the tourists and Americans will spend their valuable dollars elsewhere and start giving more attention to the country's other worthy opera venues.

Who cares about the Metropolitan Opera? Long ago it became just another attraction like Mama Mia on Broadway and The Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall, with the same vacuous stage and cranked out performances to underprivileged school groups and sleepy senior citizen matinees.

[anna fan-na]

HA! I'm with Nesbit009. This news makes me yawn. What's the big frigging deal? So the Met cuts a few shows. This happens all the time. Why is everyone suddenly in code red? Relax, people.

We should be worried about the smaller opera companies like Washington National Opera, Baltimore, and Florida, who all recently announced some sort of fiscal crisis.

The Met can always pull itself out of financial trouble. The little guys, not so much. Once they're gone, we'll only have the big players like the Met, and the thought of that makes me shudder.

[Miss Johnson From London]

The Met will never die. It's the only place in town--and even in
the last Depression, there was plenty of money floating around
NYC--where a dame can step out for an evening wearing a gown,
jewels and fur and show them off for the price of a ticket. In other words, the "upwardly mobile" will always need a venue for the advertising campaigns whose end is to win them entry in Society,
which probably oughtn't to be spelled with a cap S now that we
are less than a decade away from the centennial of the outbreak
of the First World War, which whittled flesh and influence from the
entity once known without irony as Society...

[MrMyster]

Just to be Devil's Advocate for a moment - is it not true the Met has an edowment approaching $400-million? That's the latest number I have heard - and that will yield at a minium five percent of invested capital. One can run an opera company on that! :) I thus do not worry the Met will suffer too much; after all it has good box office, plus annual fund drives and Board input. Depends on how long - how many years, the economy is negative.

So - some cuts in the Met will be in order, but it will certainly not close. There will be new productions and should be (Tosca and Carmen at least). This will tame some of Gelb's lavishness, one can hope, yet further fuel his greatest strength: marketing. This could all turn out well enough and it will test Gelb. We'll find out in the next two to three years what he really has.

Far more worrisome is New York City Opera. There is a real chance it will go under, and it has a second string boardm and not great (putting it mildly), top leadership. Keep your fingers crossed on NYCO.

MrM/Santa Fe (Where opera money is plentiful -- up to now. Anything can change.)

[Designer]

It's not only the Big-Timers that are in distress. Those of us satellite discotequers that listen to XM over DirecTV have been reduced from 3 to 2 classical channels. With gazillions of pop genres (more than I have ever heard of) available now on XM, their one serious vocal channel, Vox, is now gone. It was the only outlet for us Opera freaks. True, we had to listen to the horrible pronunciation of their announcers, absolute orgasmic revelations about mediocre Flemish Medieval chant, as well as incomplete information on the screen, at least we could look forward to Wagner on Thursdays, Baroque on Sundays, and many airings of regional American, as well as Europpean productions. Another Loss!!! We have gone from NBC Opera on a National Level in the 1950's to total dumbed down media in the new millenia. Welcome to the future!!

[SarahB]

It's a scary, scary time...but dear OC, there's a little something posted over at to make you feel a little happier...enjoy!

http://sarahbsadventures.blogspot.com/2008/11/this-ones-for-opera-chic.html

[chris]

Keep the Met, and let the provincial mediocrities go. And of course the Met could well use a diet. More singing, less staging and pointless frumpery.

[Immanuel Gilen]

which Met performances got cut?

[Casual Opera Fan]

Baltimore Opera denies this and hopes they can put an end to the internet chatter.... of course that does not mean it is not true!

[Tautly Strung]

Of course it is true. Baltimore Opera is out of money and they have no prospect of getting any more in time to avert a bankruptcy. The sahme of it is that it is due entirely to poor upper management. For years we in the orchestra have asked for minimal concessions and have been told "we have no money" while the General Director cruises around in a company leased Mercedes, lives in splendour in Homeland, sends his son to private schools and enjoys other perks of the job too numerous to mention. There are other executive postiions there filled with over-paid, under-productive persons. At least we went out with a great opera. RIP Baltimore Opera Company.

[Former Opera Baritone]

I totally agree with Casual Opera Fan. I was a very well known opera baritone in many of the great opera houses of the world. I retired a few years ago after having been in the BIZ for 15 years and being only 38 years old. I have seen a lot and always wondered how people that really knew nothing about the art form ran the companies and the ones that did could care less about the musicians. It didn't matter what the fans said but what the general directors, costume designers, stage directors and agents wanted. The musicians were secondary. If you have ever seen most advertisements in regional opera notice that there is almost never any mention of who is actually performing in the show.

I really don't have any sympathy for the management of these idiotic companies but I do feel for the patrons, fans and the art form itself.

The amount of money some of these General Directors made was ridiculous. I agree that they cried poor but yet they had all the luxuries that their musicians did not.

Peace!