They're Back From the Dead

And they're ready for Tosca: The New York City Opera Renaissance.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Original art from Iron Maiden's No Prayer for the Dying.
Painting by Derek Riggs © 1990 Iron Maiden/CBS Records.

The above headline suits the giddy anticipation that some opera lovers in New York have regarding the resurrection of the New York City Opera, the long-running company that bit the dust in 2013. In stories reported yesterday in The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, it was announced this week that the New York City Opera Renaissance will move forward with its plans to bring the historic company out of bankruptcy and get back to the business of putting operas on the stage.

The Return of New York City Opera?

New York's "other" opera company may be back from the dead.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Back from the dead? The City Opera may be rising from the ashes.
Art by John Byrne from X-Men #135 © 1978 Marvel Comics.

In an astonishing early Christmas gift for the opera lovers of New York, the New York City Opera may be about to rise from the ashes of Chapter 11 bankruptcy. An agreement was reached today between the remaining City Opera and New York City Opera Renaissance, a new 501(c) organization dedicated to resurrecting the destitute opera company and returning it to the campus of Lincoln Center.

Obituary: Gerard Mortier (1943-2014)

A trail-blazing impresario who put directors first.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Gerard Mortier at the Teatro Real in Madrid.
Image © 2012 Teatro Real.

Gerard Mortier, the Belgian opera impresario and director who carved a unique and controversial path through four major European opera houses in the course of a long international career, died yesterday from pancreatic cancer, the New York Times reported. Mr. Mortier was 70 years old.

The Business of Revivals

Impresario Michael Capasso may save two failed opera companies.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

In his proposal for a New York City Opera Renaissance, impresario Michael Capasso
suggests mounting Franco Zeffirelli's production of Tosca (above)
in Lincoln Center's intimate Rose Theater.
Act I of Tosca. Photo © Teatro Opera di Roma.

In a dramatic turn of events worthy of the operatic stage, two recently darkened New York opera companies have unveiled a plan to join forces and come back to life. The proposal, linked to yesterday on parterre.com (and readable here) comes from Michael Capasso, the general director of the recently dimmed Dicapo Opera. The new hybrid opera company would be called (wait for it)

NEW YORK CITY OPERA RENAISSANCE.

The Throwing of the Holiday Eggs

Superconductor lists The Worst of 2013.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

This year's gala for The Human Fund has been cancelled due to flying eggs.
Photoshop by the author.

This is the first installment in the blog's year-end wrap-up designed to keep you all entertained and well-read as you're stuffing yourselves at your Yuletide parties. As we do every year at Festivus, it's time to air the grievances. Superconductor lists the crappiest things to happen in the year of 2013. From the unnecessary death of the New York City Opera to the orphan status of one of New York's most important orchestras, it's all here. There's probably more to add to this list, but that thought is just too depressing.

The Domino Theory

A Reflection on World AIDS Day.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

(Ed. Note: The inspiration for this article was Fred Cohn's excellent The Ballad of NYCO first published in Opera News in 2007.)

Today is World AIDS Day, and Superconductor woud like to take a moment to reflect on the death of Christopher Keene, and its ultimate effect: the 2013 demise of the New York City Opera.

For six years, Mr. Keene was at the helm of New York City Opera, steering that company into the 1990s with productions of classic operas and rarities like Zimmerman's Die Soldaten, Schoenberg's Moses und Aron and Hindemith's Mathis der Maler. Following in the footsteps of the last general manager Beverly Sills, Mr. Keene was tabbed as the man who would ensure a long future for Lincoln Center's 'other' opera company into the next century on beyond.

Keep Calm and Blog On

On Shutdowns, Closures, Crises and Coping: 
Some words from the Superconductor editorial desk.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Just do what the sign says. Photoshop by the author.

It's been a tumultuous week for the classical music business. The New York City Opera shut its doors after seventy years of operations. The opening night of Carnegie Hall (with the Philadelphia Orchestra and violinist Joshua Bell) was kyboshed by an 11th hour strike by the stagehands' Local One. Finally, the Minnesota Orchestra continuing its year-long self-asphyxiation by lockout. The latest blow: the resignation of Osmo Vänskä from the post of Music Director following the Orchestra's withdrawal from its planned November concerts at Carnegie Hall.

Obituary: New York City Opera (1943-2013)

Opera company to file for bankruptcy Oct 2.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Quote by Puccini. Graphic made on tombstonebuilder.com.

The New York City Opera, founded in 1943 by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia has announced that it will file for bankruptcy on Oct. 2. This is the end of a 70-year run for the financially troubled company, which began as the "People's Opera."

Opera Company Seeks Sugar Daddy

It may be curtains for New York City Opera.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

The City Opera may cease operations and declare bankruptcy next week.

Like Anna Nicole Smith, the subject of what may be the final opera produced by the New York City Opera this season, the once-proud oper company has found itself in dire need of a sugar daddy to save its existence.

Unfortunately, J. Howard Marshall (played by Robert Brubaker in Anna Nicole) the oil billionaire who married the Texas Playboy bunny and stripper is dead. That much is certain.

City Opera Faces Doomsday

Company announces emergency September fund-raising drive.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The New York City Opera faces an imminent fiscal crisis.
Image of Mike Myers as Dr. Evil from Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
© 1997 New Line Cinema.. Caption by the author.

The New York City Opera dropped a bombshell this morning when it announced that the company is facing the possibility of cancelling most of its 2013-14 season--and plans for 2014 as well.

In a press release received by Superconductor on Monday morning, general manager George Steel announced that the company must raise $20 million in order to continue operations following its September production of Mark Anthony Turnage's Anna Nicole at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Of that sum, $7 million is urgently needed.

UPDATE: City Opera Ends Lockout

Orchestra, Chorus to vote on new deal Thursday.
by Paul Pelkonen

UPDATE: The New York City Opera has ratified a deal with its orchestra and chorus, ending a bitter labor dispute that was stymied. A lockout of Musicians' Local 802 and the American Guild of Musical Artists has ended, with both companies making deep concessions in the interest of maintaining the future of the troubled opera company.

The lockout's end was reported by Jennifer Maloney in the Wall Street Journal. The company's ratification was reported on Thursday by Daniel J. Wakin in the New York Times.

According to a Wednesday afternoon report on local news channel New York 1, the contract is for three years. Dan Wakin in the New York Times reported that "core" health care benefits will be included. Orchestra wage details were not released.

Starting in 2013, orchestra members will make a contribution to their health care costs. The deal is subject to a vote by union members and approval by the New York City Opera board of directors.

In a statement, general manager and artistic director George Steel said that the deal will insure the opera's solvency. 

The last decade has seen City Opera in decline, from a vibrant house that produced 13 operas in a two-part "split season" to a pale shadow of its former self. A myriad of problems (chronicled in past posts on this site under the tag "Opera Company Goes Dark") led to this appalling situation.

The spiral started in 2007, with the board's decision to hire Belgian impresario Gerard Mortier as its new general manager. Mr. Mortier's tenure was largely an absentee one, and it ended in 2008 after a budget dispute. That same year, renovations to the former New York State Theater forced the company to go "dark" for an entire season. Since this happened when the chorus and orchestra were still under contract, City Opera was forced to raid its endowment to meet obligations. 

After re-opening the house in 2009, new general manager George Steel reduced the number of operas produced to five and sold the fall season time-slot to the New York City Ballet. In 2011, he removed music director George Manahan. He also cut back on important programs like VOX, the company's initiative to workshop experimental operas by young composers. 

Things came to a head when Mr. Steel moved the opera company out of Lincoln Center, abandoning its home of 45 years. This move took place around the same time that the company's contracts with Musicians Local 802 and the American Guild of Musical Artists expired. Last summer, the City Opera unveiled its plan to make "all of New York" its stage, offering four operas in three different theaters. 

But negotiations with both unions proved contentious. With only 16 performances scheduled, orchestra musicians were offered $4,000, a mere tenth of their former salaries. Matters came to a head when talks broke down, resulting in a lockout that threatened the company's truncated season. 

Rehearsals for season opener La traviata took place today with a piano at an undisclosed location. Orchestra rehearsals for the February 12 premiere are scheduled to begin February 1.

Time Running Out for City Opera

Doomsday clock ticks for New York's second opera company.
by Paul Pelkonen

If only this were a production design for L'heure Espagnole.

A series of decisions and disasters may spell "das Ende" for the New York City Opera.

The opera company has locked out two unions: Musicians' Local 802 and the American Guild of Musical Artists in a dispute over a new contract that has turned ugly.

City Opera was founded in 1943 by then New York City mayor Fiorello LaGuardia. Hizzoner wanted an opera company that was the working man's alternative to the Met, with its ritzy Opera Club and Diamond Horseshoe. The company originally performed at City Center.

In 1967, NYCO moved to the then-new New York State Theater on the south side of Lincoln Center Plaza. They continued to offer an eclectic mix of repertory favorites, with Verdi, Puccini and Bizet mixed in with lesser-known works like Boito's Mefistofele and Douglas Moore's The Ballad of Baby Doe.

The opera company also served as the launching point for a number of great careers, featuring tenor Plácido Domingo, soprano Beverly Sills, and basses Norman Triegle and Samuel Ramey. Many of these singers went on to sing at the Metropolitan Opera and to international careers, but some, like Ms. Sills, and later, Lauren Flanigan, made City Opera the center of their New York careers.

The City Opera was also where a young future opera journalist had his first encounter with the art form. I saw everything from Turandot (my first opera) to Leonard Bernstein's Candide, Prokofiev's The Love for Three Oranges, The Mikado and Sweeney Todd in that burgundy-and-bronze theater. It was a diverse mix of operas, operettas and the occasional musical, a dizzying flow of laughter, tears and music that helped form me into the writer I am today.

I ran through its corridors, rode in its elevators, and sat with Mom and Dad in our subscription seats, located in the Third Ring with a nice view of the whole house. A lonely kid--I read books (and libretti) at intermission. I well remember missing the entire second act of La bohème once because I was engrossed in the "Mines of Moria" section of The Fellowship of the Ring.  And I remember how thrilled we all were when City Opera introduced super-titles in 1983.

Those were good days. I saw stagings by Hal Prince and Maurice Sendak. We were thrilled by Sam Ramey in Attila. Even after my father died in 1985, Mom and I still went to City Opera. (She preferred orchestra seats.) Partially in his memory, but we had also become addicted. We still went there in 1990, which was when Mom bought her first subscription to the Met.

In 1996, I completed my education and started working in this industry as an Associate Editor at Citysearch.com, formerly MetroBeat. I was covering Opera, Sports, and Fitness. (Classical Music came later.) I well remember the first City Opera performance I wrote about in those days, Der Rosenkavalier with Gwendolyn Jones as Octavian. I was even more shocked when an up-and-coming heldentenor who wanted some publicity brought Ms. Jones with him to our office. I think the word "gobsmacked" applied.

Ten years ago, following the horrors of 9/11, it was City Opera that started the ball rolling again at Lincoln Center, with a curiously grim and zombie-like revival of The Mikado. The date was September 15th. I guess we were all feeling a little shell-shocked.

Now, City Opera has left that home at Lincoln Center, opting for a "run-and-gun" approach, marketing themselves as a "leaner" and "fitter" operation. Now that they've locked out its chorus (and starting on February 1) its orchestra, it may starve to death. There's one month until the scheduled premiere of La Traviata at Brooklyn Academy of Music. Let's see if they can find a way to stay alive.

City Opera Goes to the Mattresses

Negotiations break down (again). Labor lockout begins.

Union delegates Peter Clemenza (Richard Castellano, l.) and Paulie Gatto (Johnny Martino, r.)
 attempt to find new, innovative solutions to the current crisis at New York City Opera.
Image from The Godfather © 1972 Paramount Pictures.

11th-hour negotiations between representatives of the New York City Opera, Musicians Local 802 and the American Guild of Musical Artists broke down on Saturday night. According to a report on Parterre Box, the negotiations failed after the New York City Opera rejected an offered wage concession at 9pm on Saturday Night.

In a press release Saturday night, Local 802 stated that the opera company is planning to lock out its musicians starting on Monday. That date marks the start of scheduled rehearsals for the company's season-opening production of La Traviata, slotted for a February 12 premiere at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Howard Gilman Opera House.

According to a New York Times report published Sunday by Daniel J. Wakin, the City Opera will lock choristers out of planned piano rehearsals, starting Monday. Orchestral rehearsals are supposed to start on Feb. 1.

The lockout leaves 114 choristers, musicans, and conductors without a salary or health care. City Opera press spokeswoman Risa B. Heller says that the company has no plans to hire replacements in the event of a strike. Ms. Heller also maintained that the company still plans its 16-performance season as scheduled.

At the end of the Spring 2011 season, the City Opera claimed to be operating on the brink of insolvency. General Manager George Steel undertook a tumultuous series of changes. The company left its home at Lincoln Center, announced a drastically reduced budget. The City Opera also released longtime music director George Manahan from his contract.

For 2012, the company has planned four operas, in three different theaters located in Brooklyn and Manhattan. Planned offerings include Traviata, the New York premiere of Prima Donna by Rufus Wainwright, and new productions of Mozart's Così fan tutte and Georg Philipp Telemann's version of Orpheus. But all this may be moot without the chorus and orchestra, two key components of any opera company.

But the big story this year has been the company's reluctance to negotiate a fair working wage with its musicians and choristers. The City Opera has offered to reduce orchestra members from a $40,000/year salary to a reported wage of just $4,000 with very minimal insurance. Musicians and choristers even offered to work for free for a year in order to keep their health insurance. This offer was rejected last year by the City Opera.

This story comes on the heels of an on-line plea from composer Rufus Wainwright to save the City Opera season (and Prima Donna, which bows at BAM on Feb. 19. Mr. Wainwright said: "If talks break down and there's a strike, the company will likely be decimated, thus leaving the city of New York with only one large opera house where as all the great cultural cities of the world have at least two."

After this offer was rejected, the City Opera requested the intervention of a federal labor mediator late in 2011. Negotiations have been held under a condition of press blackout. That blackout may be lifting with tonight's published interview with chorus member Neil Eddinger, which appears in its an entirety on Parterre Box.

Mr. Eddinger has thirty years experience in the City Opera chorus, and is a member of the AGMA negotiating committee. He said: "If you can't afford to pay your employees a living wage, you can't afford an opera company. I'm tired of rich people trying to get something for nothing."

He added: "The board would like to traipse around...masquerading as patrons of the arts but they won't pay their artists. NYCO should put up or shut up. And by that I mean, pay or shut down."

Mr. Eddinger's statement seems to respond to Mr. Wainwright. "If George Steel had started his own company to book interesting musical events (e.g.. Rufus) and try to add another facet to our musical-artistic life, I would say 'Go for it!' But to hijack an existing repertory company with a noble history and so pervert it from its original intention is criminal."

Opera Boston Shuts Down

Season cancelled, doors closed. Merry Christmas.

Opera Boston: 2003-2011.

Opera Boston, the innovative company whose 2011 productions included a stellar version of Paul Hindemith's Cardillac and Hector Berlioz' Beatrice et Benedict, has announced that it will cease operations on January 1, 2012.

According to a report in Boston Business Journal, the city's second-largest opera company faced "insurmountable" fundraising difficulties in 2011, despite good ticket sales and innovative choices in repertory.

Opera Boston staged its performances at the 1903 Cutler Majestic Theater, located in the heart of that city's theater district. The company launched in 1993 with summer performances as "Opera Unlimited" featuring repertory like Thomas Ades' chamber opera Powder Her Face. Later that year, the company began its run at the Majestic with Leonard Bernstein's Candide and John Adams' Nixon in China. 

The announcement came 24 hours after employees were informed that the company was going out of business.  "The company has had many artistic triumphs in its recent history," said company chair Winifred Gray. "However, as the end of the year approaches, we find ourselves in a financially untenable situation, and the responsible thing is to work with our creditors and cease operations."

"The board realizes that this development will come as a shock to the Boston arts community, and it is not a decision we made lightly," Gray said in the statement.

A planned Spring 2012 season would have included an eagerly anticipated performance of Sir Michael Tippett's opera The Midsummer Marriage, and Bellini's Shakespeare adaptation I Capuletti e i Montecchi.


The last time a Boston opera company closed was in 1990 when Sarah Caldwell's Boston Opera Company shuttered its doors. The announcement leaves the Boston Lyric Opera as the city's main professional opera company.

City Opera Occupies Financial District

Opera company moves into new office over a cigar store.
(No, really.)

The ITT Building at 75 Broad Street,
new home of New York City Opera.

Like a rebellious teenager threatening to move out of the house, the  troubled New York City Opera has finally made good on its threat and left Lincoln Center altogether.

The opera company, which announced earlier this year that it would not be performing in its longtime home at the former New York State Theater, had maintained offices in the building for the last eight months. Their new digs are at 75 Broad Street, located in the heart of the financial district. An advertised rent for office space in the building listed it at $33 per square foot. 

Built in 1928 as the ITT building, this 33-story office block sits on the corner of Broad and South William Street, two blocks from the New York Stock Exchange. It is nowhere near any theaters, opera houses, concert halls, or anywhere else that could be used for the performance of opera. Perhaps the company will perform in the nine-seat cigar lounge of tobacconists Barclay Rex, who have a store in the building.

In other news, City Opera's labor impasse with two unions (Musicians' Local 802 and the American Guild of Musical Artists) continues. Negotiations ended last week when the opera company declared an impasse. NYCO general manager George Steel has asked for a federal mediator to step in and jump-start a new session of negotiations. With the new offices only two blocks from the heavily guarded New York Stock Exchange, Mr. Steel may have chosen 75 Broad with the idea of using the New York Police Department as strike-breakers. Or maybe he just likes to walk to work.

Before that happens, the mediator's task will be to persuade the musicians that a contract stripped of health benefits and offering only ten percent of their former salaries is some kind of upgrade over making money to perform opera. In November, the company rejected offers from both the chorus and  orchestra to play for free in exchange for keeping their health benefits.

City Opera has until February to get their musicians in line (or hire scabs.) The company's truncated season is scheduled to open at the Brooklyn Academy of Music with productions of Verdi's La Traviata and Prima Donna, the new French-language opera by singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright.

The most disturbing rumor about City Opera comes from the blog VoiceTalk, written by singer Daniel James Shigo. Mr. Shigo published a story on Dec. 5 alleging that the opera company is planning to discard its archives. These include rare programs and photographs of the many stars who graced its stage in a history lasting more than half a century. Sad, but typical of the recent history under Mr. Steel's management.

Further Down the Death Spiral

City Opera orchestra, chorus plans strike.

The intrepid City Opera scouts Japanese locations
for a planned 2012 staging of Madama Butterfly. 
Naruto Whirlpools by Utagawa Hiroshige.

Even as socialites and royalty celebrated a "new era" for New York City Opera at a gala fund-raising bash this week,  plans for the 2011-2012 season have been jeopardized. 

Talks have broken down between City Opera's management (led by current General Manager George Steel) and representatives for Musicians' Local 802 and the American Guild of Musical Artists. These two unions represent the orchestra and chorus, the backbone of any opera company. 

Mr. Steel plans to rip out that backbone, and essentially pay artists like freelancers, with minimal salary and almost no health benefits. The cash-strapped opera company abandoned its Lincoln Center home last year, and is planning a "roving" season of just five operas, to be staged in various venues in Brooklyn and Manhattan. The abbreviated season and new, smaller venues, also carry higher ticket prices than the former New York State Theater.

According to a New York Times report by Daniel J. Wakin, the company's current offer to the musicians reduces orchestra salaries from a livable $40,000 a year to a "reduced" rate of $4,000. The offer came after City Opera deliberately let the old contracts expire at the end of April, 2011.

In an e-mail obtained by and published by parterre.com, Mr. Steel reported that negotiations were "at an impasse." You can read the whole e-mail here.

Also stripped in the new contract offer: health benefits. Earlier this fall, Local 806 representatives offered to play "for free" if they were allowed to keep their old health benefits. That offer was rejected by Mr. Steel last month.

Other recent sacrifices made by City Opera include the axing of music director George Manahan and the slashing of the Vox program, a workshop which allowed young composers working on new operas to get an airing.

The planned strike will probably not affect the company until January, when rehearsals start for the City Opera's planned performances in February. Those performances, planned for the Brooklyn Academy of Music include an imported Glimmerglass Opera staging of La Traviata and the New York premiere of Rufus Wainwright's new opera Prima Donna. For a full preview of the City Opera's truncated season, click this link.

In other news, the City Opera board recently voted to extend Mr. Steel's contract for three years. According to the Times, Mr. Steel's recent tax returns list his salary at $407,000/year. He did not get a raise.

Will Work For Health Care

City Opera Unions Make a Modest Proposal.
by Paul Pelkonen

Frame-grab from the video for Van Halen's 1993 song "Right Now."
Image © 1993 Warner Bros. Records, Van Halen Publishing, Cabo Wabo Music.

A new twist has emerged in the ongoing struggle between the New York City Opera and the unions for its orchestra and chorus. The two unions: Associated Musicians of Greater New York Local 802 and the American Guild of Musical Artists have offered to work this season--for free.

The union offer was announced in a statement, obtained by the Wall Street Journal. The source for this story is a blog post on WSJ.com by Jennifer Maloney. 

The union's offer is contingent on the musicians and choristers keeping their current health benefits in the 2011-2012 season. The union would then want a voice in selecting repertory and venues for coming seasons, a job that is currently the exclusive providence of company general manager George Steel.

In a statement, AGMA Executive Director Alan Gordon said: "Performing for free is an anathema. But it's a last-ditch alternative to a management plan that would drive City Opera out of existence." According to the Journal article, the City Opera's current offer to the musicians is $4,000, 1/10th of their $40,000 salaries, with severely limited health benefits. In other words, the orchestra and chorus would be freelancers.

Under Mr. Steel. the City Opera ditched its old digs at Lincoln Center last April in an effort to slash operating costs from $31 million to $13 million. In the process, they slashed their staff, including longtime music director George Manahan. The company will play a radically shortened season in 2012, moving between four different venues around New York in an effort to lower costs and drum up interest in its programming.

The City Opera is scheduled to resume operations on Nov. 17 with a concert at Lincoln Center's Rose Theater, featuring singer-songwriter turned composer Rufus Wainwright. The company will then throw a gala fund-raiser on Nov. 28 at the Waldorf-Astoria. There is no word as to whether employees at the historic hotel will be asked to work for free.

Tomato Pasting

Current Thoughts on New York City Opera

So I'm at Lincoln Center tonight. We were attending the mostly Beethoven concert at Mostly Mozart--review to follow. Anyway it's about 6:15 in the evening and we're sitting under the trees at the newly built "zen" plaza next to the Metropolitan Opera. I'm looking across the plaza at the former New York State Theater and I notice something interesting.

The sign on the building currently reads:

David H. K___ Theater

New York City Ballet. New York City Opera.

After the tumultuous off-season City Opera has been through, engaging in a George Steel-imposed exodus from its Lincoln Center home, I can't help but find it odd that their name is still adorning the building that they have purportedly abandoned.

Even odder was an article in today's New York Times, a candid interview with NYCO general manager George Steel, the mastermind behind the move. Mr. Steel, who is currently locked in a labor negotiation with AGMA and Local 802, the unions representing choristers and orchestra members respectively, has recast the once-proud opera company as a hit-and-run opera company, doing four or five operas in the spring.

The article revealed that Mr. Steel's offices are still in the basement of the once (and future) State Theater despite his repeated statements that the company is packing up what's left of its caravan and going on a campaign to bring opera to five two boroughs.

But for sheer strangeness, nothing will top part of the last two paragraphs, reproduced below:
“In my role as a producer, I spend a lot of time in the future,” Mr. Steel said, “and it makes me happy to live there. But an important part of my job is returning to the present and leading people forward, and in one sense people are living in the past."

"I manage for the future. If I have to take tomatoes from here to there, I can live with that."

Tomatoes, Mr. Steel? Really?

Another George, a Mr. George Costanza, once said that the tomato "never really caught on as a hand fruit."

At the rate things appear to be going, the "New New York City Opera" may not catch on either.

Manahan Overboard!

City Opera Drops Music Director.

Former City Opera music director George Manahan.
Photo by Nan Melville courtesy Columbia Artists Management (CAMI)

The New York City Opera has announced that music director George Manahan will not be returning for its 2012 season. No replacement has been named.

The move marks the latest of many radical changes for this troubled opera company. In April of this year, City Opera left its longtime home at Lincoln Center, after claiming that its diminished endowment would not be enough to pay the rent on the building. The decision has led to uproar in the opera world, including a letter of protest signed by director Hal Prince and tenor Placído Domingo.

Now they'll attempt to survive without a music director, one of the key positions in any opera company. In addition to leading performances, an MD plays a key role in finding singers, administration, and overseeing all aspects of opera performance. This is the same role enjoyed by James Levine at the Metropolitan Opera.

In an interview with the New York Times, City Opera general manager George Steel said: "Given the size the company is now, it doesn't make sense for us to have a music director."


A graduate from Manhattan School of Music, George Manahan served as the music director of City Opera since 1996. During that time, the conductor led a wide range of operas, from the baroque music of Handel to modern compositions. He was a key fixture of the company for the last decade, and a steady hand on the tiller for this tempest-tossed opera company.

Mr. Manahan was conspicuously absent from the recent City Opera press conference at the Guggenheim, and is not scheduled to conduct any of the four operas that constitute NYCO's short season, beginning in the spring of 2012. The operas, scheduled for performance at BAM, John Jay College and El Museo del Barrio, include the New York premiere of Rufus Wainwright's first opera, Prima Donna, a Jonathan Miller staging of La Traviata, Mozart's Cosi fan tutte and Telemann's Orpheus.

New York City Opera's decision to leave Lincoln Center has been met with vehement protests from members of Local 802 (the musicians) and the American Guild of Musical Artists. Both organizations have been offered a vastly altered contract for next season, as the company moves from relying on a full-time orchestra and chorus to a series of sporadic, pick-up performances with no guarantees for singers or musicians. 

Read His Lips: No New Operas

City Opera mutes VOX.
Amid all the hullabaloo of this month's season announcement by the New York City Opera is the fact that the company appears to be cancelling VOX, the 12-year old ongoing laboratory for new and contemporary operas.

"I once caught an opera company THIS big!". City Opera GM George Steel.
No, he didn't really say that. Photo by William Wegman © 2011 the artist.

VOX was established in 1999 under former general manager Paul Kellogg, to serve as a space for neophyte opera composers to experiment with new staged works. The program proved popular, and  expanded under the leadership of current artistic director George Steel, adding the Words First program aimed at encouraging budding librettists in 2009.

With 10 new operas being accepted each year, the VOX program was among the highest priorities for  Mr. Steel, who has made his enthusiasm for contemporary opera quite clear to his audience, who made themselves absent from this year's NYCO premieres: Séance on a Wet Afternoon by composer Stephen Schwartz and La machine d'etre by John Zorn.


But when VOX came up at this year's press conference, Mr. Steel hedged his bets. "We're trying to find a way to continue it," he said. However, given his company's current self-imposed exile from Lincoln Center and its contract struggles with Local 802, the union representing the City Opera Orchestra, and AGMA, which represents the chorus, VOX has probably been reduced to another bargaining chip in talks that have yet to start.

With performances at NYU's Skirball Center and a recent expansion to Le Poisson Rouge, VOX was, for its first decade a free event for interested opera-goers. But this year, the City Opera decided to start charging $25 for tickets at NYU and $15 for Le Poisson Rouge. Given the minimal resources required to produce VOX operas, and the company's new-found enthusiasm for venues outside Lincoln Center, the continuation of VOX would seem like a no-brainer.

In its forthcoming season, City Opera will present Prima Donna as its one "new" opera. The work, written by popular songwriter Rufus Wainwright has already played in Manchester, England and in Ontario. But the genesis of Prima Donna (which was originally earmarked for the Metropolitan Opera stage) had nothing to do with VOX.

What's really weird about this story is that the City Opera still has a donation form on its site for VOX. However, composers seeking to submit their creations to the program this year have been informed that VOX is currently not accepting submissions for 2012.