What Vienna pays opera bosses
OperaFigures released today show that Bogdan Roscic (pic), head of the Vienna State Opera, earned 256,200 Euros last year.
Lotte de Beer at the less famous Volksoper was paid 224,200 Euros.
Artform chiefs of the Salzburg Festival took home 246,100 Euros. Elisabeth Sobotka earned 250,500 at the Bregenz Festival.
That is some €20.000,– p/month as an average.
Even assuming there are more private expenses than for normal hardworking people, this simply looks like parasitism – money entirely out of proportion with whatever management task in hand. Paying for responsibility carrying for the art form? What do they produce, as real contribution to the art form? Considering the economic pressures classical music is under, almost everywhere, the conclusion is clear and it’s not nice: the music is a means of providing large income for people who are merely doing the office work which has nothing to do with music proper.
Look at American salaries to see the REAL problem.
If you think these wages are high, you should move to the US. I bet Peter Gelb is getting paid at least 5, and more likely 10 times more.
Lawrence Bacow made $1.3 million as president of Harvard last year. Anne Kilbanski, president, CEO, and director of Massachusetts General Brigham Hospital in Boston made $4,286,186.00. Bernard Arnault, of the Louis Vuitton and Sephora fashion empire, is worth $211 Billion. I think 256,200 Euros as head of the Vienna State Opera is relatively modest.
John. John. — Nick Saban received $11.4 million last year as football coach for Alabama State University.
But that does not count, that is football.
When talking about the arts, that is a common good, football is merely sports: a hobby.
Hello, John Borstlap. Football in the US is a religion not a hobby. Wealthy university alumni arrive in private airplanes. Hotels are booked months in advance. Restaurants are full all weekend. University and professional football stimulate the economy. The Met can seat 3,500, but football stadiums accommodate up to 100,000.
I know, but the US is plain wrong in that.
“Common good?” It is a job. Full stop.
No, that way of thinking is one of the causes of the decline of the art form. Of all culture, in fact. It is shopkeepers thinking.
So you think your work is more worthy than that of a shopkeeper? Your type of thinking only results in bitter old people. It has nothing to do with art and all to do with entitlement.
This comment misses the point entirely. A business wants to make profit, an art form wants to provide a common good in terms of a civilisational product. Who does not understand this, does not understand her/his own civilisation. It is very simple, really.
You think very highly of yourself. Good for you. Having spent a career as a performer and administrator for some of the premiere ensembles on the planet, I have learned humility and respect for others. I well understand you. Perhaps too well.
Yes, it’s very difficult isn’t it? Keep trying!
John. John. John.
Yes, don’t you think?
Sally
In 2022, the University of Alabama football program made a profit of over $52 million, principally because Nick Saban works a hundred hours a week to provide a consistently superior product, one tested in head-to-head competition.
Nick Saban does not work by the hour. 😉
As of 2021, Alabama ranked 46th in median income among the 50 states. Its COVID Child Protection Rank was also 46 out of 50. Its Child Poverty Rate was 23.9%. UA President Judy Bonner’s salary is $535,000. If only she worked 20x harder…
But, yeah, go Crimson Tide.
The per capita GDP of Alabama is about the same as that of the EU.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/18/realestate/college-football-housing-market.html?unlocked_article_code=1.HE0.SBuI.96_G5EyXllxp&smid=url-share
Robbert. Lewis Hamilton receives £40 million. A year. That is formula 1 .
Motor racing.
American Football is a stop-start war with the players wearing all manner of protective gear. Yet it still produces of fair share of serious brain injuries. It should never be compared to the arts!
Gosh, a normal brain commenting here…..
PS
Talking about brains: how could something be seriously injured which is not there?
What would you consider an acceptable yearly salary for running a full-time world-class arts organization?
Executive compensation should be proportionate to the budget and scaled with the other salaries in the organization. Some boards, like the Met, ignore pay equity. Gelb should be a cautionary tale, not the norm.
In theoretical terms, I think that a personal salary of some € 50.000,– p/year should be more than enough, with additional covering of extras due to the job requirements like travel. In that way a budget can be directed as much as possible to upkeep, players’ salaries (!!), office, hall etc. I know this looks ridiculous given what happens in reality, but yet this should be a normal point of departure. For an art organisation, it looks morally plain wrong if staff look like using the organisation for big salaries.
When I see that an orchestra has almost as many staff as players in the orchestra proper, the impression is that there is something seriously wrong in that place. The Wiener Philharmoniker is run by a handful of staff who are players in the same time. They have enough money for everything, and get their concerts right. That may also be extreme but offers food for thought.
Look at the New York Philharmonic Staff listed in the program whose job funcion is really “Care of the Orchestra”. It’s about a 2 to 1 ratio with the care givers outnumbering the musicians,
Voilà.
…. and what about the Social Justice Officers who keep a strict eye on racism, white supremacy, dress codes, sexual mores, appropriate woke manners etc. etc.?
How broke are you to the 250k for running an entire opera house is absurd?
For the United States, these salaries are laughable. I would guess that Peter Gelb earns at least five times what his counterpart in Vienna makes.
That only means that such parasitism is even much worse in the USA. Must have something to do with the deplorable state of the arts in that country.
Actually, we do quite well, without inordinate state subsidies, thank you very much.
I don’t think so, considering the social justice warrying taking place in concert life.
Gelb has been payed $1.46 million as the most inept opera head in the world. As the MET is a NFP entity, I always found the MET GM salary bloated and paying Gelb anything close to it a farce.
Just because an institution is a non-profit does not mean that running it is easy, and any old clown will do. I take no position on Gelb or the Austrians; I am only pointing out the error in jumping to the conclusion that non-profit status means everything can be done inexpensively. It ain’t necessarily so…
Ideally, an art institution should never be run with something like the concept of ‘profit’ in the process.
To be fair, one has to say that these are the gross numbers. As the taxes are very high in Austria, you can easily divide it by two, if not more.
A pity that, with so much money, he apparently can’t seem to be able to afford better-cut suits.
I was going to say the exact thing. You beat me to it…does the man not own a mirror?
Roscic could try improving his posture, but that is not going to stop the way in which he is ruining the Vienna State Opera, where I used to be a regular for more than 40 years. The downfall, however, did not begin with Roscic, but rather during the 19 years that Holender was at the helm. The decline was gradual, but it sure as hell was there! Meyer did nothing to stop the trend, and Roscic is depending upon on the likes of Ariosi & Co. to complete the disgraceful decline. The very idea that someone like Roscic is occupying the position that was held in the past by conductors such as Gustav Mahler, Karl Böhm, Herbert von Karajan and Lorin Maazel is nauseating! Mahler had to change his religion – at least officially – in oder to stay and the other three were simply run out of town. The hate campaign against Maazel, which I witnessed personally, was a perfect lesson in how one organizes HATRED.
I am not trying to take side and agree the amount is enormous, but please bare in mind the taxes in Austria. they would get half of it in hand after taxes.
Then half returns to the state which paid for it in the first place.
Oh God, not Boreslap talking again about things of which he is clearly ignorant. As vacuous as one of his ‘compositions’.
Yes don’t you think?
I never hear anything at all in that stuff. It’s just like all that other stuff I don’t hear anything in. If it were not for the salary I wouldn’t be working here.
Sally
What surprises me most is that Sobotka earns almost as much as Roscic, but with just 2 operas and a few concerts to plan. That seems a bit off-balance to me.
Having worked in the industry for coming up 20 years now, I think this salary is fair. These jobs take over your life – they’re 24/7, all your days and evenings accounted for. I’m glad to learn they get paid decently. They’re hardly millionaires given the hours they put into this work. I hate how “because it’s the arts” we should be paid poorly. I see my friends in other sectors working fewer hours and getting masses more money! I’m telling you working in the arts is a privilege but it’s also a lifestyle choice where it takes over your life and you don’t switch off. So I say good for these intendants earning decently! Someone here commented 50k would be enough – no it wouldn’t, not for the hours and life takeover these jobs are. People wouldn’t bother applying if that was the case!
There are enough jobs in music life which don’t pay very well but which attract long queues of applicants because it is a meaningful one, a fulfilling one, an interesting and lively one. Thinking that money is for everybody the only motivation for whatever, is shopkeepers thinking. And calling the classical music world an ‘industry’ says it all.