All that glitters: Peter Gelb’s plans when he entered the Met
UncategorizedThis was his vision in a 2006 interview with Martin Bernheimer:
1. Dramatically increasing the number of new productions to seven per season from the current average of four.
2. Placing a greater emphasis on securing more performances per season from the world’s greatest singers.
3. Making a strong commitment to producing contemporary work on an annual basis, including our new commissioning program with Lincoln Center Theater.
4. Creating new media initiatives with the digital distribution of our live performances to our global audience via movie theaters, new broadband subscription programming services, downloads, DVDs, CDs, and free television and radio.
5. Producing an annual family entertainment opera during the winter holidays beginning with next season’s English-language abridged version of The Magic Flute.
The promise of a Slipped Isc Podcast – how’s that going for you, Norman?
Mr. Gelb’s real plan was “MAM” Make the Met Mediocre and at that he has succeeded. Sad. A man with no experience running a large organization, save an opera company could not be relied on to be successful. At that he has miserably failed. What does he have on members of the board? There is no other reason to have kept the ineptitude going.
The Board is as clueless as he is. Add YNS to the mix and the MET is doomed!
they all need to change but not into wokeism
As someone who was there, it made sense at the time. Yes, hard to believe now.
The previous time, the “headhunters” came up with one “Hugh Southern” and Leon Botstein. We know how that worked out. (A one-year interregnum between Crawford and Volpe.)
Apparently the stars are going elsewhere. Presumably somewhere they get paid. Gelb doesn’t want to fork over the gelt.
The Met has always paid in prestige dollars. Chicago and Dallas paid to get stars from Europe. As the quality decreases, and production costs rise, the quality of singing does not seem to be Gelbs priority . I’m not sure he knows singing well enough. FIRST casts look like second stingers. It’s not just the Met, but they are the standard and the face of opera in the U.S. Singing should be the most important thing. Without that , they dont need to worry about new operas and new productions.
And having a brilliant orchestra and chorus — ok, I’m way out-of-touch now — can’t help without real leadership. Foggetaboutit.
He often pays fees 100% higher than 20 years ago. They look astronomical on paper. And carte blanche “all bets are off” to the “name” conductors.
Do you have actual proof of this?
To be fair, that’s just inflation over 20 years though isn’t it?
I don’t know about US inflation but UK is £100 in 2004 is about £194 in 2024.
So no real change in the fees singers are commanding.
Looks like he’s delivered on at least several of them, in spite of the market having changed a bit – who’s buying CDs and DVDs these days?
But he didn’t plan on Co vid
He was failing before co vid. His previous failures just made a bad situation worse with the pandemic. But he did hire his DEI Director during the pandemic and helped to sieve off more cash.
All laudable plans, except Peter did not include making the company sustainable. He is General Manager, after all.
He took a fiscal model that was not that broken – despite the fact that the board used the transparent ruse of eroding ticket sales for the retirement of Joe Volpe – and presided over a new era of red ink. Always with an excuse. Always someone to blame (especially the audience…).
Attendance during Volpe’s final two years had slipped a very few percentage points of PAID ticket sales; now it has slipped more than 25 percentage points of total ATTENDANCE – some paid, many steeply discounted, and untold numbers of comps, if in fact they can give them away.
Despite the fiscal mess in which the Met now finds itself, after several times raiding the endowment and increasing the annual budget with a massive $100 million bond issue fifteen years ago, Gelb proceeds with his “plan” of kicking the can down the road. After 2027, it will be some other poor schmuck’s problem.
So, I guess Peter has achieved his goal of self-aggrandizement, at the expense of the most important opera house in the U.S.
I would have thought that the demise of City Opera would have scared the sh*t out of the Met board but, alas, they decided to hitch their wagon to a visionary without a track record.
Why has Gelb lasted so long? Nothing qualified him in the first place, and his job performance has not been inspiring.
He’s the Claudine Gay of the MET, unqualified to do anything but put the MET in movie theaters. A one trick pony, he should have been given a contract to do that and shown the door. When you look at it, it was the only thing he’s done right.
I think you’re largely right. He can check many of the boxes of his original “Strategic Plan” outlined above, but he has managed that while running the numbers in the general direction of “into the ground.” Covid was a major challenge, in those circumstances, a well-run organization adjusts……..particularly when it comes to the finances.
I wouldn’t want his job. It’s impossible to please everyone.
Question – is he pleasing ANYONE?
He should have vern gone at least a decade ago. He is abominable!
Hand the reins over to Michael Heaston ASAP!
Can’t he just put the blame on the pandemic and Trump?
For god’s sake, just sell off the Met Opera building to a real estate developer and cut it up into residential condominiums! It’s gotta happen sooner or later anyway.