San Francisco Symphony to merge with Opera?
OrchestrasA probing San Francisco Standard report by Adam Lashinsky, published today, into the turmoil at San Francisco Symphony raises many questions about the depth of its financial and managerial woes in the wake of Esa-Pekka Salonen’s resignation. It detects disquiet on many fronts.
… (CEO Matthew) Spivey also said that neither he nor the board have begun searching for Salonen’s replacement, a process that at other symphonies has taken years.
Strange rumors are also swirling. Chatter is emanating from musician groups that (SFSO president) Geeslin—whose husband, financier Keith Geeslin, is a former president of the San Francisco Opera—is plotting to merge the two august organizations. It’s a suggestion that, on the one hand, is far-fetched— Spivey claims ignorance about these claims….
Read on here.
pictured: Spivey, Geeslin
If I had to put my money on either SF Opera or Symphony, I would choose the Opera for its storied history and prestige. The SF Symphony is not in the same league or even a top orchestra in anyone’s book, and the Davies Hall is acoustically inferior.
The SF Opera Orchestra is a fine ensemble they can hold their own in a concert hall.
Do not merge the Opera with an inferior product.
What a load of nonsense.The SF Symphony is fantastic, a worldclass symphony orchestra—The SF Opera orchestra is an okay ensemble, many substitutes, with zero orchestral repertoire. Absolutely not a serious symphony orchestra.
Yeah and the SF Symphony has zero opera repertoire and the winds and strings cannot ‘sing’ like even a provincial Italian opera pit band.
How many symphony orchestras does zandonai suggest have much if any opera in their repertoire? Let’s not say, as a later poster has done, the Vienna Philharmonic. It has around 140 musicians precisely because its ranks provide most of the musicians also for the Vienna State Opera. Both the symphony and the opera run full tie seasons. Would that be likely to happen in a merged SFO? I cannot see it. The SFO Opera has nothing like a full season.
You do know that the Opera Orchestra’s base salary is in the 6 figures…right? In what way is it “not a serious symphony orchestra?”
SFS and SFOO are both absolutely world-class ensembles.
It’s a serious opera orchestra. But it’s by definition not a symphony orchestra. to my knowledge SFO doesn’t even put on the occasional orchestra concert as the Met does.
Yes they do on special occasions play orchestral concerts on the War Memorial Opera House stage. I have attended several. They were magnificent especially the mellifluous winds.
The SFO not a top orchestra? Maybe back when Monteux was there that was the case, but in recent decades they can compete with any orchestra. Under maestros de Waart, Blomstedt and MTT the SFO became a world-class ensemble. Hearing them live (in a decidedly second-rate hall) just confirms what the numerous recordings suggest. San Francisco used to be a very cultured, civilized and beautiful place with fine cultural assets – don’t forget the ballet! Then the liberal craziness took over.
More the Trumptard moron cult…
Tell me you know nothing about orchestras without telling me you don’t know anything about orchestras. Troll
Yes they should merge also with conservatory who is running opus3 and askonas. That would be cool ; orchestra opera conservatory and two agencies.
Many years ago they were effectively merged because they shared an orchestra . In those years I only visited SF occasionally but I used to admire the high level of performance, particularly in the pre-Levine years, when the Met’s orchestra was a scrappy, undernourished group. Once the opera got its own orchestra and the symphony extended its season, the opera wasn’t the same . The opera may not be in the greatest shape, with truncated and rather dull seasons since Covid
Any merger would be followed by a merger of the two orchestras…
and about the superiority of the SF opera orchestra over the SF symphony I do honestly have my doubts…
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Years ago, the Symphony also played the Opera in SF.
The question on the table would be how to merge the two entities without wiping out many duplicate but tenured jobs.
Also the repertoire is so different, many musicians may not want to play opera.
This crisis seems quite overblown in my opinion. Find an American conductor with an ability to relate to the community like MTT did.
The Vienna Philharmonic does it, however, it would be a catastrophe for music in San Francisco. Whomever mentioned the Conservatory has no idea what they are talking about. That’s never been well funded to the level of other conservatories in the country.
These days SFCM is rolling in Getty money and has gone on a building and acquisition spree. The overall student quality is still mid.
It’s almost unimaginable that the two entities could merge even with drastic cuts in their respective programs & schedules. What COULD happen (though it wouldn’t help the SFSO any) would be to merge the opera and ballet orchestras. Up until the late 1970’s one orchestra handled both; gradual expansion of both seasons made that untenable and a brand-new orchestra was formed. In these sad times of retrenchment, things may have to return to what they once were.
As for the SFSO, they do appear to be nearing a precipice. Absent a savior from Silicon Valley (which has never carried its weight as far as arts support), something drastic might have to happen.
An unserious idea unworthy of even a post. Musicians of both organizations would go to the mat striking to prevent this, too many jobs would be lost.
““Touring is essential if you’re going to be a great orchestra,” says Peter Pastreich, a former executive director who acted as a mediator between management and the musicians in their previous contract negotiations. “There is no great American orchestra that doesn’t tour.”
I completely disagree with this. Tours are vain money losers, and reeks of insecurity, that an orchestra needs outside validation to think of themselves as “great”. Maybe there isn’t a great American orchestra that doesn’t tour, but let’s not get correlation and causation confused. Just because there *isn’t* doesn’t mean there *couldn’t*.
Priscilla Geeslin is an unserious person.
Her only qualification (if you can call it that) is her money. Sadly the case with so many non-profit arts board leaders in the U.S.
Maybe with MTT going away, SF Symphony could finally become a serious orchestra. No major American orchestras ever wanted MTT. So he settled in SF and built a little personality cult there.
You mean 12 time Grammy winner MTT? Who regularly guested with every major American orchestra in a five decade career? Who also founded the New World Symphony in Miami, which feeds the ranks of said major American orchestras? That’s a bit more than just “settling in SF” and building a “personality cult.”
Painfully true. Over the past 50 years, all the top US orchestras changed music directors several times, but MTT wasn’t considered for any of them. New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Boston Symphony – MTT even dangled a CBS recording contract in their faces, but none of them took the bait.
As the entire industry was well aware, CBS Masterworks went to the LA Phil and Pittsburgh Symphony on their hands and knees on MTT’s behalf – but LA opted for Salonen (whom CBS then signed), and Pittsburgh hired Maazel. In the hierarchy of young up-coming American conductors of that era, MTT took 3rd place – behind Levine and Slatkin.
Wait. I remember when SF Symph & SF Opera “unmerged” back in the ’80s.They used to be the same orch. When they decided to be 2 separate orchs, players were given the choice of which they’d they’d like to play with. Then Davies Hall was built, effectively cementing SF Symph as its own, strong entity.
SF Opera has always enjoyed unparalleled support. SF is a big opera community, the SF Opera House is splendid & even with Davies there now, it seems to be an unspoken understanding that SF Symph lives in SF Opera’s shadow.
That being said, I don’t see how you could possibly merge the 2 orchs. Splitting, as they did decades ago is one thing. That created jobs. You can’t “unmerge” 2 union orchs with tenured players, effectively dissolving so many jobs.
Article doesn’t mention that this orchestra now crying poor despite having the second largest endowment of any US Orchestra, was only last September enthusiastically touting plans for $100 million renovation of Davies Hall.
The Milwaukee Symphony performs as the orchestra for the Florentine Opera, only a few years younger than the San Francisco Opera, and they do a fine job as far as I’m concerned, though for only three or four weekends each season. As far as I know they’ve done it for their entire 60+ year existence. How many performances does the SFO put on? Surely they would take away from the SFS’s subscription series.
The article claims that the SFS and SF Opera used to be one organization. Untrue. They did both provide employment for SFS musicians until Davies was built. But that was the extent of it.
It was the same orchestra.
There are more than 25 vacancies at the SFS right now. The musicians need to hurry up and FILL THEM. The longer they remain open the more convinced this dumb board will be that: 1. permanent members aren’t necessary and freelance musicians are enough for the purpose. 2. they should go ahead and merge the two orchestras while the headcount is low and fewer people need to be let go.