Remember New York City Opera?
RIPIt died, for lack of funds and an excess of interference by individual board members.
The death last week of Mary Sharp Cronson reminded one of our readers that she was the force behind the plan to recruit Gerard Mortier as director, followed by the spectacularly under-qualified George Steel. Mortier quit on finding there was no budget for his ambitious plans; Steel sank before he could learn to swim. Cronson was a multifarious philanhropist with commitments to several major NY institutions but even her fabled wealth could not sustain City Opera through a fog of autocratic decisions.
As Heidi Waleson put it in her eulogy for City Opera: ‘Pushed by longtime board member Mary Sharp Cronson, the board hired George Steel as general manager and artistic director. Miller had previously served as executive director of Columbia University’s Miller Theatre. Steel had minimal experience
raising money, and scant practical knowledge of opera or opera houses. His turbulent tenure would end, not quite five years later, in the company’s bankruptcy.’
From Legacy notices this week: The Board of Directors, artists, and staff of New York City Ballet are deeply saddened by the passing of our dear friend and long-time board member Mary Sharp Cronson. A founding member of NYCB’s Board of Directors and an emeritus member since 1987, Mary was a passionate and generous supporter of the Company throughout her life. Through her extraordinary commitment to the arts she has had a profound impact on the cultural life of New York City, among many other things having founded Works & Process at the Guggenheim, an essential showcase and incubator for creative artists and their work in which NYCB has had the honor of participating many times over the years. She was a remarkable person, one of a kind, and we will miss her very much. We extend our heartfelt condolences to Mary’s son Paul and his wife Caroline, and to her entire family.
And:
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation mourns the passing of Mary Sharp Cronson, a treasured 30-year member of the Board of Trustees. Mary leaves a legacy of profound impact not only on the Guggenheim but also on the arts community of New York City. As Founder and Board President Emerita of Works & Process, a performing arts program that began at the Guggenheim in 1984, Mary championed new works and offered audiences unprecedented access to generations of leading creators and performers. We honor her innovative spirit and remain grateful for her lasting contributions.
What a wonderful spirit and inspiration she was!
Still in my 20s, I was invited to one of her first Works & Process presentations at the Guggenheim (I believe the composer of the work presented had placed me on the guest list) followed by a place-cards dinner at the Carlyle, the kind of event where the person next to you had been briefed on his/her neighbours. “So, Mr Lash”, said the elegantly-coiffed woman next to me. “I understand you’re in the music industry”.
Mary was also a great help when, a decade later, I was fumbling for funding when running a small dance company that had a good, but too-brief, run.
She was a decades-long source of inspiration, be it in advice or dollars, throughout New York’s performing arts scene.
I remember NYC Opera from its earlier days where, as a young guy, I heard wonderful performances and would pay just $5.00 for a ticket.
I paid $1 for standing room, and if it was sold-out, you just slipped a Washington into the ticket-taker’s pocket.
Maybe her memory live in infamy for destroying an American institution.
I believe that Mrs, Cronson deserves more gratitude than you allow for her generosity during her life. That said, death is not absolution.
The foundational reason the NYCO failed is because private funding systems for genres as expensive as opera don’t work and never will. We might as well try to fund the US Navy with bake sales. And yet we look at the failures of this system and blame it on patrons and CEOs. It’s sort of like asking a blacksmith and a carpenter to do heart surgery and then blaming them for the death of the patient.
It should also be noted that Gerard Mortier would have been a fantastic resource for NYC and might have even slightly awakened its moribund and dying opera world.
During the glory days of Bel Canto, opera houses in Italy were private and profitable, each having a casino attached (La Scala included, and arrangement surviving in … Monte Carlo). Barbaja was the driving force behind this arrangement, commissioning operas from Bellini, Rossini, Donizetti, and ballets too. In Stendahl’s biography of Rossini you can find the exact contractual agreement. Long story: those interested can look up details, where you can find the utterly the history of how mistaken views about gambling, betting, speculation came into being since antiquity (having nothing to do with “addiction”). It is in my World of Chance book.
Interesting history. Thanks! For better or worse, we are no longer in the glory days of bel canto, so even in Italy where opera is still something like a national sport, public funding is necessary. Also in Germany which uses public funding to run 83 full time, year-round, state owned and operated opera houses. As we see in London and NYC, when public funding goes, so does opera.
The Santa Fe Opera has a Native American casino next door. I’m not sure how much interplay there is between them.
Is there anyplace in Monte Carlo that doesn’t have a casino attached?
There is also an excellent biography of Barbaja and all his opera house gambling and artistic activities in Philip Eisenbeiss’ book Bel Canto Bully: The Life and Times of the Legendary Opera Impresario Domenico Barbaja.
More complete rubbish from Osborne.
Glyndebourne?
Mary Sharp Cronson was an important donor to countless organizations in New York City and she deserved much gratitude. This cannot be denied and only celebrated.
However, her role in the demise of New York City Opera was unforgivable. Mrs. Cronson’s power owing to her wealth enabled the delusional chairwoman Susan Baker (and let’s not forget Jane Gullong; paid staff, but along for the ride) to hire the hapless George Steel. The episode was further inexplicable since Lincoln Center Inc. offered a lifeline to the company, which was summarily refused. Pure hubris.
The loss of New York City Opera (no, the current incarnation is not NYCO) was profound. The names of Baker, Gullong, and Steel will be lost–or purposefully omitted in the case of Mary Sharp Cronson–from the annals, unlike the tremendous contributions of Julius Rudel and Beverly Sills.
Rest in peace Mrs. Cronson and New York City Opera.
I was suprised to read that Mrs. Cronson was in part responsible for the death of City Opera. Even if she was indeed behind the ill-advised hiring of George Steel, the company by then was too far down the road to bankruptcy and ultimate death. It was in fact the ridiculous and quixotic hiring of Gerard Mortier to run the company that created most of the conditions which resulted in the near impossiblity that anyone could effectvely run the company thereafter that ensured its end. In Heidi Waleson’s excellent book Mad Scenes and Exit Arias: The Death of the New York City Opera, the author makes clear that it was the Board Chair Susan Baker who was responsible almost exclusively for that disaster. Abandoning the collegiality of her Board which had earlier agreed that Francesca Zambello should be appointed and after negotiations had commenced with Ms. Zambello, Susan Baker met and was charmed by Mortier. Single-handedly and behind the back of the rest of the Board she then met with him in Paris and quickly outlined her plan of action. That this depended on Mortier’s deal breaker – an annual budget of US$60 milllion for productions when the company’s total annual expenditure budget at the time was only around $40 milllion and income rarely exceeded $30 million – appeared not to be considered an impediment. Nevertheless, Mrs. Baker threw collective decision-making to the wind and agreed Mortier’s contract. When he later discovered that he would in fact have to work on a budget of only around half of what he had been promised, he upped sticks and left. For around a year prior to Mortier’s planned arrival, in the absence of any artistic direction Mrs. Baker decided she would run the company herself.
Perhaps Mrs. Cronson had agreed on a personal level with Mrs Baker to put up some of Mortier’s extra budget. But as I recall this is not mentioned anywhere in Waleson’s book. More likely is that Susan Baker planned to raid an endowment fund set up for the purpose of City Opera’s long term survival. Yet in 2001 that had been valued at only $51.5 million. By June 2012 it had been raided several times such that – even sans Mortier (although partly also as a result of diversification into more risky assts prior to the 2008 financial crash) – its value had fallen to $5.2 million. The company had also sold most of its sets and costumes.
I do not know about Mrs. Baker’s own personal wealth. But presumably you do not become Chairman of such a Board without having considerable independent wealth. Yet, as also outlined in the book, Mrs. Baker chose to donate not one dime to Mortier’s hiring.
Susan Baker made her career as an executive at Goldman Sachs, so it’s a safe assumption that she was wealthy.
I am, perhaps blissfully, ignorant of most of the machinations surrounding the demise of the New York City opera. I only remember that has quite a young man, their annual, or at least I believe they werr annual, visits to Los Angeles probably did more to promote my life long love of this art form then any other direct experience. And for sharing so generously with the American public the incomparable talent of Beverly Sills, when others were less willing, they will forever be enshrined in the American operatic pantheon. I’m sure had they been able to survive longer, they would have continued to do many great things
Regardless of Ms. Sills defection to the Met, I’ve no doubt had she lived, she would have worked in the background to make certain NYCO survived. Beverly didn’t suffer fools, and there were plenty at the time.
The first “big company” opera I went to was the NCYO’s production of Die Meistersinger in Los Angeles in the mid-1970s. Norman Bailey was Sachs. The company was a great ambassador for the art form.
Steel who was the GM of the Miller Theater at Columbia University based on New York Times and New York Magazine reviews of his annual innovative plans also tried to take on the job of Executive and Artistic Director of Carnegie Hall, but was stopped in his tracks by a Miller Theater board member who became wise to his plans. Mary Cronson was also on the Miller Theater Baord and had a kind heart and when Steel was relegated for the garbage heap, she had a kind heart and helped him with the NYCO job, despite the fact he was not qualified. Steel had gone around for years with a questionable resume, among other things citing that he had been Leonard Bernstein’s assistant. The Bernstein people when queried those years ago never heard of him. It turned out he had paid to be in a master class at some point.
Leaving Steel aside, Mary Cronson did a lot of good for the arts in New York City and America. She like Anne Ziff based on the sizes of their donation have had an outsized ability to get what they want. The Metropolitan Opera continues to suffer and pay while her blind ;love of Peter Gelb continues to darken the door of the Metropolitan Opera. Interestingly neither Gelb, nor Steel were qualified, nor accompolished administrators. Both have hidden behind glowing reviews of newspapers, Steel is at least in a position where he can do little damage at the Isabella Stewart Gardiner Museum. Gelb on the other hand continues to be evil butterfingers at the Metropolitan Opera, taking from the endowments to pay for his bad management and folly which the public has no interest. Time really for both of them to be out of the arts where they can do no damage.
All true. Despite their kind hearts, Mrs. Cronson had and Mrs. Ziff has very real governing responsibilities beyond their largesse. Sadly, they often lead with their hearts and back the wrong horse.
In all fairness, it’s not right to lump Peter Gelb together with George Steel. Gelb worked at the BSO, ran CAMI video, ran Sony Classical, and was Horwitz’s manager. Say what you want, he did not come to the Met as someone who was not accomplished. Had he run an opera company the likes of the Met, no, but that’s not an easy needle to find.
PG was Horowitz’s lackey and later was in the process of being sacked from Sony Classical. Sills, a friend of his parents, saved him, amidst already commenced contract negotiations with Deborah Borda.
He was sacked. Also the situation about Wilford and Gelb, Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic players union is not well known. Essentially, they were extorting countries for Berlin Philharmonic tours and the quid pro quo is that they would have to stock their appropriate retailers shelves with Peter’s videos where Karajan was given the profits after their costs and fees. Wilford and Gelb literally were tossed in jail while their lawyers worked to save them with a deal withe the players and the union to avoid prosecution. It should have been made known to Sills and Levine…..Wilford hid it big-time as he managed Levine.
Save The Met is not quite accurate in the facts of her tale, even if the overall result is mostly spot on. That said, I have to add that Beverly Sills must certainly have known the facts below re Peter Gelb as they were published quite extensively before the end of the last century and long before Gelb was appointed to the Met.
There was indeed an extremely close relationship between PG and his guardian angel Wilford, particularly in respect of the ultra cosy dealings between CAMI and Karajan (although less so with the orchestra’s management and musicians). Evidence of one case of ripping off concert promoters is given a mention in NL’s own 1991 book titled in the UK The Maestro Myth. But far more specific detail is provided in Richard Osborne’s 1998 biography Herbert von Karajan: A Life in Music.
As Osborne writes, to mark Karajan’s 80th birthday, a special tour was planned that would take the Berliners to Moscow, Leningrad, Tokyo and Osaka. When negotiations for the Soviet concerts broke down, Gelb who was handling arrangements for the Japanese leg of the tour came up with the idea of adding two concerts in the then new and exxcellent concert hall in Taipei. As Taiwan had never before had concerts with the Berlin Phil there was indeed interest. It did not last long, though, after Gelb made the conditions known. Quoting from Osborne’s book, Gelb wrote to the Taiwanese on 7th October 1988 as follows –
“You would provide all-inclusive fees for von Karajan and the orchestra totaling [sic] 600,000 DM for a total of 2 concerts. In addition, you would be required to purchase the Taiwan broadcasting rights for 10 previously produced television programs of von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic and the Vienna Philharmonic at the price of 35,000 US dollars per program, hence totaling 350,000 US dollars for all ten programs. You would be required to purchase the 10 programs before the tour takes place . . .”
In those days the value of 600,000 DM was £200,000 and 350,000 US$ was £220,000. So Gelb, Wilford and CAMI planned to enrich themselves with ultra-helfty commissions from what was already a very high concert fee and from the sale of Karajan videos which had absolutely nothing to do with the organisation of orchestral concerts. The assumption was that by far the largest share of the sale of the videos would find its way into Karajan’s pockets. Naturally the Taiwanese told Gelb “no deal”. When the orchestra members and their former (and future) intendant Wolfgang Stresemann learned about these shenanigans, all were absolutely furious. Stresemann later stated the terms proposed by Gelb were “immoral, unethical, impossible to imagine.”
But they were possible and are fact. I know it is all true because, apart from the Osborne revelations, friends in the music business in Taiwan have confirmed them to me.
Let’s review Gelb’s career from college on.
1. Couldn’t hack college at Yale, so he drops out.
2. Father gets him a job in the mail room at CAMI.
3. Father complains to Wilford that he didn’t have a real job, so he’s given a camera and shoots videos of classical productions. At one point he and Wilford go to Germany and cut a deal with Karajan where he gets all the profits of the videos. They are briefly thrown in jail in Berlin until a deal is worked out with the Berlin Philharmonic.
4. Wilford assigns Gelb to Horowitz in his last years to videotape him and be his step and fetch it boy.
5. Gelb with Wilford’s help becomes an assistant manager at the BSO where he’s everyone’s gopher.
6. Gelb gets him the job at SONY where he turns down the Titanic soundtrack until his bosses tell him to take it and they make many, many millions over his objections. At one point he pisses of his secretary who throws a hot cup of coffee on him when she quits.
7. Bertelsmann fires Gelb at the merger when they see he’s inadequate.
8. When Joe Volpe retires at the MET, Gelb’s father and Ronald Wilford put on a full court press on Beverly Sills and Jimmy Levine to hire Peter who can put the MET in the movies rather than Deborah Borda who they had agreed to hire and was so accomplished next to Gelb. Bev does them a favor and hires Gelb.
Gelb has either been a gopher, or in way over his head for years and the Metropolitan Opera continues to suffer because of it. He has no business choosing what goes on the stage, has not learned, should never have been named artistic director and has been an utter failure. The sooner he’s fired, or retires, the better off the MET will be.
Now, George Steel despite the subtrafuge on Bernstein ran a very successful program at the Miller Theater. He was in way over his head everywhere else. However, until he left the Miller, he was doing quite fine. Not a thing Gelb has ever done has been a success, in fact he can be considered the opposite, a clear and utter failure. IMHO he has something on some of the board members at the Metropolitan Opera and that is why he endures. Had it been a for profit business, he would have been shown the door years ago, just like he was at SONY.
Gelb had never worked in a theater or in any aspect of Opera. His previous jobs you mention have no relation to running the world’s largest opera house – anymore than a job at McDonalds or Macy’s would.
As I commented on this site’s Bobby Short Cafe Carlyle notice, ladies like Mary Cronson do not exist anymore in New York society. How did we come to a point in history where such enlightened well educated wealthy people have simply vanished into history(IMO) in just , say, the last 30 years?
Today, the society influencers are Tik Tok stars and other social media stars.
This leaves me, for one, despondent as I knew the better days.
All too true. They are not minting these ladies (people) any longer. Agree with them or not, they made a difference. We are now left with a largely apathetic generation with regard to the arts.
I remember the NYCO and OONY. Good times!
The New York City Opera had a great run and gave NYC a second opera company to showcase rising stars at affordable prices. Unfortunately society has changed and can’t even fill the Met with enthusiastic audiences. Lack of education in public schools about opera and the arts is one reason young people are not continuing the tradition of going to opera as an exciting venture. Our low brow social media rarely promotes classical music in the main stream. Also, opera changed from being about great voices to misguided director concepts of making opera relevant to the times today. In my youthful days I could care less about productions. The event was hearing Tebaldi, Corelli, Caballe, Sills, Treigle, Price and Sutherland to name a few singers that brought audiences to their feet. Perhaps opera will fade away in the years to come, but luckily we have recordings to remind us of what opera once was. Just listen to an old performance of Maria Stuarda with Beverly Sills and Marisa Galvany and you will hear the glory of the joy the New York City Opera once brought us.
With all respect to Mister New York’s commonly held view – one that is relatively obvious given the state the arts find themselves in these days – I submit that NYCO did not fail due to falling audiences. I agree that could have been one of many factors. But as I have written before several times, it is clear that Board decisions – and in this case the decision of one member – can be calamitous. Without Susan Baker’s unilateral and massive error in appointing Gerard Mortier after accepting his ultimatum on having a budget of $60 million in the knowledge that this was vastly more than the company could afford and no defined plan on how to raise such a massive amount of cash annually, I believe the company could and would have soldiered on. It was Mortier who insisted on a larger pit for the State Theater which became in part the reason for the closure of the theater for a year for even greater renovations (during which it became the David H. Koch Theater) and thus the decision for the company to become basically a travelling one.
It is perhaps interesting to consider what might have happened to the company had Mortier actually taken up his post. As Anthony Tomasini wrote in the New York Times on November 9 2009 in what seemed more like an obituary, “‘The old way of running the company was not working financially,’ Ms. Baker said. What Mr. Mortier was proposing involved a completely new profile for the company. Major 20th-century operas and new works would take pride of place. Repertory operas would be presented in challenging, high-concept modern productions that were bound to excite and infuriate audiences in equal measure.”
That to me sounds pretty much like regie theater. Given that such productions at the Met have mostly been finaincial flops, perhaps it is just as well that Mortier did not take up his post. Would his concept have worked? Being neither a New Yorker nor American, I just do not know.
Third paragraph: need first name for Miller
That was a typo; it should read “Steel.”