DECEMBER 15, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
NEW YORK CITY OPERA’S INCOMING GENERAL AND ARTISTIC DIRECTOR ANNOUNCES REVAMPED FESTIVAL FORMAT, PLANS FOR 2010 SEASON; INTERVIEW FOLLOWS SEASON SCHEDULE
Eötvös: Angels in America (dir. Sam Helfrich: New York première; new production)
Breuer/Telson: The Gospel at Colonus (dir. Spike Lee: new production)
Vivaldi: Ercole s’ul Termodonte (dir. John Pascoe: Spoleto Festival Production, 2006: New York stage première)
Bizet/Brooke: La Tragedie de Carmen (co-production, English National Opera/Wexford Festival Opera)
Catán, Florencia en el Amazonas (dir. Francesca Zambello: co-production, Houston Grand opera, Los Angeles Opera, Seattle Opera: New York première)
Schwartz, Séance on a Wet Afternoon (dir. Scott Schwartz: New York première; co-production, Opera Santa Barbara)
Double Bill: (dir./chor. Christopher Wheeldon: new production)
Purcell: Dido and Aeneas (new orchestration by Mason Bates for electronics and Baroque ensemble)
Mason Bates: Eros and Psyche (lib. Michael Korie: world première: NYCO commission)
Knussen, Where the Wild Things Are (dir. & puppets, Basil Twist: new production; family concert)
AN INTERVIEW WITH THE INCOMING GENERAL AND ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
MA: City Opera as a summer festival, down to eight productions from seventeen! It’s a dramatic change for the company.
G&AD: Dramatic change for dramatic times. The good news across the court—Peter Gelb making the MET as theatrically contemporary as it’s been musically sterling—has been terrific for New York opera but a real challenge for New York City Opera, which has to create an exciting new alternative to…itself. In 2010, what does it mean to focus on the new? The question is as urgent financially as it is artistically: which is why we’ve scrapped the fall season entirely and are doing only an extended spring-early summer festival schedule. Better to do fewer, stronger productions of pieces that compete with the MET neither in scheduling nor artistic profile.
MA: Talk us through the repertory choices.
G&AD: 2010 is designed to be a transitional season, with more stress on imported productions than those newly built: but we’ve been extraordinarily lucky that there’s so much fascinating national and international work that fits exactly what we’ll be trying to do. We’d have loved to import Jim Robinson’s new and very contemporary staging of Corigliano’s slimmed-down The Ghosts of Versailles, scheduled for Opera Theatre of St. Louis this summer: but the MET is reviving its production this season, and I strongly that feel the companies should complement, not compete with, each other in repertory. Rather than offer another Carmen, we’re taking Peter Brook’s fascinating distillation of the Bizet; rather than do another Handel, we’ll bring in Spoleto’s vivid and controversial staging of Vivaldi’s newly reconstructed opera on Hercules. Audiences in the city where his career began will doubtless be fascinated to hear the first opera from the theatre and film composer Stephen Schwartz. I’m also confident that both the long-overdue New York premiere of Daniel Catán’s sumptuous Florencia en el Amazonas and Spike Lee’s fiery new staging of The Gospel at Colonus—a retelling of the Sophocles in the form of a gospel church service—will continue to bring new visions to our audiences and new audiences to our vision. And how intrigued we’ll be to hear the Hungarian composer Peter Eötvös’ take on Tony Kushner’s most American of plays, Angels in America! Both that piece and our double bill of Dido and Aeneas and our first new commission, Eros and Psyche, from the exciting young acoustic/electronic composer Mason Bates, underline City Opera’s new commitment to exploring the future of electronic music-making in the opera house. And our family opera, Where the Wild Things Are, brings together the beloved children’s book by Maurice Sendak, the enchanting score of British modernist Oliver Knussen, and the puppetry of Basil Twist to make an evening as sophisticated as it is beguiling for audiences of all ages.
MA. But City Opera’s financial problems have been legion. How can you put together a season like this in these lean financial times?
G&AD. Again, fewer productions, many imported, for ‘10: and most of them–Ercole, Angels, the double-bill—are as small as they are distinctive. Peter Brook’s deconstruction of Carmen needs four singers. But I also talked both with my board and my union representatives about a new business model for City Opera. I agree with Susan Baker that City Opera’s model was financially broken. But what was needed was a way to change the financial model. What we didn’t need was to change City Opera from an international company which makes no apologies for its distinctly American perspective into, essentially, Paris Opera West: cross our fingers; and hope for the best. (Remember how many European–and Asian, and South American— scores City Opera has introduced to American audiences over the past half-century. This tradition should have been discarded?) We’ve had some tough talks with both the musicians’ and the singers’ unions: but we’re now working, if you’ll forgive the pun, in concert. And we’re doing some crazy things. As soon as I came on board, I called a prominent critic in town, introduced myself, and more or less begged him to intercede with certain pop musicians on our behalf: which is how we’ve scheduled that sold-out Björk/Johnny Greenwood fundraiser featuring excerpts from The Gospel at Colonus and the Bates piece. Our entire fundraising department had followed the Obama campaign obsessively, and were amazed at its grassroots e-mail/cellphone campaign: on that we modelled that e-mail/cellphone blast to everyone who had bought a ticket to City Opera in the past ten years. We didn’t raise three-quarters of a billion dollars, but we did very well. And most importantly, I told the board that just because we had always had a fundraising model in the past that depended, forever and ever, on raising two-thirds of our costs through donations didn’t mean that’s the model we have to follow in the future. All my career I’ve known that fundraising is a fact of American cultural life: but that doesn’t mean we producers can’t be as creative about it as the artists we present are about their art.
MA. What are you hoping for in future seasons?
G&AD. I’d like us to do a concert series: build one terrific set for orchestra, chorus, and principals, and do operas in concert that are too unwieldy or expensive to stage, but should nonetheless be heard. Also on that series should be a kind of City Opera “Oscars” concert, if you will, featuring the best of VOX, the best performances in that given season by a new performers—something to integrate the work we’re doing with rising composers and performers into the larger NYCO season. Given how short the lead time was for 2010, I thought the Bates one-act was the only commission we could responsibly do: but, given more time, and finances in place, I want to discuss a possible project with the MacArthur-winning playwright Suzan Lori-Parks and the terrific Peruvian-American composer Gabriela Lena Frank. But commissioning isn’t the only way to bring new work to New York: we’ll be keeping a close eye on Jonathan Dove’s Pinocchio for Minnesota, Jake Heggie’s Moby-Dick for Dallas, Jorge Martin’s Before Night Falls for Fort Worth, and Catán’s new Il Postino for L. A. I haven’t given up on Poul Ruders’ The Handmaid’s Tale, either staged or in concert, though I think we missed our chance at Tom Adès’ The Tempest. And certainly The Grapes of Wrath should be heard in New York, given how all-too-topical it’s become!
I think the important contribution City Opera can continue to make is to choose, and embody, the difference between what is progressive as opposed to what merely looks progressive. The Tocqueville quote that’s getting around vis-à-vis the recent election is the one about America’s greatness inhering not so much in its virtues or even its ideas but its ability to correct its mistakes. I’d love to think, in some small way, my tenure at City Opera could partake of that great American tradition: to learn from one’s mistakes and move on into the future.