Music director James Levine, left, and general manager Peter Gelb at last month’s press conference on the Metropolitan Opera’s new season
While this blog focuses primarily on the visual arts, it’s no secret that I’m an ardent operaphile and, especially, a Levine lover. I wasn’t around for opera’s previous Golden Ages, but for me, the era when music director James Levine indefatigably conducted a lion’s share of Metropolitan Opera’s performances were the glorious Golden Age of opera in New York.
Those days are now gone. Even though Levine announced yesterday that he will be leaving his gig as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, his continuing health issues will likely limit the amount of time and energy he can bring to the Met.
Notwithstanding Levine’s assertion at last month’s Metropolitan Opera 2011-2012 Season press conference that “the conducting roster is better than it’s even been,” I’ve observed that too many performances are led by B-listers. The vacuum left when Levine started splitting his time between the Met and his recent music director’s gig at the Boston Symphony Orchestra has never, for me, been adequately filled.
That said, one of the most glorious evenings I’ve ever spent at the opera occurred just last month, at the critically acclaimed production of “Nixon in China”—a definitive performance (which had better be made available on CD and/or DVD!) of a profound and moving modern masterpiece, brilliantly conducted by its composer, John Adams. This opera, greeted with roars of approval from the reputedly conservative Met Opera audience, deserves many more hearings. But the company that has brought back for a second season an obscure Rossini opera, “Armida” (as a vehicle for soprano-diva Renée Fleming) did not see fit to send Nixon back to China next season.
Since the Met has had a notoriously hard time financially, due in part to ambitiously expensive new productions under general manager Peter Gelb, I asked how the bottom line is doing. Gelb replied that contributions are up, but that for more information, I should view the annual report online.
This was not particularly helpful, since the most recent online annual report was for the fiscal year ending July 31, 2009, when operating expenses exceeded operating revenues by a whopping $112.6 million, a slight improvement from the previous year’s $115.4 million deficit. The annual report fiscal 2010 is not yet posted.
I also asked about the the opera house’s monumental Chagall murals, which two years ago were put up as collateral for a loan. Gelb began by assuring me that there was other collateral as well, (which did not particularly comfort me). He then added that the Met was not going to lose its Chagalls. (We can only hope.)
Below are two video excerpts from the Met’s press conference. (Please excuse some static, due to my clumsiness with the camera.) First, Levine assesses the artistic health of the house, noting that “the whole difficulty of running an opera house…is in keeping the various elements in the right balance with one another” (as we all hope he will now be able to do in his own previously over-extended professional life). Then Gelb discusses the controversially radical rethinking of some productions during his tenure.
I look forward with both anticipation and trepidation to viewing Robert Lepage‘s new
production of Die Walküre, which Levine (fingers crossed) is scheduled to conduct. After my
experience at “Damnation of Faust.” I’m dubious about anything Lepage (notwithstanding Anthony Tommasini‘s glowing review in today’s NY Times of the director’s Brooklyn Academy of Music production of Stravinsky‘s “The Nightingale”).
When are they going to bring back William Kentridge?