“The irony of all this, I really believe, and many others do as well, is if we could simply have gotten the first season on the boards, it really would have galvanized fund-raising.” – New York City Opera’s Susan L. Baker to The New York Times 11/7/08, on losing Gerard Mortier due to a lack of funds.
I hate to kick City Opera while it’s down but…what first season? The homepage of their website, above, looks like the same old City Opera. I realize they need to promote the concerts they’re presenting around town this season, but why is there NOTHING about the awesome 09-10 season we’ve all been told to eagerly await on this homepage? I can’t even find the original season announcement in their Press Room section.
If City Opera was waiting until Mortier arrived to launch a new site, the powers-that-be made a huge mistake. Launch that puppy NOW (well, not now now, but at the beginning of the 08-09 season). Create a new logo. Employ Howard Dean/Obama online fundraising techniques: if you’re going to really be The People’s Opera, forget fancy Young Associates receptions and take my $25. Mortier graces you with his presence every 5 weeks? Sit him down for short video interviews every time he shows up and post them on your site and YouTube. Follow him around to meetings with a camera so we get some sense of what he’s doing. Philip Glass is in the office? That’s gold! Film him chitchatting with Mortier in the hall and put it on the site. Obviously, not all meetings can be filmed, but some can. Why not put a semi-staged meeting with Mortier and the communications department on the web? “Alright, mes camarades, we have this great season of 20th century music coming up, how are we going to market it?” Brainstorm brainstorm, film film. The worst thing that could happen is that potential new audiences actually find your filmed marketing meeting on YouTube and comment on it; that’s free advertising and a free focus group all in one.
And you, Gerard “Mortier”, you sir, are on my bad list. Also from The New York Times:
Speaking by telephone from his apartment in Ghent, Belgium, Mr.
Mortier said he decided to resign when it became clear that the board
would not give him the money needed to produce a meaningful slate of
opera productions. He said that from the start he had been promised a
budget of $60 million, a number even mentioned in his contract. But the
board was prepared to approve only $36 million, he said, not much more
than the basic fixed costs of running the company, leaving him little
room for innovative productions.“I told them with the best
will, I can’t do that,” Mr. Mortier said. “I cannot go to run a company
that has less than the smallest company in France.” Mr. Mortier is in
the final year of running the Paris National Opera, which has a budget
closer to $300 million. “You don’t need me for that,” he said.
Actually, they do need you for that. They need exactly you for that. So kindly check your “Impresario” hallmark at the door, or perhaps qualify it in the future with “as long as I have money to spend”. What kind of impresario is that?? Sure, if you were promised a certain budget and you didn’t get it (among other complications, I’m sure), you have every right to walk. But what a star you would have been if you had just made it work. When life gives you less money than expected, make creative viral marketing and interesting artistic programming lemonade. I was interviewed this morning about how the economy is affecting the arts, and in the middle of the interview realized that I’ve been seeing “Recession sales” all over the place, and yet none on the NYC classical music scene. It’s not actually funny that people are losing their jobs, but a recession is funny if you make it funny. [That may be the worst sentence written on this blog to date, but I hope you get my point.] And beyond having comedy potential, admitting that we’re in a recession and that you don’t have the budget you thought you would makes you accessible and instills compassion from the masses: we’re all in this together.
Now, we all know the economy is not the only thing to blame for City Opera’s lack of fundraising, but why didn’t the company take advantage of that unfortunate historical moment and use it as a scapegoat here? More importantly, now that THAT opportunity has passed, will they use this more personal crisis – Mortier’s pre-resignation – to their advantage? If City Opera called me up or sent me an e mail today about a new “Save City Opera!” campaign, I would write them a check. It wouldn’t be for thousands of dollars, but it would be something.
You really want to be The People’s Opera, New York City Opera? Then seize this moment and raise some grassroots cash. The URLs http://www.savecityopera.com/ and http://www.screwmortier.com/ are both available.
Amanda, I agree, City Opera could have done a far better job at managing the PR side of all of this. What I understand is that Mortier’s contract stipulated that he have a minimal budget of $60 million to work with, and if it wasn’t there, he had the right to walk. The question is, why did they set that budget so high? Even going from $46 million, which was the previous budget, to $60m in just a couple years is highly unrealistic, even in a sound economy. I think they were simply way too ambitious given the public’s appetite for new/modern opera and the current economy (most experts saw the economic downturn on the radar screen for at least a couple years now).
In any case, I hope it works out for their sake; it certainly doesn’t look very good right now.
It seems to me that the so-called Mortier era was a lot of smoke and mirrors.
Pelléas et Mélisande, The Makropulos Case, The Rake’s Progress, Death in Venice, and Einstein on the Beach all have been done by the MET, NYCO, or other presenters in New York recently.
I for one do not want to see “eurotrash” productions. I was planning to wait for the reviews before making a commitment to the 2009-10 NYCO season.
Thank you for your comments Amanda and I totally agree with you about the need for a new identity and new website. In fact, after many months of work behind-the-scenes our new site and new identity were scheduled to launch last week. However, as you can imagine there were some road blocks to this launch. A new website will be coming very soon.
And if you’d still like to donate you can send a check… or our current website accepts all credit cards 😉
Erik Gensler
Co-Director of Marketing
New York City Opera
Missed opportunities, and misdirected energies are a terrible thing to waste, and that is exactly what Gerard Mortier and Susan Baker have done – waste our time. Baker did a superb job of recruiting a smart artist, but left the job of fundraising to others. Mortier is used to having monies allocated to his work by government and an inner circle, and apparently did not lift a finger to help make his vision a reality.
I for one was intrigued and excited by his vision, but in the end, artistic ideas are a dime a dozen, good ones two for a quarter. He sat in Europe awaiting his funds, and when others did not raise it, he sought other gigs.
As Amanda points out in this entry, there are numerous missed opportunities here. And now, lessons to be learned. The most important one is whether New York City Opera is the property of the cautious board or the once loyal audiences.
Perhaps the menu of exotic operas instead of traditional warhorses was too radical a change to expect the current supporters of NYCO to embrace, and with impresario Peter Gelb at the Met, there is already more operatic innovation this year than we have seen in decades.
Larry Murray
BerkshireFineArts.com