Opera In Australia Costing More Money While Audience Shrinks

Sinking Art: A promotional advertisement for Opera Australia's production of Madama Butterfly.

"The Federal Government pays an average of $60 for ticket-holder but opera is still losing both money and audiences. At least one company is on the verge of bankruptcy and opportunities for Australian artists are shrinking. The high level of subsidy is consistent with other major performing arts companies. Major dance companies are subsidised at a rate of $63 a ticket and orchestras even higher at $86 a ticket. But, unlike most other art forms, the subsidy is not delivering audiences to opera. The National Opera Review has found that despite increasing funding, Australia’s opera companies are facing reduced audiences, growing debt, and reduced artistic vibrancy. The high level of subsidy is consistent with other major performing arts companies. Major dance companies are subsidised at a rate of $63 a ticket and orchestras even higher at $86 a ticket. But, unlike most other art forms, the subsidy is not delivering audiences to opera. The National Opera Review has found that despite increasing funding, Australia’s opera companies are facing reduced audiences, growing debt, and reduced artistic vibrancy." [Source]

The MET Uses More Art To Secure $30 Million Credit Line

L'Ete as seen in this 2008 photo for Vogue, featuring
Sarah Jessica Parker and Chris Noth at the Metropolitan
 Opera, shot by Annie Leibovitz.

"The Metropolitan Opera Association Inc., as part of an agreement to renew a crucial $30 million credit line, pledged more of the artwork that adorns its home in New York's Lincoln Center to lender Bank of America Corp. The nonprofit secured the credit line with two sculptures by the late French artist Aristide Maillol displayed at the opera house, including the 62-inch bronze L'Ete (Summer) and the 69-inch Venus Without Arms, according to a notice filed Feb. 18 with the New York Secretary of State. Bank of America agreed to extend the credit line on Feb. 6, according to the Met's financial statements. The Met had already pledged a pair of Marc Chagall murals to Bank of America before the credit line came up for renewal in August. Moody's Investors Service, in a Dec. 22 statement, cited the move as one reason for downgrading $100 million of the opera house's bonds, saying the pledge of the murals to the bank was 'effectively subordinating the interests of unsecured bondholders.' Ranked as the nation's largest performing-arts organization, the Met had a $21.9 million loss during the fiscal year ended July 31, 2014, as salaries paid to performers and production costs outstripped box-office receipts, contributions and revenue from high-definition broadcasts, an innovation by general manager Peter Gelb." [Source]

L.A. Opera Goes For Broke Reviving "Ghosts Of Versailles"

Patti Lupone makes an entrance

It is reported that Tony Award-winning Broadway director Darko Tresnjak researched for over a year, including a trip to Petit Trianon, before staging the opera Ghosts of Versailles at L.A. Opera which opens this evening. Sets and costumes are estimated at $1 million, but other expenses would not be discussed including fees for over 80 dancers, singers and acrobatic artists. Even composer, John Corigliano, was flown from New York to Los Angeles for rehearsals because there are so many new notations in the score. Not to mention the luxury casting of Broadway superstar Patti Lupone in the exotic role of Samira that gets 10 minutes of stage time. A planned Met revival five years ago was called off for budgetary reasons. "A good part of the money for Ghosts is coming from a gift from the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation. Gordon Getty, one of the sons of billionaire J. Paul Getty, is a composer in his own right as well as an opera fan. His representatives didn't respond to requests for comment. Ghosts has seldom been seen in its full grandeur since it debuted at the Metropolitan Opera in

Patricia Racette and Christopher Maltman

New York in 1991. In that staging, Corigliano called for two orchestras — one in the pit and one onstage — but he later reduced it to a single orchestra and made cuts for a 1995 staging at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. The composer also approved a scaled-down chamber version that has been staged at smaller companies. L.A. Opera's production, which opens Feb. 7, features the fullest version of the score that currently exists — not quite as long as the Met premiere but substantially the same work, featuring a full orchestra, according to company leaders." [Source] Tickets for the production are available here. See more beautiful photos after the jump and a complete gallery of 79 photos from the production by clicking here. To learn more about the opera, Ghosts of Versailles, go here.

Will The Metropolitan Opera Be Forced To Sell Chagall Paintings?

Renée Fleming in the new Susan Stroman production of Lehár's The Merry Widow (Die Lustige Witwe) which opens this month at the Metropolitan Opera. It will replace the last new production they did of the operetta in 2000. (Photo: Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera)

"New York City’s Metropolitan Opera Association had its rating cut by Moody’s Investors Service to three steps above junk and is again turning to works by Marc Chagall for collateral as its cash dwindles. The nation’s largest performing-arts organization is putting the Chagalls hanging in its lobby -- 'The Triumph of Music' and 'The Sources of Music' -- up as collateral on a line of credit with Bank of America Corp., Sam Neuman, a spokesman for the opera, said in an e-mail today. The opera is tapping the paintings anew after using a $100 million bond sale to pay off bank loans backed by the artwork in 2012. Moody’s today lowered that debt one level to Baa1 and assigned a negative outlook, meaning more cuts are possible. The Met’s deficit ballooned to an estimated $22 million in fiscal 2014, from $2.8 million in 2013, according to financial documents. The opera, which had its first performance in 1883, expects to balance its budget in the next two years by cutting expenses such as labor costs, Neuman said....In fiscal 2013, the organization had monthly liquidity of $46 million, covering 53 days of cash expenses, according to Dennis Gephardt, a Moody’s analyst. Without a $17 million draw on its line of credit, liquidity fell in half, according to preliminary fiscal 2014 results, Gephardt wrote in today’s report." And the New York Times points out: "Some of the Met’s biggest stars recently agreed to cut their fees to help the Met. This week, another cost-cutting measure was evident: It did not put up its Christmas tree."[Source]

Donna Friedman Learns Financial Lessons From Opera

"I spent six butt-numbing hours at the movies on Saturday, watching the Metropolitan Opera’s live broadcast of Gotterdammerung – the last of four operas based on the same Norse mythology that informed Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. It had spectacle, pageantry, and a buff-and-bitchin’ Siegfried who turned out to have a down-home Texas accent – it was a very successful day. The only thing better than opera is frugal opera....People don’t usually attend the opera to learn smart money practices. But composer Richard Wagner passed along some decent personal finance lessons in this soaring (and loud!) tale of greed, betrayal, mortal passion, and godly demise. I say you should take personal finance tips wherever you find them, whether they’re from the mouth of a once-was-Valkyrie or a malevolent dwarf played by a regular-sized human. (When it comes to opera, the willing suspension of disbelief is a useful life skill.) [Source] Check out the financial lessons learned at the opera by clicking here.

The Metropolitan Opera By Numbers in Fortune Magazine

(Photo: Stephen Wilkes/Fortune magazine)

Fortune magazine writer Shelley DuBois takes a look at what the MET has been up to in terms of rejuvenating its brand. "When Peter Gelb, who had been an executive at Sony Classical records, took over in 2006 as general manager of New York's Metropolitan Opera, attendance was fading and the average age of ticket holders rising. Gelb brought in Broadway and West End directors, took chances on innovative, edgy works, and started beaming operas around the world in HD movie theaters. The result: a younger, broader audience and a record year financially for the world's biggest opera.

BY THE NUMBERS
57.7: The average age of audience members at performances in 2010, down from 60.4 in 2005, according to the Met.

$182 million: That's what the Met raised last fiscal year -- up 50% from the previous period. Board chair Ann Ziff and her family, heirs to the Ziff Davis publishing fortune, pledged $30 million.

1,700: The number of venues in 54 countries that will screen Met operas in HD this year. Some 8.5 million tickets have been sold so far. Last year HD produced $11 million in profits for the Met." [Source]

Mario Monti Attends La Scala "Don Giovanni" Premiere

Anna Netrebko (Donna Anna) and Giuseppe Filianoti (Don Ottavio) in Don Giovanni at La Scala

"Italian Premier Mario Monti took a short culture break from promoting his package of austerity and growth measures to attend La Scala's gala season premiere of Don Giovanni on Wednesday – a presence that La Scala's general manager hopes bodes well for the future of culture in the country that invented opera. Conducted by Daniel Barenboim and directed by Robert Carsen, the modernist and sexually

Mario Monti: Financial Savior?

charged production of Mozart's classic was enthusiastically received by an audience filled with cultural, political, fashion and business figures. Carnations showered on the performers while the audience applauded for 10 solid minutes. But this year, as Italy moves to confront a deepening financial crisis, just as important to Milan's famed opera house as the success on the stage was the presence in the audience of the head of government, head of state and four Cabinet ministers – which was taken as a signal that culture is taking center stage." [Source] One more photo of Anna Netrebko, during "Non mi dir" from the production, after the jump.

German Opera May Lose Major Funding

(Photo: Bernd Uhlig)

"The orchestras at two of Berlin’s three big opera houses — the Comic and German Opera — are locked in a pay dispute with the city. Over the past two months, the musicians have taken industrial action including delaying performances, refusing to return after intermission and even canceling entire shows....It is grave news in a country that prides itself on being the home of Beethoven, Bach, Wagner and Handel. Germany has a staggering 133 full-time, professional orchestras — nearly a quarter of the world’s total — and spends more than 2 billion euros ($2.6 billion) a year subsidizing opera and concert houses."