Can New York City Opera Retain Its Name Under New Plans?

Steel becoming molten lava.
(Photo: Sara Krulwich/NY Times)

"Mr. Steel has put creative thought into choosing five works for City Opera’s nomadic 2011-12 season. Of special note is a production of Telemann’s Orpheus in an intimate space ideal for Baroque opera, the theater at El Museo del Barrio in East Harlem. If some other performing arts entity in New York had announced this project, grateful opera buffs would be saluting it. But Mr. Steel’s road show of a season represents a radical rethinking of the company’s mission. The most anguished members of the City Opera family — the orchestra players and choristers, the distinguished artists who signed the letter protesting the company’s decision to leave Lincoln Center and who have counted on the company for years — complain that Mr. Steel’s plans are such a departure from what the company has been for the past 68 years that he can no longer call the company New York City Opera. And they have a point." [Source]

Opera Unions Take on George Steel....And They Are Mad

"Unions representing New York City Opera singers and musicians said yesterday that they have lost confidence in artistic director and general manager George Steel. They called his plan for next season, which includes an opera featuring two mutes, 'a formula for continued failure.' At the Manhattan office of City Opera's law firm, Proskauer Rose LLP, Steel offered the union members from Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians and the American Guild of Musical Artists a page-and-a-half, 230-word 'working schedule' of four operas.  Opera 2 is a '21st-century American Opera (running time 2:50)' with two lead roles, two featured and two mute roles. It would be the only production with a full orchestra and one of two with no chorus. Defending the plan before 53 singers, production personnel and musicians, Steel said the unnamed works, to be presented in undisclosed venues, had been chosen to please donors, not the public. He said that calls for traditional operas were 'misguided,' according to a statement from the two unions. Steel, who took over the 68-year-old company in February 2009, recently announced that the troupe could no longer afford to stay in its home at Lincoln Center's David H. Koch Theater. The opera chief left the room after the about two-hour meeting. The union members then took a 'no confidence' vote, said Tino Gagliardi, president of Local 802....Until yesterday, the union hadn't publicly criticized Steel. 'It's pretty pathetic what Steel is trying to do to a main-stage opera company,' Gagliardi said. One singer, not identified in the statement from the unions, said that 'Steel should be calling this the Pot Luck Opera.'" [Source]

The Opera Story NOT Being Written About George Steel

Sneaking into the picture: George Steel
with Vera Wang and Angela A. Chao at the
David H. Koch Theater in November 2010.

Amidst all the horror stories of New York City Opera going down in flames, it would be interesting to hear how Dallas Opera may have been saved by the brief four-month tenure of George Steel as its General Manager. Could it have suffered the same ill-programmed fate of NYCO? Zachary Woolfe writes a wonderful commentary for the New York Observer on the current state of affairs at the theater. Read it here.

Chairman Of The Board Tries To Save New York City Opera

(Photo: Fred R. Conrad/New York Times)

The New York Times offers up a profile of the new Chairman of the Board, Charles Wall, at New York City Opera. His major focus is fundraising, damage control in the form of a major marketing campaign and what repertoire to represent in what he hopes will be an expanded season at the David H. Koch Theater. "Opera was not Mr. Wall’s first love. Though he counts himself 'a fan,' he said that he was more familiar with symphonic music and that he was a die-hard fan of the American musical. And while ' Parsifal is not something I would rush to see,' Mr. Wall said, referring to the complex Wagner opera, he added that City Opera must continue to fulfill its mission of doing productions that may not immediately draw crowds." [Source]