Gelb and the Met

[Chaszz]

What are your opinions on the Met's troubles? Is Peter Gelb to blame, or the unions, or both? A chorus member making $200,000 a year, even with overtime, makes my jaw drop. Yet spending $19 million on a worthless, irritating and dangerous (to the performers) set machine for The Ring was pretty obviously not a smart move. I am not knowledgeable on some of the basics and could use some help.... The European houses are filling seats in the 95% rate while the Met is at 80%. Are the European houses generally a lot smaller and thus easier to fill? Gelb is attacked for spending too much on new productions, trying to lure in younger audiences, which hasn't worked. Yet obviously the Europeans try new approaches also; do they spend less and more wisely? Do large numbers of young people in Europe attend? Does "Eurotrash" sell better in Europe than here? Do Europeans in general support opera better than Americans? Are there American houses with current success stories? Is Gelb cannibalizing his audience with the HD streaming in movie theatres? What are the answers?

Next question: opera has been an integral part of classical music for centuries, and many innovations to the symphonic orchestra have appeared in the opera orchestra first. Is it appropriate for this thread, dealing with a serious threat to opera, to be ghettoized out of the main classical music topic forum? I put it here myself, was not forced, but nonetheless was sorely tempted to put it in the main forum.

[TheGSMoeller]

What are your opinions on the Met's troubles? Is Peter Gelb to blame, or the unions, or both? A chorus member making $200,000 a year, even with overtime, makes my jaw drop. Yet spending $41 million on a worthless, irritating and dangerous (to the performers) set machine for The Ring was pretty obviously not a smart move. I am not knowledgeable on some of the basics and could use some help.... The European houses are filling seats in the 95% rate while the Met is at 80%. Are the European houses generally a lot smaller and thus easier to fill? Gelb is attacked for spending too much on new productions, trying to lure in younger audiences, which hasn't worked. Yet obviously the Europeans try new approaches also; do they spend less and more wisely? Do large numbers of young people in Europe attend? Does "Eurotrash" sell better in Europe than here? Do Europeans in general support opera better than Americans? Are there American houses with current success stories? Is Gelb cannibalizing his audience with the HD streaming in movie theatres? What are the answers?

Next question: opera has been an integral part of classical music for centuries, and many innovations to the symphonic orchestra have appeared in the opera orchestra first. Is it appropriate for this thread, dealing with a serious threat to opera, to be ghettoized out of the main classical music topic forum? I put it here myself, was not forced, but nonetheless was sorely tempted to put it in the main forum.

From what I've read yes Gelb should hold a lot of the blame. There was an interview with Gelb by Paula Zahn where he dances around so many questions. I'll see if I can find it from my phone and link it.

Successful American opera houses? Lyric Opera of Chicago. Very financially stable.

[TheGSMoeller]

An article written in 2004 about the hiring of Gelb. Paragraph 8-9 is where the important details really begin...

http://www.scena.org/columns/lebrecht/041111-NL-metopera.html

Interview with Paula Zahn...

http://www.nyc-arts.org/showclips/108500/a-conversation-with-peter-gelb-i-nyc-arts-profile

[Gurn Blanston]

Next question: opera has been an integral part of classical music for centuries, and many innovations to the symphonic orchestra have appeared in the opera orchestra first. Is it appropriate for this thread, dealing with a serious threat to opera, to be ghettoized out of the main classical music topic forum? I put it here myself, was not forced, but nonetheless was sorely tempted to put it in the main forum.

Actually, being here highlights opera related questions, it doesn't alienate them. Putting it in 'General Music' for example, makes it harder to find for those interested and no more difficult to skip over for those not. We actually have members for whom opera is the primary interest. This saves them from hunting through more than a little bit of a mass or choral thread rather than the latest round of Karajan fawning.   

[Karl Henning]

Submitted for your approval

[TheGSMoeller]

Submitted for your approval

[jochanaan]

Submitted for your approval

LOL

[jochanaan]

What are your opinions on the Met's troubles? Is Peter Gelb to blame, or the unions, or both? A chorus member making $200,000 a year, even with overtime, makes my jaw drop. Yet spending $41 million on a worthless, irritating and dangerous (to the performers) set machine for The Ring was pretty obviously not a smart move. I am not knowledgeable on some of the basics and could use some help.... The European houses are filling seats in the 95% rate while the Met is at 80%. Are the European houses generally a lot smaller and thus easier to fill? Gelb is attacked for spending too much on new productions, trying to lure in younger audiences, which hasn't worked. Yet obviously the Europeans try new approaches also; do they spend less and more wisely? Do large numbers of young people in Europe attend? Does "Eurotrash" sell better in Europe than here? Do Europeans in general support opera better than Americans? Are there American houses with current success stories? Is Gelb cannibalizing his audience with the HD streaming in movie theatres? What are the answers?

My impression--and I'm not up on the current situations either in the US or Europe--is that, first, opera attendance is much more a tradition in Europe than here, and second, that the opera houses in Europe (except, probably for UK opera houses) get heavy government support, while in the US opera companies rely much more on corporate support.  The German, Dutch and Scandinavian opera companies, in particular, are encouraged to put on innovative productions that may not immediately appeal to popular audiences.

Next question: opera has been an integral part of classical music for centuries, and many innovations to the symphonic orchestra have appeared in the opera orchestra first. Is it appropriate for this thread, dealing with a serious threat to opera, to be ghettoized out of the main classical music topic forum? I put it here myself, was not forced, but nonetheless was sorely tempted to put it in the main forum.

Well, opera is in kind of a class by itself, but there are many links between other forms of "our" music and opera.  Symphonic form grew out of opera-overture form, and art songs/lieder are often identical in form to opera arias.  Still, lots of classical music lovers are less in love with classical singing...

[TheGSMoeller]

Just realized that I've been using the "cheesy" emoji instead of "laughing". Holy mixed signals, Batman! 

[Ken B]

Just realized that I've been using the "cheesy" emoji instead of "laughing". Holy mixed signals, Batman! 

It ain't easy being green.

[TheGSMoeller]

Please Sign Petition.

https://www.coworker.org/petitions/we-are-met-opera-save-our-season

[knight66]

Opera is in trouble in a number of places. In Sidney, Australia the chorus has been taken off perm. contract and will be engaged for a much shortened season annually. Ditto a lot of the players, some have been retained to provide for musicals which have been expanded to replace the gaps the opera schedule.

Rome opera house was almost declared bankrupt this week and a deal cobbled together to put off the evil day for a couple of months. Several years ago Scottish Opera went into meltdown, disposed of the chorus, a lot of players and is only gradually climbing out of its hole.

NY City opera went under this year.

There are slightly different issues for each. But opera cannot and never has paid for itself without patronage from aristocracy, the state, wealthy patrons or some non box office source.

I think Gelb is largely at fault here, but the musicians do need to look at their income in comparison to other organisations. The Met has a vast budget in relation to more or less any other house. The Vienna Opera has more productions, fewer performances, but they run two houses and have the Vienna Phil in the pit for about two thirds of the budget. The Met should be hiring locally for small roles, not flying people from Europe for a cough and a spit.

However.....Vienna and some others get one or two main roles expensively filled, then hire from Eastern Europe at bottom dollar.

A site I visit for opera singers discusses fees and the B/C list singers have had no fee increases for four or five years.

Mike

[king ubu]

[...]the opera houses in Europe [...] get heavy government support [...] The German, Dutch and Scandinavian opera companies, in particular, are encouraged to put on innovative productions that may not immediately appeal to popular audiences. [...]

That government support thing is something that bothers me a lot ... Zurich Opera gets a huge part of all the cultural support - hugely dispropriate. Yet still, you don't have many regular folks regularly attend the opera house (not me, either) - there are so few cheap seats, you'd have to plan it half a year or so in advance to get one. So on the one side, lots of support, on the other hand, still pretty much an elitist thing. The "innovative" thing obviously was not at all part of it under the reign of Pereira (who finally left), seems to get better now, under then new director Andreas Homoki, but so far I've just not made it (if I could get a ticket for 20 or 30 or even 40 or 50 bucks the same day or day before, without having to queue up for hours and crap like that, I might try).

Other aspect: you use *loads* of public/tax-payer money to subsidize (thank you, Mr. Pereira) a doomed and idiotic "diva" and "star" system. Granted, they had to bring in their private and corporate sponsors too (and that was, it seems, Pereira's one big forte), but still ... to me, no matter how much I love opera per se, this whole thing needs to change big time, it makes little sense as it goes on nowadays. I'm not sure, don't know the general situation all over Europe or the US, but I do have the impression the whole thing as we have it is on life support anyways ... but luckily we don't quite yet have the social riots that we should have and I fear we shall soon have if things don't change in the bigger scheme of things - and opera is one of the examples of an elitist part of society that has long lost touch with realities - but that is one man's opinion only of course (and I say all of this with a bleeding heart ... I'd love it if more young people would be educated in a way that they develop any real interest in culture, but again, the powers that be don't want that to happen, you have to mostly take care of it yourself (or rely on a few teachers that are willing to go there, extra-curricular much of the time, of course).

[Chaszz]

Please Sign Petition.

https://www.coworker.org/petitions/we-are-met-opera-save-our-season

I signed, though the idea of chorus members making $200,000 a year, long days or no, still rankles me.

Where does that poster come from, please?

Reading the various posts, it seems impossible to get a good overall picture of what is going on in the opera world and why. So many variables, seems to need a scholar to pull it all together.