What else is the internet for?

He was announcing an appointment that would take effect during his term of office. What’s so strange about that? The word “designate” you seem to miss.

Dallas deserves this. Without a doubt.

http://www.bombsite.com/issues/92/articles/2751

Don’t tell me this person hasn’t thought through the elementary issues that he is presumptuously attacked by some here for not knowing about.

Who’s gonna be the whale?

Oh I know. Cieca’s favorite, Erwin Schrott, for Queequeg. Of course.

Now that could be interesting purely from the staging point of view. Will they do the scene at the beginning where QueeQueg f***s Ishmael? (This is before they embark on the doomed ocean journey, read the unabridged version).

I sense a vehicle for Nathan Gunn as Ishmael, but who will play Queequeg?

And if Mortier isn’t running the New York City Opera, who is? The press release about George Manahan starts with “New York City Opera General Manager-Designate Gerard Mortier is very pleased to announce that Maestro George Manahan…” Who’s will was it that the season be canceled and the State Theater gutted and renovated?

I’m not saying that what he might eventually won’t be fantastic. I hope it will be. But, if you didn’t go to their website, you would hardly know that they currently exist.

How can he possibly be blamed for the improvidence of others? It’s not up to him to take pity on us New Yorkers and somehow serve up what Henry Holland has felicitously called “shitty performances of The Mikado.”

Why are so many of us so avid for people (like Mortier, like Steel) to fail?

From the official Delius website: This website is dedicated to providing resources and information relating to the English composer Frederick Delius.

So, yes, it’s a “British” opera, pedantic as that may be.

Right, and they were the talk o’ the town before he came. I mean, c’mon, he managed to knock Peter “Total Fucking Genius Per La Cieca” Gelb off the top of the opera headlines for a while and get people who *don’t* want to see another 4th rate La Boheme or musicals excited about the future, what else do you want?

They canceled an entire season and put a lot of people out of work.

To hopefully get the situation at the State Theater sorted out. What else was he to do? There was never going to be a new opera house, not in the post-9/11 economic and fundraising climate, NYCO was stuck. Where else could they move so as not to be the beyotches of the ballet? And his right-hand man was offered a job running a company with a good rep and a new opera house, what was he to do, how on earth is that a reflection on him? I seriously doubt that if City Opera was doing their usual boring stuff of 2nd rate Puccini/Verdi/standard rep performances and musicals thing with maybe one interesting piece of 20th century or baroque stuff a year, there’d be any more enthusiasm than there is now.

Do you see any promotion going on? Any sense of excitement?

What an absurd statement. They’ve gone dark for a year, in essence, to prepare for the future, why should there be any buzz? I live 3,000 miles from Manhattan, I have no idea if it’s being promoted or not, all I know is what the website tells me, that there’s concert performances of Antony and Cleopatra and a ton of educational and outreach efforts.

I do know that once the 2009/10 season rolls around, I’ll certainly be on a plane to NYC for Death in Venice, St. Francois di Assise and Einstein on the Beach, which is three more trips than City Opera has made me want to make in years.

Since the next three seasons are already programmed, Mr. Steel said his immediate goals were to prepare for the move to the new house and to focus on improving the orchestra and chorus. He declined to elaborate on future plans but listed a few works that he said he was interested in. They include Verdi’s “Falstaff” and Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde,” as well as more obscure items, like Chausson’s “Roi Arthus,” Rachmaninoff’s “Francesca da Rimini” and Delius’s “Koanga.”

So, his first season of programming is 2011-12?!?! Wow. Note the British opera in that list, La Cieca.

“I will certainly be the Mortier of Dallas,” Mr. Steel said with a smile, “and then some.”

Hmmmm……

Wow, Gerard Mortier is already a failure? Funny, he hasn’t even officially started at NYCO let alone completed a season, that’s some crystal ball you have there. How about all the people with knives out for the Belgian actually wait until the 2009-10 season is over before they start dancing on his grave?

As for Dallas Opera, they can lick my taint. I was all set to go to that hellhole of a city for Mark Anthony Turnage’s terrific The Silver Tassie but those bumpkins canceled it because *gasp* it’s anti-war and their audience wouldn’t have liked that. Wow, maybe you should have thought about that before announcing it.