always look on the bright side
As if to demonstrate that there are better ways to run an opera company than the NYCO’s ongoing fiasco, Fort Worth Opera announced today that they will present the world premiere of Before Night Falls, is by Jorge MartÃn in 2010. Darren K. Woods, the quiet genius who is general director of Fort Worth Opera, first learned of Before Night Falls in 2005 after American Opera Projects in New York presented piano readings from the then unfinished opera and set his sights on the world premiere after he workshopped the piece at Seagle Music Colony in Schroon Lake, New York this past summer.
Perhaps the most striking aspect to this story what is La Cieca is delighted to point out as the gay angle: Before Night Falls is of course based on the autobiography of the same title by gay dissident Reinaldo Arenas, and Fort Worth Opera just last season offered the U.S. “fully staged” premiere of Peter Eötvös’ Angels in America.
Gay-themed contemporary opera is obviously not the easiest sort of repertoire to sell to subscribers, and yet FWO thrives. Not that La Cieca wants Fort Worth Opera to lose their leader, but maybe a Darren K. Woods is what the NYCO needs to break its current jinx.
Khachaturian — you obviously don’t know what you’re talking about. NYCO would be lucky to have Darren Woods, and if they know what’s good for them, Fort Worth will not let him go. I know him personally and professionally: he’s a great, brilliant man and very, very good at running opera companies (especially when it comes to that pesky “raising money” thing).
Couldn’t find a natural place for this info but here’s the latest revelations re Katherine Jenkin’s party favour past:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1083975/The-vice-angel-Shocking-pictures-opera-diva-Katherine-Jenkins-influence-drugs.html
Here we go with the New York centrism again. A New York company needs an administrator, so Fort Worth is expected just to give up the man who is transforming that company. Maybe Mr. Woods and Fort Worth are the perfect match for each other? Not all administrators work equally well at all companies. Pamela Rosenberg was ideal for Stuttgart but many felt not for San Francisco.
Arianna: Note that La Cieca said “a Darren K. Woods,” not “the Darren K. Woods.”
Despite assumptions the contrary from Tryptich, I’ve known the person at hand for 25 years. I’m sure he’s a competent fundraiser for a company of this size, but there is a world of difference here. It’s sheer provincialism to assume that he can at this late stage of his professional life could transfer his limited experiences to the kind of visionary business leadership that will be required to bring NYCO back from the dead at this point in an unparalleled financial crisis. Again, I’m sure Sara palin was a heckuva mayor in Wassilla. The basic point of this post is naive to begin with. Darren schedules a gay themed opera, therefore he has the vision to take over NYCO. Can we get real? I applaud his willingness to take a risk in a part of the country that is remarkably intolerant, but this hardly marks him as a genius. And he’s hardly quiet about it, btw.
Ouch! I kinda hate being compared to Sarah Palin and if you’ve known me for 25 years, I’m sorry about that too, obviously.
Khachaturian, you’re either wrong or just misinformed. I thought about writing something snarky here, but the simple fact is he’s one of the smartest people currently working at the helm of any American opera company. Especially for those of us who work full-time in the biz, American opera as an industry needs all the sharp, enterprising minds and energizing leadership it can get right now. DW is a bright star among that leadership — and one whom you could hardly label as “provincial.” He knows how to successfully reorganize, program, cast, and fund multiple seasons at a significant American opera company — which, apparently, is more than you can say of the intendant of the Paris Opera. And furthermore, your implication that bringing in “a” Mortier (someone running a major international house) will automatically prove better than “a” Darren Woods (someone running a regional U.S. company) has just been proven altogether groundless by Mortier’s nixing the deal after nearly 2 years of preparing painstakingly for his arrival, so your point is moot anyway.
mortier is the touch of death.
post Karajan: We need no stars. He says. Salzburg one of the greatest musical festivals in the world succumbs to bland nothing, outcome: done. OVER. still has yet to recover.
Paris Opera: Horrid new view riche, I mean the mispelling, and the company did horridly under him. Finished. They have no opera tradition there anyway. OUTCOME: survives because the government funded his sorry ass.
THANK GOD he didn’t come here.
Khachaturian, surely you’re talking about some other Darren Woods! The guy in Fort Worth just turned 50 (contrary to your baffling reference to “this late stage of his professional life”), and he’s turned FWO around with savvy programming, aggressive fund-raising, innovative marketing and community outreach. He knows NYCO intimately, having sung for years with the company. Aren’t these precisely the qualifications the next director of NYCO will need? (And precisely those that Mortier lacked?) You remind us that NYCO is a bigger outfit than FWO, but apart from that you don’t justify your dim view of Woods’ prospects. The comparison to Palin only underscores your lack of seriousness — unless, as I say, you have some other Darren Woods in mind.
City Opera was lucky to lose Mortier, and they’d be luckier if they could hire Woods.
Hey yall… that probably was THE (not A) Darren Woods at post 16… i contacted FWO to let them know about the post…
You stay right there, DW… and keep bringing DFW great operas… and singers… ill come over there to hear Liz and Stevie and Eugenie and Kim anytime. And the shuttle for subscribers from Dallas is a great idea.