dick or no dick?
In what will probably stand in history as her most wrong-headed judgment call ever, on December 24 La Cieca concluded that George Steel would not accept an offer from the New York City Opera. Your doyenne cited two reasons for her position: first, that the job wouldn’t have much in the way of art to offer for a few years as the company struggled to stay alive financially and second, that dumping Dallas for New York so early on would be either a dick move or else perceived as a dick move, which in the broader view amounts to the same thing.
The first (finance vs. art) reason may or may not apply: La Cieca really is as clueless about the NYCO’s finances as, say, Susan Baker. So let’s put that one aside for the moment and move on reason #2.
Well, cher public, what do you think? Is Steel behaving like a dick, and if so, why? Let’s begin by remembering that La Cieca doesn’t know the guy and is not very familiar with his work. So your doyenne is not going to jump to any conclusions. However, it does seem that Steel’s recent “Two-Face” behavior might be explained three different ways:
(A) Steel (though he is not a dick) is naive and doesn’t realize that his behavior comes off dickish.
(B) Steel (though he is not a dick) realizes his behavior comes off dickish, but figures with time and good work in the new position, the dicky smell will wear off.
(C) Steel is a dick, and as such NYCO should prepare for a major and brutal ass-fucking.
At the moment, La Cieca is leaning toward (B), with maybe a soupçon of (A), giving Steel the benefit of the doubt because of the floppy hair and the rimless glasses. Of course, the real proof of nondickery is in the pudding (La Cieca expresses herself badly) so we will all be waiting with great interest to hear reports of Steel’s first meetings with NYCO staff tomorrow. (That’s a hint, folks; La Cieca is fishing for gossip, and as always her word is her bond that sources remain confidential.)
Dumb, squabbling “trustees” (did they ever know the meaning of the word trust?) have opted for the cutest guy they can tolerate. So what.
Look at Canadian Opera where a truly professional and well-grounded Intendant has found an MD with ten solid years of operatic experience. Why can’t NYCO have a tenth of that probity, huh?
Mme Turandot: Really, Miss, are you serious? That is, did you think I was serious? I do not make such generalizations — I was representing standard stereotypical humor about Texas — “laughing stock Texas,” which you should certainly know. We certainly laugh at them from here, while taking their money, of course, and to make fun of Dallas is a great local sport, here and lots of other places. I once reviewed Mary Jane Johnson’s Minnie as “a Neiman-Marcus Minnie,” and I got a phone call from a Texas magazine saying “what in the world do you mean by that?” Honey, if you have to ask I cannot explain. Ever heard of tongue-in-cheek, otherwise known as ‘joking on the facts?’ Oh, my blood oxygen is at 96; what’s yours?
Now, yawll cum to Santy Fay and we’ll giv ya a right good time!
It’s ironic that in an August 13, 2008 NY Times article about George Steel leaving Miller to go to Dallas, he is quoted as saying “I will certainly be the Mortier of Dallas and then some.”
What’s troubling for Steel is that the same article states that the annual budget of the Miller theater is around $3 million – obviously a much smaller and less complex an operation than NYCO. That’s like becoming mayor of Philadelphia based on your experience as mayor of a small suburban town. The issues and problems that he’ll face at NYCO are going to be different, difficult, intractable, convoluted and long-standing compared to anything that he faced at Miller.
Good luck to him – he might have a chance with extraordinarily solid board support. I’ll be rooting for him to do some good for NYCO. It would make me very sad to see it go under.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/13/arts/music/13stee.html
Back to the original question, B…BBB! The public can be very forgiving, especially since NYCO has been drawing up this huge ‘cry me a river’ campaign for a while now and it’s the ‘people’s opera.’ And the media has def. bought into it…it’s almost as though if NYCO doesn’t recover then no other house stands a chance.
However, there’s no doubt about it, if I were Dallas Opera, I’d be pissed. But the dicky smell will wear off soon.
I have reason to believe that the search committees in both Dallas and New York vetted him about as thoroughly as the McCain team did Sarah Palin.
Dallas also used a head-hunter who is local, and who, by his own admission, specializes in searches for college and university deans, and has absolutely no working knowledge of the performing arts. I have it on pretty good authority that, during his brief tenure in Dallas, the senior staff and key board members found Mr. Steel to be an unmitigated disaster, and that he knows next to nothing about opera: the rep, singers, conductors, directors, designers, etc.
Zambello lobbied aggressively for the NYCO position during the last go-round as well, when it ultimately went to Mortier. Trouble is, her temper has burnt too many bridges, and she’s become a very polarizing figure. In terms of whether she or Susan Baker is telling the truth about whether or not she was outright offered artistic leadership of NYCO, I wouldn’t wish to choose between them, given the unreliability of both regarding truth-telling. Zambello and Manuela have become all about mythology-building and hagiography concerning Zambello’s legacy and achievements, even if that involves bending the truth.
That said, I too give her props for having the cojones to make statements that *someone* needed to put on record regarding the NYCO board’s incompetence and malfeasances. It’s just sad and pathetic that the choice came down to either Zambello or Steel.
Dallas considers itself lucky that Steel is gone; no tears here in Big D….and I don’t like George Bush either!
Forgot that Zambello’s with Hoelterhoff, thought it was Patricia Racette for some reason. Hence my earlier statement.
The impression that I got from the Times this morning was that there was a chance of having both Steel and Zambello on board, one as general manager, the other as artistic director. Am I the only one?
He doesn’t seem like a dick on the video NYCO posted of him:
http://blog.nycopera.com/pr/nycopera/blog/blog-post.aspx?id=1388&gclid=CKqGu8X1kJgCFQGHHgodbgcGnw
So does anyone know why Steel is in the NY TIMES “approved column”, along with Elliot Carter, Ian Bostridge, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Peter Gelb and others they never, ever criticize?
Is it his good work at Miller? Family or social connections? Being straight with kids would play well with the Rosenthal holdovers there; being kinda of cute with the senior critic.
Hmmm, interesting video. He seems like a sweet guy, let’s hope he has balls. (None currently in evidence.) He’s obviously been coached to say “the David H. Koch theater” and “the People’s Opera.” Someone’s already pulling some strings…Did Mortier make this kind of video? I can’t imagine…The fact that Steel doesn’t seem like a dick may not be a good thing at this point.