Please MrMyster…Dallas has more people that MOVED here that were actually BORN here… Ive spent a goodly amount of time in Santa Fe and while Dallas is hardly my favorite city in the world, Im alot happier here than I would be in Santa Fe I think.

I just hope that NYCO is REALLY a greener pasture for Mr. Steel.

He faces equal challenges in fund raising and developing a wider audience aside from balancing the budget and presenting an exciting and varied operatic repertoire in these two companies.

I don’t like to comment any pros or cons to his move but hopefully he has made a wiser decision for himself,his family and the company he will soon engage.

TT

I do, however, absolutely agree with you that it’s ludicrous to think that Steel never once managed to find himself at NYCO.

“The Mother of Us All,” while a brilliant production, really didn’t sell at all. It also worked much better in the intimate theater at Glimmerglass, albeit with a mixed-bag cast, and didn’t transfer as well as I’d hoped into the State Theater.

And, please, NYCO: NO MORE JONATHAN MILLER. He is Exhibit A that it is possible to be a highly intelligent, witty individual, without possessing one iota of talent as a stage director.

But he’ll find something that suits him, regardless of what the rest of us think of it.

I’m going out on a limb and guessing that there will definitely be some sort of season next year. It may be shorter, with fewer works than was usual under PK. But, he’s been hired to get things going. If things don’t get going, then they are paying him for nothing. Also, if the board did tell Mortier they had $34 million for him, one presumes they still have approximatey $34 million for Mr. Steel.

I was at a number of opening nights last season sitting near the VIP seats and never saw him. Just to say “He was seen.” isn’t really much, if any information. Not very different from me saying “He was not seen.” Tell us what he saw and you can singlehandedly put to rest this ugly ugly rumor (which I too have heard) that he is ignorant of the repetoire. Inquiring minds want to know….

I should think that the Kellogg regime would have left behind a few productions worth reviving of operas less routine than Butterfly, while NYCO gets their act together. For starters, what about the Christopher Alden Mother of us all or the Mark Morris Platee?

Puhlease folks, no one at NYCO has ever had anything like 34 million just for productions. So the 4 million (over the 30 mill fixed costs, rent and contracted employees; orchestra, ast. directors, stagehands) includes costs of the production (renting or building) singers, guest conductors, guest or additional musicians. I don’t know if the 4 million includes non-contract staff (administrators) but I bet it does.

And it will be pretty hard for Mr. Steel to rent productions from other companies that he has never even seen! Also, none of the Mortier productions, which were all rentals from Europe, are going to be available to Mr. Steel. They were available to Mortier because of personal connections, etc. And at that they were expensive, too expensive for this new reduced budget.

He will literally have to go into the warehouse at NYCO and see what he likes. I don’t think he has any other options.

First, they didn’t attend themselves or didn’t keep their eyes open if they really think that. (I recall seeing him there myself. He was seen at EVERY kind of classical music event in the city.) And such a statement is one more evidence of a laughable lack of sophistication about how the NYC musical world works. Steel wouldn’t have got very far not attending the NYCO when his board and the City Opera board shared a most munificent monied link.

Attention to such things paid off for him before, is paying off now, and will pay off for City Opera in future.

And it’s hard to believe that any human being thinks another would be more likely to have dough charmed out of them by Joe Volpe than by George Steel. Beggars the imagination.

The first question I would ask Mr. Steel at a press conference would be this:

“Tell us what production or productions you’ve seen at NYCO in the last ten years are ones you would point to as examples of what the company is doing well?”

I think that would tell us an awful lot.

I heard the very same thing you heard about Dallas picking up Steel through a headhunter, and about Dallas being furious with the headhunter once Steel actually came aboard and the Board discovered, instantly, that Steel was the wrong person for the job from administrative, artistic and fund-raising viewpoints. I am told that Steel was informed by the Board last month that his future in Dallas was tenuous.

Ah well, interesting times. I admit to a mighty curiosity about how he’ll proceed. Will he stick to all or part of Mortier’s planned first season, or go off completely in his own direction.

Good luck Steel, you are going to need it.

This is just off the top of my head of course as I don’t know how things are line budgeted at NYCO.

It does seem interesting that in the fields of dance and theater, where there is a lot of challenging brand-new stuff out there, the NYT critics have no problem labeling a new piece as crap. In classical music, where the programming is much meeker, the Times reviewers always include lots of wordage about how even though this piece was not up to much, the presenter should be lauded for doing it, part of the duty of an orchestra, etc. etc.

I am intrigued. I don’t know Steele, but am familiar with his work. This is interesting and I hope for the best. NYC needs NYCO and more importantly from my point of view, American opera singers need NYCO as a place to get noticed. Too many careers got a huge boost when emerging singers sang leading roles at Lincoln Center. The opera world without NYCO is too grim a prospect to consider.