endowment takes another hit
Bloomberg News (your go-to source for bad news about New York City Opera) today laments that the company has “once again reached deep into its endowment.” According to scribe Zinta Lundborg, that endowment has suffered perhaps irreversible shinkage, dwindling from a massive, bulging $51 million in 2001 to a puny, humiliating $3 million currently. Lundborg suggests NYCO has been abusing its endowment by milking it repeatedly; meanwhile, hands-on assistance from deep-pocket donors has still not come. Quite a handful for George Steel, as he, in the words of Anne Midgette, “tries to get it up and running again.”
like being “a little pregnant”?
I’ve always felt that transsexuals made the best bassoon players. Maybe d’agilita is onto something?
#57, you ARE your namesake. Who did you have lunch with today, Miss California Carrie Prejean? Of course no one has considered this past a NY minute because in so doing the answer is as clear as the view through Cio Cio San’s telescope. IF this theory were true, hetero (so they say) Rosenberg would STILL be at San Francisco Opera, hetro (so they say) Gockley would STILL be in Houston, hetero (hard to think otherwise) Domingo would NOT be canceling things left and right in BOTH Washington and Lotus Land, and hetero(so they say) Steel would be suffing millions IN to the City Opera endowment, not taking millions OUT of it. Per carita!
#57. LOL, come on now. On a Wednesday night?
Oh PLEASE, girls, don’t get your panties in a knot over this!!! Just a little jest ( eine farce…Ja Ja ) Remember Terry McEwen and Lotfi Mansouru in SF and Crosby and Gaddes in Santa Fe? Plenty of great purple leaders of our opera companies. I couldn’t resist. Mea culpa. Zu spater, girls.
NYCOQ – I can’t imagine that anyone with the money to save NYCO would be willing to do it unless there was a completely new Board and management team. I don’t think there’s any time left to effect all of that since those are the self-same people who would have to find the savior.
But I don’t think it’s healthy to hire a gerard Mortier – who has no idea how to work with such a small budget – when he has openly said he “hates Pucciniâ€
Oh, for fuck’s sake, again with *that* bullshit! So what if he hates Puccini, so do a good number of other opera professionals I’d imagine who are more bored to tears with Boheme and Tosca as a I am, but guess what! GERARD MORTIER STILL PROGRAMMED 2-4 PUCCINI OPERAS A YEAR AT THE PARIS OPERA! Sorry for yelling, but I’m sick of bullshit being repeated about this man. You have no evidence he hated the audience, none whatsoever, either. God forbid that he expects more out of an audience than to just show up and applaud the fucking scenery and throw bouquets at overhyped, dime-a-dozen diva/divos.
The wailing and lamenting on this site and others when his first NYCO season was announced was pathetic; it was clearly a “calling card” season and there was already talk of the baroque, Mozart and traditional stuff he was planning but on noes! it was pearl clutching “OMG! OMG! No bel canto! He hates Puccini!”. Jeebus.
I believe Lincoln Center can give/loan any of its constituents money over and above the stipend it gives constituents every season. I would assume rather than lose City Opera, Lincoln Center would lend its formidable development muscle to helping find money in addition for City Opera.
I am sure sure there are some donors with deep pockets who will pony up substantial amounts. And of course there are city, state, Federal and National art funding sources. I wonder how much for ‘arts’ is in the NY State stimulus package — City Opera would hardly be the only recipient of or petitioner for money but if they got a one time grant of substantial monies it might make a big difference.
The biggest problems will be assuring potential large donors that the organization can really continue and grow, and their money is not merely a band aid, and raising all this money as quickly as possible.
Also the unions are a wild card and could close the place — though that means losing a lot of jobs in a bad economy. Still, in the first depression, when Gatti asked the Met orchestra to join him and the rest of the company in taking a pay cut, they refused. Unions are not always reasonable and in the arts have been willing on occasion to sacrifice jobs to make a point.
evidence he hates the audience: Die Fledermaus, Hans Neuenfels, Salzburg, 2004.
er 2001
I hope I don’t sound like a know-it-all but even if the by-laws of Lincoln Center allow for an emergency loan I wouldn’t count on it happening. I’m pretty sure the consituents of Lincoln Center divide the budget based on the size of their own budgets. Therefore the Met, which has by far the largest budget, bears the largest cost. I believe budgets for Lincoln Center though are voted on democratically, each organization gets one vote.
This is why Volpe was in such a twist about the possible new theater for NYCO on the Lincoln Center campus. His argument (disingenouus though it may have been) was that, as the largest constituent the Met had only one vote, however, had NYCO gone bankrupt and left an empty theater on the plaza the Met would have been on the hook for the upkeep, etc of the empty theater.
If Lincoln Center makes a loan to the Opera it would, for the most part, be a loan from the Met. Does anyone here think Peter Gelb is going to lend George Steel money to get his opera company going while asking the Met’s employees to take a 10% pay cut?
I had once held out hope for a loan from the Ballet, because NYCO shares the rent for the State theater with the ballet. This was before the layoffs. Does anyone here think Peter Martins is going to lend George Steel money to get his opera company going after laying off a number of dancers from the corps?
I have no idea what the budget for Mr. Steel’s 9-10 season is. But let’s just say Mr. Steel is planning to spend the entire $3M left in the endowment for this year (as if it were enough, which I am sure it is not). That would mean in 10-11 to mount a season even half as large as Robin Thompson’s last season he would have to raise $21M (Mr. Thompson budget was approx $42M I believe) between now and next March when contracts and tickets have to be printed for the 10-11 season.
In practice though Mr. Steel is stuck with contracts for the orchestra and the chorus which gaurantee them a minimum in line with what was needed for for the 7-8 season. So Mr. Steel’s fixed costs for even a half season would not be half of what Mr. Thompson’s costs were. UNLESS, the unions all cave. Does anyone here think the unions are going to consent to give backs because of the ineptitude of the NYCO board?
I have not heard anything one way or the other about negotations but the early word in the Times was not encouraging.
I am fairly certain of these two other facts. The annual NYCO shortfall was in the $7M dollar range and the development dollars raised year after year were approx $14M. So to even ride out Mr. Thompson last season without a deficit the development office would have had to raise %50 more money!
In addition, word is Mr. Kellog, whose budgets were in line with Mr. Thompsons, really felt he needed another $10M to do the season right. So to satisfy Paul, the development department would have had to have raised an additional $17M, more than twice what it had ever raised!!!
So there you have it. No matter what happens Mr. Steel has to find between $20 (a half season assuming the unions reduce their minimum weeks) and $52 (what PK thought he needed with the union contracts as they exist now) million dollars, in just under a year to mount the 10-11 season.
In addition he has to raise whatever he needs to spend beyond the $3M they have in the bank for 9-10. One last number, somewhere somehow someone told me NYCO’s fixed costs were $30M. So even for 9-10, without any production expenses whatsoever, Mr. Steel needs to raise $27M somewhere along the way between now and the end of the 9-10 season. This is just to pay rent and existing contracts.
All in all NYCO needs to raise between (are you ready) 48 (27 for this year, 21 for next) to 79 (27 for this year, 52 for next) million dollars in the next two years. By way of comparison the Mets annual budget is around $290M and SFO’s $72M, Santa Fe $15M and Dallas $12M. Apparently, Mr. Steel succesfully raised about $1.3M for the Miller one year and their budget was $3M.
If I have made an error here please feel free to point it out, it’s late, I’m tired and I am compiling different sources via google. Lastly I have not included ticket revenues because I don’t think they matter much, particularly at this stage. If you want to do so I believe %40 of the Mets budget is covered by ticket sales so that is a good factor to reduce all these numbers by..if you dare.
Personal to the man with the cape: Big D doesn’t seem so bad now does it?