So well built, we can’t show you the second act
La Cieca hears that a big axe just fell in the marketing department over at Sterling Cooper Draper Gelb. Look for a new director to be hired from outside the company.
La Cieca hears that a big axe just fell in the marketing department over at Sterling Cooper Draper Gelb. Look for a new director to be hired from outside the company.
(No kidding, the Met’s marketing program targeted to the younger crowd is called the “Young Associates Program” and starts at $500 per season for 4 shows and 2 dress rehearsals I believe.)
Young Associates is a membership program, sort of a “Patron program apprentice system,” and all membership in arts orgs is considered part of “development,” which is considered fundraising. And Public Relations is not primarily a marketing issue either, especially in an organization as feudalized as the Met is. One of Gelb’s first objectives was ending what he referred to as “feudalization” at the Met, but that objective seems to have been swallowed up by the jealous turf protection of the divisions within the organization. Perhaps the current reorganization in marketing is a new salvo in the anti-feudal effort, perhaps not.
Lets just hope everyone leaves with both of their feet.
Just when he got it in the door.
For operacat (I think), at the chat last Saturday :
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/0593431a-9999-11df-a852-00144feab49a.html
anyway – for all those who liked Die Passagierin.
Thank you Manou. I did like Passagierin and am glad to know that it will be playing New York in the next few years.
Any marketing program–or any expenditure of operating funds for that matter–has to have a payoff, a return on investment. Simply “raising awareness” isn’t enough, and it would seem to me that an enormous gamble the Met has taken may not pan out.
I do think that an element of publicity and marketing can assist to sell tickets to operas other than boheme and Aida, and the younger generation is the most insular and isolated thus far. In college dorms now, one doesn’t even hear the neighbor’s stereo anymore because it’s all plugged in on iPods. It’s a very specific challenge to expand the Met’s audience from its previous demographic. But it’s worth the struggle to expand the focus of the publicity campaigns. It is, in my opnion, a very foolhardy thing to think that marketing and getting asses in the seat actually builds a sustaining audience that will grow into a generous donor base. (And speaking of which, until the Congress gets off its own asses and determines what the estate tax situation is going to be, and what next year’s tax rates are going to be, the more well-heeled donor base simply can’t do any planning to know what they can and cannot donate relative to tax consequence and simple cash flow calculations.)
That said, I still hold that the wild and narcissistic expenses of the Met which, unlike the Regie Capitals of the World, is not State-subsidized, have to bear some resemblance to the fiscal realities. We cannot sniff about new productions needing to cost millions simply because we believe opera is ‘good for you’ and is so culturally irreplaceable. In my view, the Met continues to indulge its artistic management, as it has for the last generation, and the money simply isn’t there to support it. I understand completely why I’m in the deep minority about this, but I just don’t see where spending the “seed corn” of the endowment (capital/principal, not income) is a gamble that could possibly pay off.
I would almost agree with you on the need to spend less except that:
–those lavish new productions (Zeffirelli, remember?) are said to attract audiences that wouldn’t be attracted to routine revivals or more austere productions otherwise. Certainly the Met in the recent past has treated some of those lavish productions as cash cows.
–there are large areas of the standard repertory which simply can’t be done as regularly as before because we lack first-class singers in that repertory. At the same time, the first-class singers we do have tend to be first-class in repertories which historically haven’t been the Met’s main focus, and for which new productions of some kind are going to be needed.
I don;t get a sense of what the austerity regime you prescribe for the Met would look like. Is it simply a case of more austere productions (cf the John Dexter years)? Less new productions of operas already in the repertoire? Less operas new to the Met repertoire? Less performances altogether? Do tell.
I personally haven’t much objection to the Dexter look, as “Carmelites,” from what I remember, was very well received as opera theater. I’m not suggesting that we go back to the age of the pre-Bing painted backdrops that wave whenever the Big Girl stumbles by them.
I understand that the cash cows are necessary, and I can’t believe how old the Zeff boheme is (I saw it in the first run, and several times thereafter). It may continue to sell primarily because of the production itself–and it’s not the toughest opera in the repertory to cast, either. What I can’t see supporting are the vanity projects that involve huge expense of money for productions that are very hard to cast and that won’t sell many tickets over a ten-year period. The Met is not alone; but if it’s nearly impossible to cast a truly satisfatory Ring, the emphasis for at least a generation now has been to distract the audience with regie tricks and titilations and self-indulgent crap. If it’s true that the LA Ring cost $32 million, how can that be made up? How many productions of Trovatore did the Met produce in the last 30 years? That opera is almost entirely dependent upon great Verdi singing–and that’s a case where I don’t believe (as an example) one has to spend outrageous money on productions to present great singing–IF it’s even available.
Do they really need to mess with Carmen if a decent production can sell because of exciting casting? What gets up my nose is the repellant pretense that our society can only survive as a viable culture if we all support productions that are clearly meant to distract from indifferent singing. I guess I can’t understand why the audience has to accept extreme reaches of imagination and “cleverness” where a truly innovative director might be able to present the fresh, updated interpretation of well-worn characters and situations in a thoughtful way. In my view, I had a much better experience listening to Colin Davis and the NYPO in a concert version of “Beatrice et Benedict” many years ago, and also when he brought the LSO for “Peter Grimes.” If the Grimes himself wasn’t having the greatest afternoon, I found that concert more probing and moving, because of its music-making, than I believe I’d have found the new production. And, no, I didn’t see it–after our Doyenne presented a few pictures of it I decided against it. There are good DVDs out there–and perhaps productions that may be better sung, too.
I was around in the last years of the Met’s hanging on to that dreadful Troyens from the 70s, and the rather shabby FRoSCH. I also understand that the 1958 Butterfly probably had to go when it reached middle age. But, as they say “you pays your money and you takes your choice,” I’m a lot happier with a production that’s a little more adaptable to a several-year run than the noble experiments that just leave a fella scratching his head, and then having to open up the checkbook to replace yet another version.
And, yes, if I were the Met, I’d be on a damned austerity diet by now. Big time. They have compensation and operating expenses they cannot control: they are in a position to control the outlays for a whole slew of new productions they may only have to replace later if they go too far over the edge with ‘creativity.’ I would imagine they’d get some respect, too, from the people from whom they’re actually raising the money…
People keep talking about the success of From The House Of The Dead and The Nose. Damn right it was nothing to do with marketing. NYCO always had one or two interesting (read: worth seeing at least once) 20th Century operas every season. Since they really didn’t have much of a season the Met got the NYCO & BAM crowd with those productions. Not really hard to get when you have thousands of people in NYC starving to see those productions. Same with the Satygraha. Full to capacity AND not with regular Met goers – just New Yorkers starving to see those operas produced somewhere, anywhere. The upside is that they were all critical successes, but I have seen many a dog all over the world just because I wanted to see a rarely produced work. Most of the posters here are still talking about the Tosca, but honestly if I never see a Puccini opera again it will be too soon, whether it be good, bad or indifferent regie…
Look, I broke down and subscribed last year because I was usually end up going several times a year anyway. I even made a suggested contribution, because I’m a suggestable kind of guy. But I’ll never do it again. House of the Dead and The Nose did well, as far as I can tell, because they were vivid, interesting, decently sung evenings of opera theater. The productions were imaginative and well executed. Also well rehearsed. But I won’t subscribe because I don’t ever want to get stuck with dreck like this past year’s Tosca, Tales of Hoffman, and Attila again. By the time we got to Armida I threw in the towel and stayed home. Dad productions, badly staged, badly sung with people other than those I bought tickets for. It’s not the marketing team that needs shaking up, it’s the artistic side of the house.
Pearl Fisher, NOT seeing Armida may be the best opera-related decision you’ll ever make. But there is some promising Met rep this year, Wozzeck, Capriccio, the two Wagner operas, even Le comte Ory (at least the cast is interesting).
FTHOTD was for me, somewhat over-rated, though Peter Mattei was riveting. This season at The Met, Mattei is doing Yeletsky (OK) and Marcello (a waste). Why the hell can’t the The Met schedule Billy Budd with Mattei, instead of that Gunn guy?
You had a subscription made up entirely of new productions? I wasn’t aware they offered such a thing.
It does seem like asking for trouble, doesn’t it?