“He’s a naive domestic Intendant without any breeding, but I think you’ll be amused by his presumption”
With the country mired in a recession and the Met carrying a heavy load of debt, what better publicity can there be than a sycophantic profile in the Wall Street Journal featuring Peter Gelb snarfing up an $800 bottle of “explosively rich” wine? (La Cieca can’t wait until next month’s Sports Illustrated, featuring Brigitte Lacombe photos of Keri-Lynn Wilson‘s dressage horse…)
An enterprising member of the MET accounting department might want to look at his expense account to see if that $800 bottle of wine was expensed as a business dinner or not…
Even those at the top can be toppled from false expenses
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2367509,00.asp
Messa di, I have to disagree with you on the Gelb article in the Journal.
It is lousy PR for the opera company.
Gelb, who knows press technique, should have made it very clear in the article that he was paying for his own wine, or he should have said who did, in order to relieve any fear that the Met paid for it. If they did, via Gelb’s expense account, that is just one more serious black eye of a very tone deaf man.
When I read the WSJ early this morning, admittedly with only 1/2 cup of coffee yet
absorbed, I was startled by the inappropriateness of it all. What Gelb does in private with wine or anything else, at his own expense, is his business and we should leave it be. But when he parades it in print across the nation on a Saturday morning it is everybody’s business, and contributors to the Met will want to take note.
You don’t have to be a PR genius to figure this out — it is just simple ABCs.
I am ever-more convinced that Gelb is the Met’s main problem, and in no way a solution to their problems. I hope that board is getting a new B Team ready to take over. Levine is gone for good, and I think Gelb’s passport is being readied.
So who is in the running to take over?
“If they did, via Gelb’s expense account, . . .”
“I hope that board is getting a new B Team ready, . . . who is in the running to take over?”
And if I were a unicorn, I’d fart rainbows. Do you want to come up with a few more hypotheticals and personal fantasies to make whatever your argument is?
“contributors to the Met will want to take note”
Take note of what? Of how Gelb spends every penny of his salary, the amount of which is public knowledge?
One can argue about the size of his salary, but how he spends it -- on wine, on nose candy, on rentboys -- who cares?
My goodness messa, don’t you read English?
My argument, clearly stated, is that the MET general director
drinking $800 bottles of wine is not good PR for the opera
company -- regardless who paid, but if it was a travel expense
boo hiss. Met contributors will not like. They will take note of
it, and should.
Gee whiz, you are in a grumpy mood. Take it out somewhere else!
“One can argue about the size of his salary, but how he spends it – on wine, on nose candy, on rentboys – who cares?”
…on spies to frequent and post in various online opera blogs…
The Met’s “main problem” is the absence of a music director. Neither Gelb, the board nor the person collecting the music director’s salary seems willing to face that one.
Breaking: Piotr Beczala cancels Salzburg Boheme tonight; audience is asked to be patient 40 minutes until arrival of substitute: Jonas Kaufmann.
https://twitter.com/ZerbinettasBlog/status/231813579429515264
Where was Boe?????
Here, Vicar Dear —--
Unnecessary on all counts.
This was an abomination of the first order (from somebody who loves West Side Story, and these singers in their correct rep). And that was months ago. Fleming has not stopped since though not sure where Alfie is.
Speaking of that, did anyone see her Marschallin in Munich?
You coming out to SFE? Patricia Bardon is a wonder
of the world. I have not seen such a complete and thrilling
performance of a role in years, as Calbo in MMII. Worth
the trip. Two more perfs, Aug 7 Aug 16. I am interviewing
her Aug 15; can’t wait.
j
Obviously, this meant for Wakefield.
Ms Bardon is Irish (nowhere near Wakefield) and in a class of her own. Wish I could have seen this.
Mr. Myster,
Hello. I do not know if you were asking me but since we had spoken of this before, I just will let you know this: yes, we not only intended to go but actually made reservations, and with a friend. Everything was cancelled due to economic realities and the need to attend to much needed home renovation costs.
We are indeed sorry to miss the Rossini, but will console ourselves with Moise in Egitto next spring, which NYCO will present.
To be quite honest, I have grown a bit weary of opera, for the first time in my life, and will increasingly limiting my attendance and seeking out more ballet, especially the New York City Ballet. I have had enough of some of the foolishness that currently abounds on the lyric stage and there is a vast realm of neglected theatrical spectacle that I would like now to turn my belated attention to.
And so it goes.
Hi Camille. Yes we had talked about this and I am sorry you are not attending. I am very pleasantly surprised by the quality of performances this summer — with only one minor exception (the Bizet) they are all very good, and in MMII, they are sensational.
We must discuss sometime. Do you have my email?
And don’t forget, La donna del lago here next summer completing an overview of Rossini’s ‘serious’ San Carlo operas. (My review of MMII and
King Roger are presently up on OperaToday; take a peek.)
Well, now that you mention it I have grown a bit tired of opera too — I don’t like to sit for 90-minute acts and so on, and with high quality sound systems and the Santa Fe Chamber Music offering one-hour noontime recitals — well you can see where my interest lies. I get so
much from DVDs of operas comfortably seated in my own home. BUT
when the likes of Crocetto, Bardon, Sledge and Pisaroni are gathered into one cast -- ! In fact I am going back next week to see it again.
Bardon is spectacular — and this is the woman who sang Erda at the Met, now singing high-mezzo coloratura bravado role in a Rossini tragedy. The voice is very special. I hope she comes back here and she should certainly appear more in NYC and SFO. And, yes, she won the Cardiff singer, I think in 1983 when she was age-18. That lady has durability and technique.
Quick, someone tell Karita Mattila that she didn’t win Cardiff in 1983! Poor thing, she’ll be devastated.
Boe has turned his back on the opera world after landing tiny parts at Covent Garden. A terrible loss! lol
At first, I was psych’d with the excitement what might be like if I was waiting for Kaufmann instead of Beczala, but at this moment, I feel I would be more excited if the world found a new rising star who could have been actually standing by at the wing, although Kaufmann is more than the audience wished for as a replacement.
I may have misunderstood but I got the impression from watching interviews with Pereira that they don’t actually have understudies at Salzburg.
You can watch the series of interviews here (in German) and they are very interesting, with Periera, Welser-Möst, and Kaufmann:
http://tvthek.orf.at/programs/1303-Kulturmontag/episodes/4394437-Kulturmontag-aus-Salzburg
They won’t be up much longer, so watch now if you want. Getting back to topic, Gelb is even mentioned as an Intendant who books 6 years in advance.
I wonder if Beczala is really ill, or just sung out from his high impact earlier performance in that huge house. How nice of Kaufmann to save the show. I hope he does not get hit by a shopping cart or fall off the ramp in soave fanciulla.
What luxury to have Jonas as an understudy in Salzburg, bliss. Reminds me of the Met of yesteryear.
Going back to the WSJ article; “in wino wearitas”. Gelb reminds me of Dulcamara, but he is not as convincing. Trying to praise the Ring by such means as asking people to understand Lepage’s intentions or Voigt’s heroism. Perhaps he is really advertising the Met’s opening L’Elisir next month. Nonetheless, I dislike Gelb less after reading this article. Bar Boulud is nice. I love the little Christmas tree like dish they serve escargots in, and the coq au vin is delicious. As long as Gelb likes food and wine, we might hope for a nice production of something, sometime.
What luxury to have Jonas as an understudy in Salzburg, bliss.
He wasn’t an understudy. He agreed to sing on short notice to save the performance.
Reminds me of the Met of yesteryear.
And the Met of today, when Roberto Alagna jumps in for Marcelo Alvarez or Waltraud Meier flies in and out of New York in 24 hours to rescue a performance of Tristan und Isolde?
Per later tweet from Zerbinetta, Beczala acted and Kaufmann sang from music on the side of the stage. The Night of Two Rodolfos, she called it.
And said it was amazing.
I’m assuming that, professional that he is, Jonas will be ready to go tomorrow evening for Bacchus streaming live (sort of) on medici.tv
Indeed! Star replacements have been a trademark of Gelb’s regime since his first season.
“Met of today, when Roberto Alagna jumps in for Marcelo Alvarez or Waltraud Meier flies in and out of New York in 24 hours to rescue a performance of Tristan und Isolde?”
True; on such occasions, Mr. Gelb took a break from the truffles and Moet-Chandon and came out and made the announcements and basked in the applause from credulous TIMES readers.
When, however, Marine Meshcheriakova was pushed on with an hour’s notice for Guleghina as Norma, there was no insert in the program, and not only did Gelb not appear--NO ONE appeared to announce a change at all. (The only place the change was noted was on the tiny, out-of-sight spaghetti board down near where the house manager stands). So most of the crowd thought they were hearing Guleghina, and were unprepared to be sympathetic to a nervous understudy doing her first Met Norma.
That was very instructive, and there have been other such occasions since.
Nerva non mente!
I was there and recall staring at that little board out front, in disbelief.
Mescheriakova surely had her difficulties but when Guleghina finally did sing the performance, well, after that I took a year to go back to another Met performance.
To think that Verrett was booed after her Casta Diva for only slight intonation problems.
Which one of them did the awful, awful Norma broadcast that season? Whoever it was, I believe that was the worst singing I have ever heard emanating from the Met.
(Yes, Verrett’s Norma was a mistake on her part, but was forgivable.)
Almavivante,
There were 8 Normas in the November/December 2007 period; five of them were broadcast live via Sirius.
(Uh-huh.)
Hasmik Papian sang November 12 & 19 (the former was the series prima plus company debut of Julianna di Giacomo, who is now wrapping up her own Normas at Caracalla). Maria Guleghina sang November 26; Marina Mescheriakova the 30th; Guleghina again on December 4 (which was also streamed live at metopera.org).
“As for “The Ring,” Mr. Gelb said he felt its critics had failed to comprehend Mr. Lepage’s intentions.”
I appreciate Mr. Gelb letting me know that I am too stupid to understand a production that veered between unintentional ridiculousness and crushing banality.
Maestro Levine used to lunch every day at Lutece. On an expense account. No one complained except Tony Bliss.
Ah, perhaps we should thank Monsieur Soltner for many an enjoyable performance with Levine conducting many moons ago. Should someone advise Luisi to lunch every day at Jean Georges?
Cieca, you are correct correcting me, merci. Of course Jonas is not an understudy even at Salzburg; I exaggerated, still suffering from conquering my machine phobia to go see him in the spring only to get what’s-his-name, Sieglinde’s husband. I was not happy at all about that replacement.
Maybe L’Elisir will be Château Margaux and not Ripple wine. At least we’ll have Trebs.
Survey: What is it about Gelb that makes him do distasteful?
SO distasteful
Puts on a lot of crap shows in stupid productions with singers who cannot do their parts justice and now with the added non attraction of an incompetent main conductor and mediocre orchestral playing?
This is a bit over the top. Luisi may not be the best conductor in the world, but he is far from incompetent. There are other conductors on the Met roster one could have doubts about. And most Met singers can “do their parts justice,” though they may not be thrilling. And many of those “crap” productions are shared with other major opera houses whose indendants obviously share Mr. Gelb’s bad taste.
Well Luisi could not keep the soloists and chorus together with the orchestra in the broadcast of Traviata. I call that incompetent.The last Met season treated us to a parade of horrors in leading parts, among the most notable Michael as Lady Macbeth, Dessay in Traviata, de Niese in that Baroque pastiche, Marcello Giordani as Radames, and many other merely mediocre and boring ones.
Yes, a lot of the crap productions as well as the horrible singers also pop up at the world’s other “A-list” houses. I am glad that what is happening at what might be described as the next level down is much better. Santa Fe appears to be having a very successful season with interesting rep performed by good singers and high musical standards. Washington National Opera put on a great Nabucco in May, audiences and critics loved it. San Francisco an Attila which by all accounts was excellent. All much better than the generally dire level of Met performances last season.
So Washington National Opera puts on one good production, San Francisco Opera puts on one good productions, Santa Fe puts on what seems to be a single very good festival season, and all these singularities (most of which you didn’t see) are compared not to the best, but to the worst the Met has done in the past season.
That is about as unfair a comparison as it is possible to do. It is reasonable enough to complain that the day-to-day repertoire of the Met should be on a higher standard, and in an ideal world the first choice to conduct the Ring should be a brilliant maestro, not simply a very good one. (Ideally, too, that maestro should be available for the rehearsal times that were set in stone five years earlier for a different conductor.) It is also fair to complain that last season’s new productions were generally disappointing.
But the thing is, no opera house offers both magnificent new productions and sharp revivals week after week, season after season. There are wonderful patches and dire patches. And, frankly, that is true of most seasons at the Met over the history of the company. (There are some exceptions, e.g., Bing’s first couple of seasons at Lincoln Center or the first decade of Gatti-Casazza’s tenure. But the general trend is that whoever the general manager, there are good seaons and bad season, good nights and bad nights.
Not so coincidentally, “brilliant” seasons have a lot do with the relationship of the economy of New York City vs. that of Europe: when NYC’s dollars are strong, full houses flock to the best singers in the world. This happened at the Met from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, for example, despite crap productions and some very mediocre conducting on nights when Levine didn’t grace the podium; there were lots of awful or just plain boring singers shlepping around the stage too.
All these years of awful Dessay performances and ruinous Dessay last-minute cancellations I agree is a black eye to the Met. If she’s kept on for the Cesare I will be very angry. But, to tell the truth, the Met is hardly the only company refusing to cut her loose: she introduced her lousy Traviata in Santa Fe and San Francisco seems to be under the delusion she will show up there next season to sing the heroines in Hoffmann. As such, if you are going to use Dessay as a club to beat Gelb, you don’t get to ooh and aah over the genius of Santa Fe and San Francisco.
I am bothered by Gelb’s pretentiousness and sense of privilege. If he didn’t have his family connections, at best, he would be still working as an Met usher. Volpe was a better CEO — someone who learned the organization from the bottom up.
Bringing opera to the big screen is a good thing from my perspective — but hardly a Gelb innovation, most of the major houses are doing it. I saw a La Scala performance at Symphony Space prior to the Met’s HD broadcasts.
When will someone — preferably at the Met Board level — shout that the emperor has no clothes?
He can afford a good vintage. He is paid three (or four) time what his colleagues get in Vienna, London, Paris or Milan.
I am not a fan of Gelb, but he probably earns his money. The intendants at the major European houses can rely on a nice fat subsidy, even in these straitened times. He probably needs to work a lot harder at raising money, so he needs to be as much a businessman as an administrator.