The good news is that the Met reduced its operating deficit for 2008-2009 to $1.3 million, down from $12.2 million a year earlier. The bad news is the company’s assets fell by $72.6 million (down to $422.7 million) primarily because of investment losses. In other news, the Met paid James Levine a bit more than Peter Gelb received for the fiscal year, slightly over $1.5 million. (La Cieca will now sit back and listen to the online explanations of how unfair this is, because Jimmy actually makes music whereas Gelb just sits in an office all day thinking about how much he hates opera.) [via Bloomberg]