Vulture: When George Steel took over New York City Opera in 2009, he hoped to be the man who could rescue the tottering company. Instead, this week, he wound up being the one to shut down a beloved operatic institution that had been a fixture of the city’s cultural life for 70 years. Justin Davidson talked to him the day after the closure was announced.
2 comments:
It's pretty fascinating to see how much it really takes to run a performance company. It seems like there's a lot more to it than people usually think -- it's more than just how much money is available or putting on a show and selling seats. It's also donor interest, location, market research, and a lot of other factors that need to be taken into account: even well received shows don't guarantee success. At the same time, it's interesting to note the parallels between running an opera and running a more "typical" company, from an economic standpoint.
Its sad, but everything has to come to an end eventually and thats what happened to the New York City Opera after 70 years. Who even goes to the Opera anymore? Id you want to sit for three hours watching large people singing in German or Italian then be my guest, but I'm not going to pay a ridiculous money to get a lullaby song. The company has never made any money from their productions, but they lost their balance and support from the community. George Steel said, "I came in to do everything I could to save the company, and I feel good that I did everything I could do." I don't think this is true at all, "everything" has a large meaning and he definitely could have done more to save the company. But even if he did, it would have just crashed again, so he didn't want to make the effort to have it go up in flames again. I'm happy that the company is done because now something cool can go into that space that isn't opera.
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