Grand Opera: The Story of the Met

by Affron, Charles

  9. Reppa designed the 1976 Aïda. “What Mr. Dexter”: Andrew Porter, New Yorker (Feb. 7, 1977): 98. The three Prophète principals can be heard in a recording made just months before the Met revival. “with the virtuosity”: Time (Jan. 31, 1977).

  10. For Dexter on Dialogues des Carmélites, see Dexter, The Honourable Beast, 108–19. “sensitively direct, lovingly”: Porter, New Yorker (March 12, 1979): 125.

  11. “seemed almost incompetent”: Porter, New Yorker (Nov. 21, 1977): 175.

  12. “the Lucifer-like”: Andrew Porter, The Observer, June 4, 1995. “the work [did]”: Wall Street Journal, Nov. 30, 1979. “It is a”: Times, Nov. 17, 1979.

  13. “disaster . . . horrid travesty”: New Yorker (Nov. 13, 1978): 234.

  14. The 1978 Thaïs was directed by Tito Capobianco and designed by Carl Toms. The 1978 La Favorita was directed by Patrick Tavernia and designed by Ming Cho Lee.

  15. The 1975 Le Nozze di Figaro was directed by Rennert and designed by O’Hearn. The 1980 Manon Lescaut was designed by Desmond Heeley. The 1977 La Bohème was directed by Melano. “to indulge in”: Dexter, The Honourable Beast, 175. “finest hour”: Bill Zakariasen, Daily News. “a 20th-century”: New Yorker (Jan. 9, 1978): 77.

  16. “If we don’t”: Volpe, The Toughest Show, 87.

  17. Audience interest in Parade fell to 79.2 percent of capacity in 1982–83 and to 64.6 percent in 1985–86. “Every so often”: Donal Henahan, Feb. 22, 1981.

  18. “jerk”: Opera News (March 13, 1982): 26.

  19. “Leave it to”: Dexter, The Honourable Beast, 182. The 1982 Così fan tutte was directed by Colin Graham.

  20. “The worst new”: Henahan. “serious-minded, ambitious”: New Yorker (Dec. 13, 1982): 179.

  21. “it is clear”: Walsh, Time (Jan. 17, 1983): 61. For Bliss’s oversight of Levine’s spending, see Fiedler, Molto Agitato, 189.

  22. The afternoon concert of the Centennial Gala was transmitted to Europe.

  23. “‘seen’ the music”: Porter, New Yorker (Dec. 12, 1983): 166. The Met premiere of Mascagni’s Il Piccolo Marat, announced in 1980 for Freni, fell victim to the disruptions of the delayed 1980–81 season. “the evening stretched”: Henahan. “third-rate music”: Porter (March 26, 1984): 92.

  24. Phoebus and Pan (Jan. 15, 1942) was not an opera, but a stage adaptation of a Bach cantata.

  25. “because Jimmy Levine’s”: Volpe The Toughest Show, 156. “the Met was”: ibid., 104–5.

  26. “the separation of”: Mayer, The Met, 353. “Either engage me”: Will Crutchfield, Times, Sept. 22, 1985.

  27. “My job is”: Times, Sept. 22, 1985. “We must”: Bliss to Levine, July 15, 1983. “conservative swing”: Times, Sept. 22, 1985. Cecile Zilkha joined the board in 1978, and became a managing director in 1982, vice president in 1993, vice chairman in 1999. For more on Zilkha, see Fiedler, Molto Agitato, 207–8.

  28. Levine on the state of singing in the mid-1980s: “I can’t imagine a world without marvelous performances of Aïda. Clearly, we can’t do it with the consistency we once could” (Times, Sept. 22). “a shambles”: Thor Eckert Jr., May 15. “so depressing that”: Hoelterhoff, May 29. “not in most”: Crutchfield, Times, Jan. 11, 1987.

  29. The moveable dungeon of Zeffirelli’s Tosca was dropped in later performances.

  30. “short list of”: New Yorker (April 7, 1986): 75. “only a little”: Henahan, Times. “a manic-depressive,” Hoelterhoff, Wall Street Journal, March 19. “an object lesson,” Eckert, Christian Science Monitor, April 28. Otto Kahn had urged Gershwin, Irving Berlin, and Jerome Kern to compose an opera. Berlin was an implausible choice; Kern, on the other hand, given the sweep of his Show Boat, was a lost opportunity. “less than convincing”: Porter, New Yorker (Feb. 25, 1985): 95.

  31. For an exhaustive history of Met tours, see Quaintance Eaton, Opera Caravan: Adventures of the Metropolitan on Tour, 1883–1956 (New York: Metropolitan Opera Guild, 1957).

  32. “The tour is”: Bing to Liduino Bonardi, Sept. 27, 1955.

  33. “If you had”: Frank Taplin diary, May 5, 1984, cited in Gilbert and Shir, A Tale of Four Houses, 642.

  34. “Serious opera fans”: Bernard Holland.

  35. “For box-office”: Henahan, Times, March 8, 1987. “The general manager”: Rockwell, Times, May 27, 1987.

  36. “about halfway through”: Henahan, Times, Dec. 5, 1986.

  37. “lost in the”: John Freeman, July 1987. “elephantine”: Porter, New Yorker (March 2, 1987): 104.

  38. “John Pascoe’s sets”: Henahan, Times, Sept. 29, 1988.

  39. “all very chic”: Los Angeles Times, Jan. 18, 1989.

  40. “has to be”: Kettle, Guardian, Nov. 17, 2000.

  41. “even to be”: ibid. “widespread resentment among”: Rockwell.

  42. “I rarely saw”: Volpe, The Toughest Show, 112.

  43. For the exclusion of Levine in the Southern appointment and Bliss’s reaction, see Volpe, The Toughest Show, 260.

  44. “passivity . . . failure to”: Rockwell, Times, June 27, 1990. “During Southern’s seven”: Volpe, The Toughest Show, 115.

  CHAPTER TEN

  1. “Although Jimmy and”: Joseph Volpe with Charles Michener, The Toughest Show on Earth: My Rise and Reign at the Metropolitan Opera (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), 113. “The translation—‘Not”: ibid., 115. “the triumvirate model”: ibid., 5.

  2. For the story of the Ouija board, see ibid., 4.

  3. “rugged ship”: ibid., 122. “I knew that”: ibid. 126.

  4. “Jimmy Levine was”: ibid., 129.

  5. The conception and gestation of The Ghosts of Versailles is recounted by Corigliano in Michael C. Nott, “The Long Road to Versailles,” Opera News (Jan. 4, 1992): 9–11, 49; Hoffman in Lanford Wilson, “Ghost Writer,” Opera News (Jan. 4, 1992): 16, 18–20, 48–49; and Matthew Gurewitsch in “Revolutionary Strains,” Atlantic Monthly (Dec. 1991): 112–17.

  6. “considerable achievement”: Alex Ross (Jan. 10, 2000): 88–90.

  7. In the most recent directory of Opera America, Susannah is third in the list of North American operas, after Amahl and the Night Visitors and Porgy and Bess. Opera America, founded in 1970, is a national organization devoted “to supporting the creation, presentation and enjoyment of opera” (www.operaamerica.org). The organization maintains a database of opera performances in North America. “modern-day Mascagni”: Anthony Tommasini, Times, Dec. 7, 2002.

  8. After his recovery, Carreras sang only once at the Met, a single act of Carmen at a gala in May 2000. For Levine’s tours and fees, see Johanna Fiedler, Molto Agitato (New York: Doubleday, 2001), 324. For “The Three Tenors” and the diffusion of opera, see James R. Oestreich, Times, April 28, 1997. For opera attendance, see 1997 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts: Research Division Report #39, December 1998, National Endowment for the Arts, Washington, DC. The percentages had declined to 3.2 by 2002 and 2.2 by 2008.

  9. The 1996 production of Andrea Chénier was staged by Nicolas Joël and designed by Hubert Montloup. “He . . . spent a”: Martin Bernheimer, Los Angeles Times, April 18, 1996.

  10. For Volpe’s economies on La Forza del destino, see Barry Singer, “Mission Accomplished,” Opera News (Jan. 2006): 14. Samson et Dalila was directed by Moshinsky and designed by Richard Hudson.

  11. Cyrano de Bergerac was staged by Francesca Zambello and designed by Peter J. Davison. “especially good”: Tommasini, Times, May 16, 2005. “fifty works that”: Ross, New Yorker (May 30, 2005): 95. The Beppe De Tomasi/Ferruccio Villagrossi production of Fedora originated at Barcelona’s Gran Teatre de Liceu. “allusions to old”: Bernard Holland, Times, Feb. 19, 2000.

  12. For Volpe’s firing of Kathleen Battle, see Volpe, The Toughest Show, 219–23. “Bing will be”: Manuela Hoelterhoff, Cinderella & Company: Backstage at the Opera with Cecilia Bartoli (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1998), 53. Volpe later regretted his handling of the Battle affair: “I find myself thinking maybe there was something I could have done. Maybe I could hav
e prevented it. But I wasn’t able to. In one way, let’s say that I failed to keep it together.” Opera News (Jan. 2006), 14. “not banning them”: Tommasini, Times, April 4, 1998.

  13. “When Plácido Domingo”: Volpe, The Toughest Show, 164. For Crawford on Met Titles, see “The Met Looks to the Future,” Opera News (Sept. 1993): 66. “Jimmy and I”: Times, Feb. 7, 1994. “it is much”: Edward Rothstein, Times, April 9, 1995.

  14. “false alternative”: Rupert Christiansen, The Telegraph (London), Dec. 13, 1997. “The Met continues”: Holland, Times, May 2, 1999.

  15. “I don’t understand”: interview, Aug. 1999, in Fiedler, Molto Agitato, 337. “The Met has”: interview, Dec. 17, 2000, in ibid., 339. Peter Gelb, too, has a copy of a Met chandelier in his Manhattan apartment: Chip Brown, Times, March 24, 2013. “manipulate opera world”: Allan Kozinn, Times, Oct. 8, 2000.

  16. “to get nervous”; “Some board members”: Volpe, The Toughest Show, 258. For a detailed account of the Vilar story, see James B. Stewart, “The Opera Lover: Onward and Upward With the Arts,” New Yorker (Feb. 13. 2006): 108–22.

  17. “the most difficult”: minutes, May 23, 2002. “to underwrite traditional”: Times, July 24, 2003.

  18. “By 2005–2006”: minutes, Sept. 18, 2001. Robert Whitehead, also rewarded with membership in the Golden Horseshoe Program, although for a far smaller donation, $50,000, was charged with grand larceny and securities fraud and convicted in 2001.

  19. Five of the thirteen operas of Gatti’s Slavic project have not returned to date: The Polish Jew, Snegurochka, Sadko, The Fair at Sorochintzy, and Schwanda. A sixth, Prince Igor, returned in the 2013–14 season.

  20. For the Lacy/Zarubin agreements and US/Soviet cultural exchanges, see Yale Richmond, Cultural Exchange and the Cold War: Raising the Iron Curtain (University Park: Pennsylvania State University, 2003), 10, 15. For the Soviet pique, see “Russians Hurt by Met Failure to Invite Their Leading Singers,” Times, May 21, 1958. Obraztsova returned to the Met between 1987 and 2002 for Il Trovatore, Un Ballo in maschera, and, in Russian at last, The Gambler and War and Peace.

  21. “the most important”: John Rockwell.

  22. Beňačková, who was first scheduled for Eva in Die Meistersinger on October 13, 1976, did not make her debut until 1991 in Kát’a Kabanová. The Met had also offered her Micaela, a role she judged inadequate for her debut. In 1988, the Times commented disapprovingly that “she was told that Micaela was the only part in which the casting department felt she could be useful to the Metropolitan. This from a company that has recently had in the repertory such Slavic works as Khovanshchina and Jenufa” (Donal Henahan, Nov. 27). “This is the”; “This relatively modest”: Manuela Hoelterhoff, Wall Street Journal, March 4, 1991.

  23. “So difficult was”: Holland, March 15, 1997.

  24. “I don’t know”: Richard Morrison, cited in Times, Mar. 15, 2009. Netrebko, Austrian since 2006, was circumspect; her statement made reference neither to Russia nor to the controversy: “As an artist, it is my great joy to collaborate with all of my wonderful colleagues—regardless of their race, ethnicity, religion, gender, or sexual orientation. I have never and will never discriminate against anyone.”

  25. “Gergiev must not”: Igor Shabdrasulov, cited in John Ardoin, Valery Gergiev and the Kirov: A Story of Survival (Portland, OR: Amadeus Press, 2001), 252. “Gergiev is the”: Matthew Gurewitsch, Times, April 19, 1998.

  26. For Billinghurst on the Met’s relationship to the Kirov, see Ardoin, Valery Gergiev, 256. “[Gergiev] won’t be”: Fiedler, Molto Agitato, 322. The Kirov returned in July 2003, copresented by the Metropolitan, with Semyon Kotko, Khovanshchina, Eugene Onegin, Macbeth, The Demon (in concert), and The Invisible City of Kitezh. “tense relations with”: Tommasini, Times, Aug. 21, 2003.

  27. For an account of the negotiations to secure War and Peace for the Met in the 1940s, see Peter Clark, “Early Attempts to Stage War and Peace at the Met,” Met Online Annals.

  28. “The set is”: Tommasini. “the most visually”: Ross (March 4, 2002): 86–87. “a conscientious patron”: Bernheimer, Opera (June 2001). Olivier Tambosi directed and Frank Philipp Schlössmann designed Jenufa.

  29. “all the prisons”: cited in Geoffrey O’Brien, “Sparks of God,” New York Review of Books (Jan. 14, 2010). “the Met found”: Mike Silverman, Associated Press, March 6, 2010.

  30. See chapter 5 for the George Balanchine/Pavel Tchelitchev Orfeo ed Euridice, the only true pre-1950 experimental rereading.

  31. “impossible snarl of”: Ross, New Yorker (March 8, 1999): 84, 86. “daydream . . . a journey”: Peter Mossbach in John W. Freeman, “Doktor Faust’s Lab Partners,” Opera News (Jan. 2001): 26. “anti-pretty”; “a dream by”: Tim Albery in Matt Wolf, “Dream Team,” Opera News (Dec. 14, 1996): 26.

  32. Peter J. Davison designed the 1997 The Rake’s Progress. “the brave task”: Holland, Times, Nov. 22, 1997. Santo Loquasto designed the 2004 Salome. “With all those”: Opera News (Jan. 2002): 47.

  33. Gottfried Pilz designed the 2003 La Juive.

  34. A dream/nightmare/hallucination had previously framed Der Fliegende Holländer, Doktor Faust, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. For Volpe on Il Trovatore, see Times, Nov. 7, 2004.

  35. Schenk directed and Schneider-Siemssen designed the 1993 Die Meistersinger. Schenk directed and Rose designed the 1992 Elektra. Moshinsky directed and Yeargan designed the 1993 Ariadne auf Naxos. Mark Lamos directed and Robert Israel designed the 1997 Wozzeck. George Tsypin designed the 2004 Die Zauberflöte. Lesley Koenig directed and Yeargan designed the 1996 Così fan tutte. Davison designed the 1998 Le Nozze di Figaro.

  36. Moshinsky directed and John Napier designed the 2001 Nabucco. Guy Joosten directed and Johannes Leiacker designed the 2001 Roméo et Juliette. “the most self-serving”: Marion Lignana Rosenberg, Newsday, April 4, 2006. “a caricature of”: Heidi Waleson, Wall Street Journal, April 5, 2006. Langenfass designed the 2006 Don Pasquale. Copley directed and Conklin designed the 1990 Semiramide and the 2002 Il Pirata.

  37. “left Mr. Volpe”: Robin Pogrebin, Times, Feb. 10, 2004. “the overall artistic”: Tommasini, Times, Nov. 1, 2004. “with empty seats”: Rockwell, Times, Feb. 10, 2004. “persistent criticism . . . that”: Singer, “Mission Accomplished,” Opera News (Jan. 2006): 14.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  1. For biographical information on Peter Gelb, see Rebecca Mead, “Man behind the Curtain,” New Yorker (Oct. 22, 2007): 138–49; and Nina Munk, “The Met’s Grand Gamble,” Vanity Fair (May 2010). “knowledge of marketing”: Mead, New Yorker (Oct. 22, 2007): 141. “I thought, Oh”: ibid., 148. “My pitch to”: Munk, Vanity Fair.

  2. “access was more”: Mead, New Yorker (Oct. 22, 2007): 144. Volpe is said to have cast a jaundiced eye on Gelb’s work at the Met from the start. In 1992, he replaced Gelb’s executive producer position with a radio network producer and a television producer: “I didn’t need an executive producer. Guess why? I was the executive producer.” In 2006, Gelb created the position of director of media and presentations, to which he appointed Mia Bongiovanni. “occasionally directed”: “Peter Gelb, General Manager,” www.metoperafamily.org. “He didn’t leave”: Ralph Blumenthal, Times, May 23, 1995.

  3. “anything written for”: Allan Kozinn, Times, Nov. 7, 2004.

  4. “Popera”: The Lebrecht Weekly, Nov. 11, 2004. “Pop singers are”: Barry Singer, “Mission,” Opera News (Jan. 2006), 16. “a producer . . . is”: Mead, New Yorker (Oct. 22, 2007): 141. “I am a”: Munk, Vanity Fair (April 2010).

  5. “horribly”: Volpe to executive committee, Oct. 20, 2005. In 2005–06, subscribers accounted for 50 percent of attendance; in Bing’s day, they had accounted for 75 percent. Joseph Volpe with Charles Michener, The Toughest Show on Earth: My Rise and Reign at the Metropolitan Opera (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), 250–51. “reach out to”: Gelb to executive committee, Oct. 20, 2005. A comparison of the first seasons for which Gelb felt fully responsible, 2009–12, with Volpe’s last three season
s shows no meaningful change in either the commitment of the stars to an increased number of productions annually or to a greater number of performances of each production. What Gelb had in mind were “paintings or sculptures based on their [the artists’] impressions of operas and opera characters in next season’s repertoire at no cost to the Met”: Gelb to board, Jan. 19, 2006. A gallery for this purpose was carved out of the south lobby. In the midst of negotiations on the media project, there was an embarrassing demonstration on Lincoln Center Plaza by nonunionized workers employed by a firm to which the Met had outsourced its food services. “to make the”: Gelb to board, May 25, 2006.

  6. “What fuels me”: interview with Shelley DuBois, Dec. 6, 2011. “There is a”: Hamburg speech, 1997, cited in Mead, New Yorker (Oct. 22, 2007): 147.

  7. “the Metropolitan Opera”: Julie Bosman, Times, August 29, 2006. For Madama Butterfly and the Saks Fifth Avenue display, see Times, April 13. It was Varis who underwrote a program to further another of Gelb’s ambitions: to open the doors of the house to a wider public. Two hundred rush tickets in the orchestra were reserved for weekday performances (later extended to the weekend as well) at $20. On her death in 2011, the program was sustained by board members and a subsidy from the Met.

  8. “preem fizzles”: Arthur Bronson, Dec. 1. “The view . . . that”: Jack Gould, Times. “a stirring experience”: John Crosby, Herald Tribune.

  9. Risë Stevens’s low-cut Carmen costume drew “audible gasps from the big-screen patrons”: Variety, Dec. 17, 1952.

  10. “From the start”: Wilborn Hampton, “Peter Gelb on HD Live, His Controversial Gamble at the Met,” Huffington Post, Oct. 11, 2012. For an accounting of the first season of “Live in HD,” see Daniel J. Wakin, Times, May 17, 2007. For Billboard rankings, see Dade Hayes, “Pop Goes to the Opera,” Variety, April 2–April 8, 2007. For Gelb in the TV satellite truck, see Munk, Vanity Fair (May 2010). Neubauer Family Foundation sponsorship of the HD telecasts began with the 2007–08 season; Bloomberg began with the 2009–10 season. The telecasts carry this acknowledgment: “ ‘The Met: Live in HD’ series is made possible by a generous grant from its founding sponsor, The Neubauer Family Foundation. Global corporate sponsorship of ‘The Met: Live in HD’ is provided by Bloomberg.”