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| |  | | Hoping that it has once again found its footing, the badly ailing New York City Opera announced last night that it has hired George Steel as its next general manager and artistic director.
The Steel announcement comes some eight weeks after Paris Opera’s Gérard Mortier disclosed that, unhappy with the company’s financial situation, he would not be coming to NYCO.
According to the New York Times, NYCO’s board gave final approval yesterday, just a day ahead of NYCO’s biggest event of a quite paltry season – two concert performances of Barber’s Antony and Cleopatra at Carnegie Hall – while the company’s home at Lincoln Center is being renovated and the company is struggling under tremendous financial pressures. Given NYCO’s precarious condition, Steel (who has no experience raising substantial sums, and whose only experience in running an opera company was his brief turn in Dallas, where had had just started as general director of Dallas Opera in October) has his work cut out for him. Next season’s NYCO programs will include less than ten productions in a bid to save money while renovations continue.
Steel, who is a conductor, is also the former executive director of Columbia University’s Miller Theatre, which he transformed over the course of 11 seasons into one of the most consistently exciting presenters in New York City, particularly within the areas of early and new music.
Speculation about Steel’s move to NYCO has been running rampant in the American performing arts community for weeks – even after Steel had vociferously insisted, as he did to Bloomberg News just before the December holidays, that he was not interested in the job. The conductor and presenter will start his term at NYCO on February 1.
The president of Dallas Opera’s board, Kern Wildenthal, claimed in remarks to the New York Times that there are “no hard feelings” in light of Steel’s departure, adding that his company “cannot feel bad about the opera world sorting itself out in a beneficial way for all concerned.”
Anastasia Tsioulcas, North American section editor |
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