|
LISTENER'S BOX Responses to "The Opera's Season and Questions of Judgment" December 3, 2002
|
(Editor's Note: You can reach Robert Commanday's editorial, "The Opera's Season and Questions of Judgment," by clicking "Last Week" at the bottom of the current Main Page.)
I don't think the issue is necessarily the mounting of "Eurotrash productions" at SFO. Nor is there any chance
a discussion framed that way will ever end with agreement on all sides.
The problems at SFO are a lot easier to see, and run much deeper. The problem isn't "Eurotrash"; it's a lot of
really poor productions. Operas either poorly cast, poorly sung, or poorly staged. (It's not just Ms.
Rosenberg; her predecessor, in his final years, foisted a number of horrendous evenings on us.)
As Ms. Rosenberg was on the job last season, she has to take responsibility for the previous season, unless
she worked for free; the Falstaff without a true Falstaff (and a poor showing by the chorus); the utter
monstrosity that was the Merry Widow, and other disasters. Do you think someone like Adler (or for modern
times, a Volpe) would have allowed these kinds of things to cross the stage?
I have no problems with challenging productions. NYCO at times, for example, seems to excel at this, having
done a number of things which, if not total successes, were at least thought-provoking. But for many who
normally attend SFO, the Alcina was less an attempt to provoke thought than the operatic equivalent of
clubbing a baby seal.
Nor do I take issue, personally, with an opera house trying something new. But for SFO, one, maybe two
"chances" a year should be enough. This season, I think a line was crossed.
It would appear that Ms. Rosenberg has overlooked one of the most fundamental rules of any business: know your
customer. She may feel she is making SFO a cutting-edge opera house, but if people aren't going to go, her
reign may be cut mercifully short. This was an opera house with a number of problems associated with it before
Ms. Rosenberg came along. Now, she's succeeded mostly at alienating an even larger segment of the opera-going
public in Northern California. More people appear to be staying away. Word-of-mouth about "off-beat"
productions seems to be reducing "walk-up" ticket sales. Cash flow runs short, a deficit appears, ticket
prices increase, and yet, we seem to be destined for more of the same in the coming years.
The real question here is the Board of Directors. They should have been aware of this financial situation long
before it got this bad; they surely should be seeing these empty seats; and must have some sort of idea as to
what kinds of productions and performances are going to fill the seats. Surely these individuals have enough
financial acumen, or intelligence to hire someone with the same, to look at balance sheets and see that
something was going wrong long before it got this bad.
So far this year, I've caught five performances at SFO, and two each at NYCO/Met. And the four in New York,
although possibly uneven in spots, still far outshone what I saw in SFO (with the possible exception of the
Ariadne). I'm getting more for my dollar by flying across country than I am driving the 275 mile round
trip to SFO for things like this.
— Warren C. Stankiewicz
— Hanno Lewis
|