San Francisco Classical Voice

The public's principal concern has naturally been about performance, the operas presented, the style of the productions, the casting. Mozart La finta giardiniera (presented by the Opera Center), Hansel und Gretel, Handel's Alcina caused a stir, raised a lot of hackles. Messiaen's St. François d'Assise was a succès d'estime for many, and a production of which the company was very proud but it was not a success for a great many others however. Berlioz' La Damnation de Faust (as opera) and the current Doktor Faust generated much criticism, as did the production not the performance of Janacek's Katya Kabanova. The cost of those productions, especially of St. François d'Assise along with the big architecture of Il Barbiere di Siviglia in which the producers and designers were given carte blanche and their expensive ideas fully indulged, were high and that has been an issue. And there have been significant successes, The Cunning Little Vixen, the current production, and Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District are the most striking of those.

Yesterday, following her announcement, Rosenberg told SFCV that "the most challenging experience in my whole life was having the economy do the deepest contraction it's done in 40 years, having to hit the ground running hard having to deal with it. And with September 11. I'm proud that we managed to reconstruct the company and keep it going and getting us to steadier ground, without sacrificing the quality we were bringing to the stage.

"The difference in kind between working here and in Europe is that the revenue streams here are highly sensitive to the outside economy. Everyone who contributes is affected, everyone who buys tickets is affected by the stock market and the job situation. The investment portfolio of the performing arts organization is affected. The sensitivity to the outside environment is very exreme and volatile. There was a deep recession in Germany in 1993 and we deal with cuts, (but) more gradually over a year, and never as extreme as the bottom that dropped out of revenues here. And the planning cycle is very long term. But you have more of a buffer there. The budgets are smaller and 85% is subsidized."

Asked about the challenge of putting across types of works and productions that this audience is not accustomed to, she said that that was the challenge she came expecting. "I didn't see it as an insurmountable challenge; that's what the board asked me to come here to do. And I had a long term plan and goal for that. I never anticipated having instant acceptance of everything. I had a goal of more and more acceptance and curiosity. I expected it to be a gradual process. I was surprised by the level of acceptance. It went more quickly than I expected. A large portion of the audience is happy."

About dealing with different with different structures than she was accustomed to in Europe, she said, " The board, the development (set-up), I knew about theoretically, and that has also been satisfying. I have met so many interesting and generous people. I spend 70% of my time in fund raising. We brought in 33 million and I was involved in a lot of that. The multiplicity of unions is more complicated here than there. Having negotiations come up every three years is different from there. "

The season ahead are planned. 2006-2007 is almost complete, she reported. As for 2007-2008, she said, "I don't want to do much of that season but there are some givens (in it) like (Berlioz')The Trojans (Berlioz), shifting that from next summer so it's happening on the 2007-2008 season. There is just a handful of artists whom I have taken under contract for that season." She mentioned Olga Borodina, Thomas Hampson, Anna Netrebko as signed.

Yesterday, a few hours after the announcement, Karl Mills, the Opera's president, praised Rosenberg's artistic accomplishments here, and also her "engineering a significant down sizing of the company, transforming it. I think it has a positive effect on its capacities. We spent a lot of time in self-analysis. It's like when you move and you have to deal with all that stuff. We've done a lot of work on ourselves and out of that comes a much stronger, more flexible company."

Apparently, Rosenberg's decision was not unanticipated or sudden and surprising. "We started discusions a while back when it was clear for Pamela that she had to decide on what to do next," Mills explained. "She felt focused on a higher level than she has been able to do here. "A large amount of time she spent on business issues and fund-raising, and in organization, she'd prefer to spend a greater amount of time on the art." We were saddened but understand it completely. If she's about anything, it's about originating new works, and she felt that there was a body of new works she wants to get out."

"We need to focus on the future of the company. The company was never stodgy, but not everything in the Adler years was glorious. Every director has stretched and some of that has become the ‘glory of the past.' History skews things when you're looking back. As we look forward there's no change in the mission of the company, it's to put exciting opera on the stage that connects with this audience. But there's not one audience. One of our most important audiences is the one that has never been to the Opera House. We have to have the balance, the diverse repertory that has always made this opera company great."