Mad Scenes and Exit Arias

June 25, 2018
Waleson, the Wall Street Journal’s longtime opera critic, narrates the stories of grand visions and failed plans in a gripping history of New York’s City Opera. Drawing on extensive research and reporting, Waleson chronicles the successes and failures of the company from its beginnings in 1943 to its demise in 2013 and its resurrection in 2016. In 1943, Newbold Morris, then president of New York’s City Council, and Morton Baum, a clothing manufacturer, put together a group of 46 movers and shakers—including theater producers, philanthropists, and city officials—to organize the City Center of Music and Drama, and hired the Hungarian-born composer Laszlo Halasz to direct the City Opera. From the late 1950s through the mid-’70s principal conductor Julius Rudel kept ticket prices low and produced innovative operas such as Kurt Weill’s Lost in the Stars. In 1979, Beverly Sills took over as artistic director, bringing her savvy as a fund-raiser and a developer of young singers. George Steel became the company’s general manager and artistic director in 2009 and balanced the opera’s budget by cutting cost. The City Opera nevertheless declared bankruptcy in 2013 after years of struggling to raise money, but it was brought back to life in 2016 by opera producer Michael Capasso and businessman Roy Niederhoffer. Waleson’s in-depth study illustrates the challenges City Opera—and other opera houses—face in the 21st century as they seek to preserve tradition and innovate.

July 1, 2018

Wall Street Journal veteran opera critic Waleson asks, "Who killed [the New York] City Opera?" She then relates the tumultuous history of the "People's Opera," which for much of its existence was a "battered stepchild" in its home at Lincoln Center in the shadow of the much grander Metropolitan Opera. Tracing NYCO's efforts to provide innovative fare at affordable prices while attempting to operate in the red, Waleson enlivens the narrative with quotations from individuals who played major roles in the development--or demise--of the institution, including diva Beverly Sills and conductor and director Julius Rudel, among others. The author further relates issues of fundraising that affected NYCO fortunes and criticizes its board for inept leadership. Chapters on the future of opera and the "reinvention" of NYCO (born 1943, bankrupt 2013, reborn 2016) are illuminating. Waleson writes with authority on the performing arts scene and what can go wrong in the management of arts institutions. VERDICT This engrossing study should find a place in both academic and metropolitan-area libraries and will be of extraordinary interest to opera lovers, arts administrators, and anyone invested in the future of the performing arts. [See Prepub Alert, 4/9/18.]--Edward B. Cone, New York

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 15, 2018
The failure of the New York City Opera stands as a cautionary tale for other performing arts companies.Veteran Wall Street Journal opera critic Waleson (Music Criticism/ San Francisco Conservatory of Music) makes her book debut with a thorough recounting of the tumultuous history of the New York City Opera, from its hopeful founding as the People's Opera in 1943 to its sputtering demise in 2013. Championed by New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia, the opera was meant for audiences who could not afford the ticket prices charged by the Metropolitan Opera. Housed in a dilapidated former temple on Manhattan's 55th Street, the NYCO rented out space to other arts companies and borrowed scenery and costumes in order to keep ticket prices low. Since opera is "the most notoriously expensive of all art forms," the NYCO knew that it risked financial loss. Throughout its history, it scrambled for funding from foundations, philanthropists, and grants. Since it could never afford the major stars who sang at the Met, the NYCO hired beginning singers, who were grateful for employment and the chance of being discovered. By the 1960s, one performer shone: soprano Beverly Sills, who became a "repertory driver, with new operas mounted to showcase roles she wanted to sing." In 1979, Sills took on the directorship of the NYCO. By then, she was famous, but she was hardly ready to confront the company's severe financial deficit. Changing demographics (the company's older audience was dying out), "threadbare artistic level" (even after a move to the New York State Theater at Lincoln Center), and erratic programming reduced the number of ticket holders. Waleson documents the productions, financial struggles, changing roster of ineffectual directors, and boards comprised "of mostly well-intentioned people who were paralyzed by inertia" as forces that led the NYCO finally to declare bankruptcy. She notes with cautious optimism that festivals, art centers, and small, nimble companies--including a recently resurrected City Opera--are striving valiantly to keep opera alive.A cleareyed examination of the economic fragility of cultural institutions.

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October 15, 2018
Opera," writes Waleson, opera critic of the Wall Street Journal, "is the most notoriously expensive of all art forms, requiring instrumentalists, singers, scenery, costumes and numerous other personnel. Managing an opera company means managing a complex organization steeped in tradition and traditionally underfunded. Waleson tells the turbulent tale of the New York City Opera (NYCO) in a carefully crafted and impeccably researched narrative with nearly as much drama as an opera plot. Begun in 1943 as an affordable alternative to the elite temple of the Metropolitan Opera, it offered a mixed repertoire in different languages sung by unknown artists at low ticket prices. That model continued for 70 years until NYCO declared bankruptcy in 2013, only to be reborn in 2016. The NYCO story is a cautionary tale for today's arts organizations, and the discussion of its rebirth includes a brief look at some other opera companies and the ways they are reimagining the old institutional models. Required reading for opera fans and anyone concerned with the state of the arts in the U.S.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)