Mr Gockley's tenure has already seen changes at the company, with the announcement in mid-September that music director Donald Runnicles would not renew his contract at the end of the year.Īlthough San Francisco Opera has a long and illustrious history, it came to the fore as an innovative production house in the 90s under general director Lotfi Mansouri. The announcement comes after Mr Gockley took up the post of general director at the start of the year and just weeks after the company's 84th opening night gala, one of the biggest society events in San Francisco. Ten million dollars would go towards the company's annual operating expenditure while the remainder would be put into the company's $90m endowment fund. San Francisco Opera's general director, David Gockley, said the $35m gift came from Mrs Littlefield without conditions. "I wanted to see a Ring, and my husband didn't really want to take me to Europe to hear it," she told the Los Angeles Times earlier this month.
While the post of general director of the Los Angeles Opera would be renamed the Eli and Edythe L Broad general director in recognition of the donation, Mrs Broad said that recognition was not the motivation for the gift.
The company, which has an annual budget of $54m, had suffered financially following the withdrawal of a $12m pledge from Mr Vilar. The Met in New York recently received a gift of $25m from the socialite Mercedes Bass and her husband Sid Bass, while the Los Angeles Opera was given $6m by the real estate magnate and philanthropist Eli Broad to stage a Ring cycle. However, other donors have recently returned to the high-profile business of giving money to opera companies. The Royal Opera dropped his name from its branding after it received just £4.5m of the original pledge. The Royal Opera named the centrepiece of its controversial rebuild the Vilar Floral Hall Mr Vilar had a front row seat permanently held for him at the Met.īut many of his pledges were never turned into cash and his clients started to turn against him. In return for his largesse, Mr Vilar received recognition that some thought unseemly. Vilar was famous for his lavish pledges of donations: £10m to the Royal Opera House in London, $45m to the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, and $50m to the Kennedy Center in Washington DC. The Cuban-American investor and philanthropist was the most sought-after of opera benefactors until he was arrested on charges of securities fraud and money laundering last year. The money comes at a time when the opera world is still attempting to recover from the downfall of its biggest private patron, Alberto Vilar.
0 kommentar(er)
