Sequenza21/The Contemporary Classical Music Weekly

Mo' Money Mo' Negative Media Attention

Much has been made of The Royal Opera Houses's staging of New York Philharmonic conductor Lorin Maazel's new opera "1984," largely because Maazel himself has financed about �400,000, ($760,000) or just under half of the production cost, himself. The Guardian says there have been "accusations that Covent Garden is staging a vanity project.;" Anthony Tommasini at the New York Times pauses in his review to ask "Did the Royal Opera sign on to a vanity project? Is the company setting a worrisome precedent by presenting the work of a wealthy and renowned conductor who at 75 has a thin r�sum� as a composer? " Yes, the surface level facts smell bad, but this really should not be a big deal. Let's talk finance.

Maazel didn't approach Covent Garden and say "hey, I want to write an opera and I can put up half of the production cost myself, whadday say?" According to the same Guardian article mentioned above, the opera was initially commissioned by a "German opera administrator" who subsequently died. Maazel then approached the Royal Opera to try to get the project revived, and the Royal Opera teamed up with the Tokyo Opera and agreed, sharing the costs between the two houses. But Tokyo pulled out, leaving the Royal Opera in the lurch, and leaving Maazel in the lurch for a second time. Only then did Maazel propose salvaging the project, and his best shot at the compositional big-time, with his own money. To call it a vanity project knowing the facts seems unfair. Whether or not the opera is any good is irrelevant. (Tommasini makes a compelling case for his claim that the music is "undistinguished" while "never less than thoroughly professional," but I would want to hear it myself before passing judgement.) Plenty of bad music has been commissioned and premiered with no financial assistance from the composer.

As I may have mentioned, my day job is in Development (in Medicine rather than in Music, though) and I think the $760,000 needs to be brought into perspective too. According to the Guardian, when Maazel led the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra he was supposedly making $1 Million per year, and the New York Phil presumably pays even better. And given that the leadership of major non-profits often give substantially, and are in fact expected to do so, to support the organizations that write their paychecks, we can hardly expect Maazel to be tight-fisted about supporting an organization that is putting on his own work. I was only able to get numbers for 3 of the "Big 5" orchestras, but here is a small survey of the financial support that the three major conductors at those three orchestras have provided to their own orchestras in recent years. Bear in mind that these are individual samplings, and contribution sizes can fluctuate widely from year to year.

In his first year at the New York Phil (the 2002-2003 season), Lorin Maazel himself made a $100,000 challenge pledge to the Phil. The challenge was $1 Million in new and increased contributions -- they raised $1.6 Million. As far as I can tell, he made no gift in the 2003-2004 season, but I think he deserves a year off. This is according to the two Annual Reports that the NY Phil's Development Office kindly sent me.

According to the Annual Report of the Cleveland Orchestra (available online), Franz Welser-M�st gave between $25,000 and $49,999 in Fiscal Year 2004.

According to the Annual Report of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (also available online), Daniel Berenboim gave between $100,000 and $249,999 in Fiscal Year 2003.

I was unable to get numbers for the BSO and the Philadelphia Orchestra, the remaing two of the "Big 5," and it would surely be interesting to do a much more thorough study. I would be especially interested to hear about Esa-Pekka Salonen's contributions to the LA Phil, given that they perform his compositions -- not to make Salonen look bad but rather to point out that Maazel is being unfairly judged.

posted by Galen H. Brown 5/06/2005