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Tentative Performances
GREGORY MOOMJY has some reservations about
New York City Opera's 'La Traviata'
In his memoirs, Five Thousand Nights at the Opera, Sir Rudolph Bing, general manager of the Met from 1950 to 1972, discusses the Met's move from 39th street to its current home at Lincoln Center. Apparently, what began as a joint venture between the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic turned into a triple endeavor when the well-known conductor Julius Rudel, then the head of New York City Opera, decided to join the group, bringing City Opera from City Center to its new location in what was then the New York State Theater. This greatly perturbed Bing, and his fears had a sound basis in elementary economics. After all, he reasoned, if two opera companies that are quite literally adjacent to each other are performing La Traviata, one for twenty dollars a ticket and the other for ten dollars a ticket, it's fair to guess that the company selling ten dollar tickets would get better box office receipts...
Copyright © 23 February 2012
Gregory Moomjy,
New York City, USA
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