10/1/2013
By Ivan Pereira
The fat lady has belted her last note at the New York City Opera.
The nearly 70-year-old institution announced Tuesday that its Kickstarter campaign to save the rest of its season had failed and it would have to cancel its productions immediately.
“Today, the board and management will begin the necessary financial and operational steps to wind down the company including initiating the Chapter 11 process,” a spokeswoman said in a statement yesterday.
The opera needed to raise $7 million by Monday night to stay afloat, but it was only able to collect $2 million through campaigns.
The opera, which was started by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia in 1944, had been facing severe financial troubles for years and had scaled back productions and programs.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg told reporters at a news conference Monday that it was sad that the opera was ending, but “the business model wasn’t working.”
The opera helped promote the careers of many famous stars, including tenor Plácido Domingo, who expressed his displeasure to the Los Angeles Times.
“I think it’s terrible that a city as big and as wealthy as New York can’t support a second major opera company — one that is able to take risks with repertoire, engage relatively inexperienced singers, and make other experiments in a way that a huge ensemble like the Met simply can’t do,” he said, referring to the Metropolitan Opera, in a statement to the paper.
