Hi there,
I found a number of items online that mention the time Beverly Sills
spent running the New York City Opera. Here are some excerpts,
accompanied by a link to the full text of each article. Below these
are items I found offline, including excerpts from a 1984 Time
Magazine article.
If Beverly Sills decides to pen her post-opera stage achievements, she
might start with, ‘It takes a diva to run a cultural institution.’ One
of the greatest coloratura sopranos of the 20th century was, perhaps,
the only person capable of saving the New York City Opera from
bankruptcy in 1980...When she took over the company in 1980, it was
nearly $4 million in debt, and her husband suggested she file for
Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Instead, she used her star appeal to raise
money from the country’s rich and powerful.
http://www.crainsny.com/page.cms?pageId=14
One of Beverly Sills's innovations as general manager of the New York
City Opera has been the introduction of musical-theater works into the
opera house. Her endeavors along these lines have not met with
consistent success, partly because opera and musical theater are only
distant cousins, despite superficial similarities, and music composed
for one form is awkwardly served by voices trained to sing the other.
http://www.judykaye.com/pajamagamereview.htm
She was named General Director of the New York City Opera in 1980,
thus beginning her new career as an arts administrator. Under her
leadership, the New York City Opera promoted the careers of American
singers, broadened the company's repertoire, launched the City Opera's
first summer season, and introduced English subtitles for all of the
company's foreign-language productions.
http://www.classicalhall.org/bio1.asp?lname=sills
Upon retiring from the stage, Miss Sills took on a new role as General
Director of the New York City Opera. With characteristic intensity,
she mastered the business skills essential to arts management and
moved quickly to stabilize the Opera's troubled finances.
Artistically, she made the Opera a training ground for new talent,
and, at the same time, helped the company establish a reputation for
an adventuresome repertoire and provocative productions.
Committed to popularizing her art, Miss Sills pioneered the use of
English surtitles and appeared on numerous television programs,
including the highly successful "Sills and Burnett at the Met," with
Carol Burnett. In an effort to encourage young performers and reach
young audiences, she hosted and narrated the televised Young People's
Concerts of the New York Philharmonic.
http://www.heinzawards.net/recipients.asp?action=detail&recipientID=23
June 5, 1981 - membership of the Presidential Task Force on the Arts
and Humanities
http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/resource/speeches/1981/60581c.htm
Being general director of the New York opera took a toll on Beverly
Sills; she ballooned into obesity. "It made me sick to look at myself.
I'd reached the point where I didn't want to have my clothes made
anymore. It was too embarrassing. So I ordered everything from
catalogues." Eventually Sills was forced to face the problem. "I woke
up one day and realized I was really ill." She went to see a
specialist. "He put me on the scales. They read 215 pounds. 'I cannot
possibly weigh that much!' I gasped. And the doctor said, 'Please look
down. Are those two fat feet on the scale yours or mine?'" Beverly
smiled. "Once I accepted the problem, I was on my way."
http://www.christianglobe.com/Illustrations/theDetails.asp?whichOne=c&whichFile=confession
When Sills ran City Opera in the 1980's, she initiated bold changes
that put the audience ahead of the aesthetes, including the use of
supertitles, which translate lyrics into English, and a marketing
campaign that was pure fun. (''Feel like hell?'' asked one
advertisement. ''Come see 'Faust.''')
http://www.ctforum.org/news_events/news_item.asp?news_item_id=43
-----------------------------------------
Her 1987 book "Beverly--An Autobiography," would probably contain lots
of information covering her years as general manager, considering she
also had biographies published in 1976 and 1982.
Beverly Sills's (1987) account of her body's reaction to her chores in
the management of the opera company after her retirement as a diva is
illustrative: "I was working like a horse, my blood pressure was way
up, and I was eating six meals a day... I came into my job as general
director weighing 150 pounds; on June 16, 1984 when I visited the
endocrinologist, I weighed 220 pounds" (p. 345) Sills, Beverly, and
Lawrence Linderman. (1987). Beverly. New York: Bantam Books.
http://virtualni.institut.cz/bio_inst/98_99/texty/cteni/gergen.htm
TIME MAGAZINE ARTICLE
=====================
A night to forget? Not at all. La Rondine turned out to be the
biggest, freshest City Opera triumph in years, and it symbolizes the
remarkable recovery the company has made under General Director
Beverly Sills. From a debt-ridden organization that was also
floundering artistically, the City Opera is re-emerging as a vtial
musical force, offering adventurous new repertory and sparkling
singing. Even its finances are improved. Says the irrepressible Sills,
whose sanguinity was tested by the tribulations of the past five
years: "I stuck out all the garbage, and now I'm going to enjoy the
caviar and champagne."
... New and unusual works? In addition to La Rondine, the company has
revived Leo Delibes' fragile song of the subcontinent, Lakme, and
mounted an operatic staging of Stephen Sondheim's Grand Guignol
Broadway masterpiece, Sweeney Todd; next month is presents Philip
Glass's new opera Akhnaten.
... The vital signs are good, especially for a company on the brink
not long ago. "I remember taking the books home one night after I
became director and my husband telling me it was hopeless," says
Sills. There was a multimillion-dollar deficit. The split season
(eleven weeks in the fall, ten in the spring) meant redundant start-up
costs of $1 million each year. Production expenses were spiraling.
"There were days when I could hardly talk myself into coming to the
office," she says. "There would be a big meeting on Tuesday morning,
and I would be told there was no money for the Friday payroll."
Sills, aware that her first priority was to use her celebrity status
as newly retired diva to raise funds, often traded a personal
appearance for a donation. Inevitably, quality suffered while she
concentrated on money; City Opera hit its aesthetic nadir in 1982 with
a tired The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein by Offenbach and a ludicrous I
Lombardi by Verdi, which Sills didn't see until the dress rehearsal.
"I have had my turkeys," she admits. "Had I seen it earlier, I would
have pulled days before, I didn't have the courage."
... The $1.8 million deficit is being eliminated with a grant from the
late Philanthropist Leslie R. Samuels... New York City Mayor Edward
Koch increased the city's support to $1.3 million annually. She
combined the two seasons into one that runs from July through
mid-November. Out of economic necessity, new productions are more
innovative than lavish: Frank Corsaro's Carmen, set during the Spanish
Civil War, cost only $38,000.
Attendance is up, and one reason is the use of supertitles,
translations projected above the stage. Although Sills did not invent
them (they were first used in Toronto), she has popularized the
technique... Sills strongly defends them. "Do I want to tell someone
who has worked on Wall Street until 5:30 to study the libretto or take
a course in German?" she asks. "Do I want people sitting in my
audience with a libretto and flashlight?"
Taken from "Champagne time for Beverly Sills; City Opera's ex-diva
restores it to vitality and stability" by Michael Walsh. Time
Magazine, Oct 29, 1984 v124 p104
I also found references to other articles which sound like they would
have good information in them:
People Weekly, Dec 29, 1980 v14 p78
Beverly Sills: Bubbles from Brooklyn has stopped singing and begun
bossing the company she once graced.
Dynamic Years, July-August 1980 v15 p61
A star is reborn: premier opera singer Beverly Sills tackles a new
career in mid life. By George Heymont.
Opera News July 1982 v47 p28
Zero hour for the New York City Opera: a frank, in-depth look at the
state of the troubled company. By Ken Sandler.
New York Nov 2, 1981 v14 p54
All in the family. (Beverly Sills trying to rebuild City Opera). By
Peter G. Davis.
Saturday Review May 1981 v8 p12
Beverly Sills as impresario. By Peter Andrews.
New York Sept 22, 1980 v13 p28
Beverly Sills gets down to business at the City Opera. By Alan Rich.
Keywords used:
"Beverly Sills" "general manager" "New York City Opera"
://www.google.com/search?q=%22Beverly+Sills%22++%22general+manager%22+%22New+York+City+Opera%22
"beverly sills" "general director"
://www.google.com/search?q=%22beverly+sills%22+%22general+director+%22
I trust this answers your question. If any portion of my answer is
unclear, please ask for clarification.
Best wishes,
robertskelton-ga |
,
0 Comments
)