Summary
Charles MacKay, now in his first season as the Santa Fe Opera's general director, remains cautiously optimistic about his company's financial condition. "We're basically on a sound footing," he commented recently. "SFO has maintained a tradition of fiscal responsibility from the beginning."
MacKay's no Pollyanna about the issues. As a result of the financial crisis, endowment plunged from $45 million to $33 million. "I've never known opera people to be watching the market this · closely," he says. But the company managed to trim $1.2 to $1.3 million from its budget without reducing staff, repertory or artistic standards. "We're in good shape compared to other companies in similar situations," MacKay says.Then the Opera Theatre of St. Louis, in the person of its founder and General Director Richard Gaddes, came calling. Ready to move on to new things, Gaddes was looking for a successor. The SFO, where Gaddes had worked for years in a variety of important administrative positions, had served as model and "spiritual ancestor" (MacKay's words) for St. Louis, a flourishing young company with a similar character, repertory and "feel" to Santa Fe. MacKay took the job, serving with distinction for 23 years as OTSL's general director, with the result that it's one of the two or three most successful regional companies in the country. Among his accomplishments there, MacKay increased endowment from $682,000 to $18 million and built a new opera center that opened in 2006.See the full content of this document
Extract
New Blood
It's hard times for the opera business these days. Schedules are being pruned and contracts renegotiated everywhere, from the Met on down. Opera Baltimore folded this spring. The LA Opera's budget is down by a quarter. New York City Opera's future looks grim.
But Charles ...See the full content of this document
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