The board thought Gerard Mortier would save the company.
Its promises to him doomed it.
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By the mid-2000s, New York City Opera was in a precarious financial position.
The numbers were no longer adding up.
And supply was fixed: the company was locked into its union agreements.
The Kellogg formula was looking tired, and in 2005, he announced that he would be retiring.
People on nonprofit boards often dont disagree because they are afraid to insult people, she says.
Unterberg was particularly dismayed by the boards practice of approving budgets that included operating deficits.
or I like the standards, would you do that?
I thought, they are not asking the right questions about moving City Opera forward.
Board and search committee member Emilie Corey felt that the boards criteria for a new general director were vague.
They wanted a star, she says.
Even that seemingly essential search criterion did not seem to be any more important than others.
Corey recalls, There was one guy who seemed strong enough to do that.
But he didnt interview well.
The board didnt think he was polished enough.
He perspired during the interview.
But no sooner had one magic bullet disappeared than another one took its place.
In the spring of 2006, Susan Baker attended a dinner at the French consulate in New York.
She was seated next to Gerard Mortier.
Mortier, who was then the general director of the Paris Opera, was a legendary figure in Europe.
After leaving Salzburg, Mortier launched the Ruhrtriennale, a home for avant-garde, genre-breaking productions.
True to form, his tenure at the Paris Opera was controversial and attention-getting.
Susan met Mortier and fell in love, says Emilie Corey.
I dont think she consulted any other board members.
He said no a number of times.
New York fascinated him, but I think he struggled with the idea.
Such a figure was way out of line with NYCOs finances.
Reaching a $60 million budget would require at least another $20 million in annual fundraising.
Despite all indications to the contrary, Baker assured Mortier that this could be done.
Having spent his entire career in the state-subsidized theaters of Europe, fundraising was a new concept for Mortier.
The answerNone of itwas a surprise to him.
But Baker persuaded the board to go along with her choice, $60 million guarantee and all.
Susan could convince you that a white wall is actually black, Corey says.
She is a very compelling person.
And she talks a lot.
She can talk people into things almost by hypnotizing them.
He was officially hired in February 2007.
First, he wanted to run operas in stagione rather than repertory.
Some of the spaces that he and his team scouted presented challenges.
The 200910 season of operas to be presented in those spaces would also be completely new in every respect.
His signature offering was a gigantic production of Messiaens lengthySaint Francois dAssisefrom the Ruhrtriennale, staged in the Armory.
Starting in 2009, City Opera was to have an entirely new identity cool and fabulous.
All they had to do, Baker calculated, was get through the next two years.
By December 2007, yet another facet of the new vision for City Opera had come into focus.
They would require the theater to be closed for much of the 200809 season.
With Wall Street healthy and climbing, why shouldnt it be a success?
Hadnt City Operas newly diversified investments increased their returns by 18 percent in the last fiscal year?
I was so excited and jazzed by the idea of Mortier.
I thought hiring him was a brilliant idea.
It could create a citywide conversation about art and what it meant.
And opera would be at the center of it.
It was up to Susan Baker to singlehandedly reconcile the two.
When he met with the senior staff, she was always present.
And Susan Baker would always be sitting next to him, taking notes.
We didnt get private face time.
Michael Gary recalls, She was in constant communication with him.
My gut tells me she was probably parceling out access to him.
Even the board was kept at arms length.
The board was terrified of Mortier, Kara Unterberg recalls.
We are so lucky that he would even think of us.
We dont want to upset him.
Shielding Mortier from any bad news, or potential objections, was in keeping with Bakers secretive leadership style.
Can we have a vote on that?
followed with a flutter of the fan.
There was no discussion.
It was like she sucked the energy out of the room.
People did not feel empowered to speakor to challenge her.
The key challenge for the Mortier regime was, as always, the money.
Nonprofits define budget by expenses, not revenues, he says.
City Operas expense budget was in the $40$45 million range.
But revenues were more like $30 million.
Mortier was promised an operating budget of $60 million.
They were actually doubling their projected revenue.
That is impossible, even for extraordinarily well-run organizations.
But others were not as forthcoming.
Mortier and Baker met with Florence Davis and Paula Lawrence, the president and vice president of the foundation.
Its pretty cut and dried.
This meeting felt like we were at teavery slow to get moving.
Then Susan introduced Gerard who proceeded to speak for 35 or 40 minutes just on his biography.
Florence Davis looked at her watch repeatedly during the meeting.
Then she got up and excused herself.
We were there to ask for half a million dollars, and this could not be going worse.
Paula was able to pull out of Mortier something about the program.
Mortier turned beet red.
To her credit, Susan defended me, and said, Thats how it works here, Gerard.
But it should have been decided before we went who was going to do the ask.
The Starr Foundation did not give a grant.
Robert Meya was surprised to see how little else had come through.
Since the board insiders werent committing, no one else was, either.
And Mortiers idea of art as intellectual endeavor was proving a tough sell in New York.
Its not a school.
Mortier wanted to compete with GelbTheyre doing theRingcycle, well do the antiRingcycle!
He would say this to people and their response would be, Why would you do that?
Who wants to go and see that?
How much is it going to cost?
In October 2007, the Dow Jones Industrial average had reached a high of 14,000.
As the subprime mortgage crisis emerged, the Dow began to decline, then imploded.
By March 2008, Nomi Ghez reported that City Operas investments were down 4 percent.
His response was a feint.
It was just a number Susan told him.
The board, already jittery about Mortiers expensive plans, became more so.
They got it down to $54 million.
The staff was left in the dark.
On November 4, 2008, the second shoe dropped: Mortier was out.
But Baker never offered any financial pledge.
The reality, of course, turned out to be more complicated.
The board had effectively taken those endowment funds to Las Vegas, spun the wheel, and lost.
The folie a deux of Baker and Mortier would have enormous consequences.
It fed the confusion about New York City Operas identity.
Operational decisions that were made in deference to Mortiers ego cost the company a substantial percentage of its audience.
The choice of Mortier represented the pinnacle of Bakers magical thinking.
Bakers confidence in her own acumen seemed to be her undoing.
It was a terrible strategy.
The collapse of Bakers elaborate Mortier fantasy was the beginning of the end.
Copyright 2018 by Heidi Waleson.
