Kennedy Center to take over Washington National Opera
It's official. In a move that had been discussed for months and openly rumored as long ago as last summer, the Kennedy Center announced Thursday that it is officially taking over the Washington National Opera.
The "affiliation," as the agreement was termed in a Kennedy Center press release, was unanimously approved by the Kennedy Center's board at a meeting Wednesday. It will take effect July 1.
"Over the past few years," WNO president Kenneth R. Feinberg said Wednesday, "the financial uncertainty surrounding the opera has threatened not only its viability but its ability to … maintain a level of artistic excellence. This is a critical step designed to assure the long-term artistic and financial success of the company."
Translation: Without this merger, the Washington National Opera, financially strapped, without strong leadership, reduced to a mere five operas a year, was doomed.
The affiliation means that WNO is following in the footsteps of the National Symphony Orchestra, which became an affiliate of the Kennedy Center in 1986. It is notable that neither of the leading classical music organizations in the nation's capital has been able to maintain its complete financial and administrative independence without being taken into the Kennedy Center fold.
The opera and the Kennedy Center have discussed a possible merger for at least a year, conditional - from the Kennedy Center's side - on WNO's ability to pay off its debts and arrive unencumbered. One obstacle, as reported last summer, was the resistance of one of the opera's principal benefactors, Betty Brown Casey, who had stated that if WNO ever merged with the Kennedy Center, she would withdraw her donations, including the company's $30 million endowment, and give the money to the Metropolitan Opera, instead.
Casey recently came to the realization that there was no other option if opera in Washington was to survive, according to someone familiar with the negotiation who spoke on condition of anonymity. Indeed, Casey offered a matching donation to enable the company to pay off its debt and come to the Kennedy Center with its endowment - an impressive dowry - intact.
The affiliation will mean considerable changes for WNO. While the company will retain its board, some key staffers and its identity, the Kennedy Center will take over the opera's administrative and business functions, which will entail considerable streamlining and inevitably a number of job cuts. "Staffing remains to be worked out completely," said Feinberg, who also is the TARP "Pay Czar" and is overseeing restitution for the gulf oil spill.
WNO's artistic leadership, including the new music director of the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra, Philippe Auguin, will now work together with Michael Kaiser, the president of the Kennedy Center. Kaiser comes from an opera background: His first role in the arts was as a board member of the then-Washington Opera (the "National" came in in 2004) from 1983 to 1985. He later ran the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden in London for "two years, one month, and nine days," he said.
Kaiser fully intends to hire an artistic leader to replace the outgoing general director, Plácido Domingo, who announced in September that he would not renew his contract when it expires at the end of the current season.
But Kaiser has his own vision for changes at the opera. While next season is already set - WNO will announce it Feb. 1 - he hopes that there will be some new elements in place by 2012-13. In addition to presenting opera in the opera house, he envisions using some of the Kennedy Center's other performance spaces for smaller or newer operas that may not easily sell as many tickets. And he would like to expand the Kennedy Center's curatorial role by presenting the work of some other companies.
"I would like to bring in some really good avant-garde opera from abroad," Kaiser said. "There's some really good … work being done that we are not currently seeing in this country."
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