Now comes the tough part.
Ardis Krainik’s recent announcement that she will step down as general director of Lyric Opera of Chicago on April 30, 1997, after 16 seasons on the job, has stirred a great deal of reaction both inside and outside the company. The reaction is due as much to the magnitude of her achievement and the strength of her personality as it is to the importance of Lyric on the international music scene.
How does Lyric go about replacing such a formidable chief?
Very carefully.
James Cozad, president and chief executive officer of the Lyric, sums up the situation facing the search committee when he says, “Ardis’ artistic and administrative skills, her ability to build an outstanding staff, her ability to listen to those around her but also to make the necessary decisions, will make her a very tough act to follow.”
Cozad is a member of a three-person committee charged with mounting an international search for Krainik’s successor, along with Lyric chairman William B. Graham and president-elect Edgar D. Jannotta. Though not official members of the committee, Krainik and Lyric artistic director Bruno Bartoletti also will have an important say in the selection process. The committee’s first meeting took place last week.
There is, to be sure, a lot at stake. Whoever is chosen to succeed Krainik will have the responsibility of not only building on her successes but also putting his or her own stamp on the $32.7 million company and taking it in new directions. Opera has become a major growth industry in the arts over the last several decades and Krainik made Lyric the most financially successful opera producer in the land. Whoever takes over from opera’s Wonder Woman will be expected to keep the momentum going.
Changes, when they occur, will be gradual and subtle. Given the years-in-advance manner in which the leading companies operate in today’s world, it will be years before the artistic product truly reflects the tastes and ideas of the new general director.
For the first few years of Krainik’s tenure, 1981 to 1984, she essentially was a caretaker of repertory and casting decisions made by her predecessor, Lyric co-founder Carol Fox, although Krainik, then Fox’s assistant, was the one who signed the contracts.
Today’s Lyric, like every other leading opera house, must plan even further down the line. Indeed, Krainik and her administration already are deep in planning through the 2000-2001 season and beyond. The reason is simple: If you want to engage the leading singers, conductors, directors and designers, that’s how far in advance you must book them.
Krainik is the second Lyric general director to emerge from the ranks to head up the company, and she may well be the last. She has not groomed a successor. Neither did the authoritarian Fox, despite the poor health that impaired her ability to run the company successfully in the seasons prior to her firing in January 1981. Krainik, in a sense, groomed herself for the job, without consciously coveting it.
One expects the committee will begin its search internally. Two staff members said to be under consideration are William Mason, director of operations, artistic and production; and Matthew Epstein, artistic advisor. Each man has solid qualifications, and each has served in Lyric’s inner administrative circle for many years.
Mason is knowledgeable on both the production and artistic end of opera, but he has kept a relatively low public profile. Epstein enjoys the advantage of having directed another respected company, the Welsh National Opera, from 1991 to 1994. Few opera professionals know more about voices and singing careers.
From there, the search committee will look closely at the directors of all the major American companies–New York, San Francisco, Houston and Los Angeles–as well as of the leading European theaters. Cozad and his team will particularly be on the lookout for intendants–opera directors–of respected international profile.
Among European intendants, let’s begin with two who have staged operas at Lyric–August Everding, director of the Bavarian State Theaters, and Gotz Friedrich, director of the Deutsche Oper, Berlin. From here we can move on to Peter Jonas of Munich’s Bavarian State Opera; Jeremy Isaacs of London’s Royal Opera House; Hugues Gall of the Paris Opera; Carlo Fontana of Milan’s La Scala; and Ioan Holender of the Vienna State Opera. Each man is an able, experienced opera administrator.
But only one seems to have any chance of getting the Chicago job: the British-born, Eastman School-educated Jonas, 49. His biggest plus is that he is familiar with the musical life of Chicago, having served in the administration of the Chicago Symphony from 1974 to 1985. He’s also close friends with Georg Solti and Carlos Kleiber. If Jonas promised to deliver either conductor–or both–for Lyric performances, you can be sure someone in the administration would be listening.
However, none of the seven has produced opera within the very different funding structure–private versus government–that obtains in American opera houses. And there’s no guarantee they would choose to work in the U.S. rather than in Europe, where they are, in essence, lavishly paid civil servants.
That leaves four strong, American-based candidates.
Lotfi Mansouri, general director of the San Francisco Opera, was talked about as a leading contender to succeed Krainik months before health problems prompted her retirement announcement. The others are Joseph Volpe, general manager of the Metropolitan Opera; David Gockley, general director of the Houston Grand Opera; and Peter Hemmings, general director of the Los Angeles Music Center Opera.
Like Krainik, the 55-year-old Volpe rose from within the ranks of his company’s management. Administration is his area of expertise; artistic decisions he leaves to his artistic director, James Levine. His abilities in the Met’s complex technical and production areas have been widely noted, as have his skills as a labor negotiator. But it remains to be seen whether Volpe would wish to trade a $148-million, year-round operation for a $32.7-million, six-month operation at Lyric.
Gockley, 52, also comes with impressive credentials. In the 23 years he has been running the Houston Grand Opera, he has turned the regional troupe into one of America’s five major opera companies, after the Met, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles. His sharp, innovative sensibility could help move Lyric in all sorts of interesting new directions.
The only Britisher of the group, Hemmings, 62, created an international opera theater almost overnight in 1986 when he helped to found the Los Angeles company. Professionals respect him for his organizational acumen and musical knowledge. His management style probably would work well in Chicago, though he’s not the risk-taking innovator Gockley is.
Which brings us back to Mansouri. The personable, Iranian-born opera administrator and stage director, 67, enjoys several advantages over every other candidate. He has that combination of artistic as well as administrative ability the committee seems to be looking for. An active stage director, he has staged 57 productions for the San Francisco Opera, which he has headed since 1988.
Mansouri would find it relatively easy to switch jobs. At $36 million, San Francisco is comparable with Lyric in terms of budget and artistic profile. He and Krainik have known one another for 30 years–they are both former singers–and he has directed numerous productions at Lyric.
Demerits? For all his artistic savvy, Mansouri has not enjoyed the budget-balancing success of Krainik in Chicago. San Francisco Opera reports an accumulated deficit of $2.5 million, a serious shortfall for a company that is currently spending millions to renovate its theater. Although Mansouri’s contract runs to the year 2000, he could easily be lured to the Lyric’s greener fiscal pastures well before then.
Although Mansouri insists he has not been approached by anyone from Lyric Opera, he certainly sounds interested in coming to Chicago. He was, for example, positively extravagant in his praise of Krainik the other week when news of her retirement broke.
“Ardis is like my sister, she’s very exceptional,” said Mansouri. “It would take me hours to tell you my affection and respect for this woman. She has done an absolutely brilliant job with Lyric. I revere her, not just respect her.
“And knowing Ardis, I’m certain she is laying the groundwork for the continued development of the company.”
It takes no great stretch of the imagination to envision Mansouri’s fitting quite smoothly within the overall scheme of Lyric’s “continued development.”
But much can happen between now and April 30, 1997–especially since Krainik has given herself the option of staying on a bit longer if her health improves and she feels able to go on.
Right now it’s open season for Lyric-al speculation. Stay tuned.
