New works, low prices, great stars — Beverly Sills, Plácido Domingo, and Norman Treigle among them — I remember fondly New York City Opera, which has provided an important alternative to the Metropolitan Opera for 70 years, just as significant as the Komische Oper in Berlin or the English National Opera in London.
Now that the company is going into bankruptcy as of today, there are legions of opera fans lamenting the situation, probably no one more than the man who led NYCO for 22 years: Julius Rudel, 92. Michael Cooper recently interviewed Rudel, as well as past and current members of the company in The New York Times.
City Opera’s board voted on Thursday to begin filing for bankruptcy and start dismantling itself if that goal was not met by Monday. Going into the weekend the company had raised less than a quarter of what it said it needed to stay in business.
Saturday night’s final performance of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Anna Nicole was apparently the company’s swan song.