John Patrick Ford, a past president of San Diego Opera and key supporter of the opera archive at San Diego State University, weighed in last week in the company's controversial decision to end operations. In a Daily Transcript opinion piece, Ford wrote:
After 49 years of artistic acclaim and the past 29 years operating in the black, the abrupt decision by the board of directors was hasty. No efforts to consider other options or to consult with city leaders and loyal patrons were offered. It was a slam-dunk vote behind closed doors to avoid speculation about the ability to fund future seasons of world-class opera.
There’s more at stake for the San Diego economy than the loss of more than 200 jobs. The opera provides nearly half the employment for the musicians in the San Diego Symphony. The opera rents the Civic Theatre for five months of the year to help defray the maintenance of a city asset. The closure of San Diego Opera will severely impact those other two cultural attractions that bring tourists and business to the city.
Aida was last season's closing production Photo by Ken Howard
Now is the time for the City Council, the Chamber of Commerce and other business groups to step forward and find a way to keep opera in San Diego ...
Does the city want to lose all this just because a rubber-stamp board of directors won’t stand up and fight? They have a fiduciary responsibility to the public to uphold a civic institution that has received public financial support for five decades. They can’t walk away with dignity without seeking community input for potential alternatives ...
There were crises before. My first year as president in 1970 required cutting back from four operas to two for the season to stabilize the financial position. SDO went on to grow to five productions with four performances each.
General Director Tito Capobianco left town in a huff in 1983 as the board faced an operations deficit and confronted him by canceling some of his favorite projects. Divided board members pulled up their bootstraps and found a new general director who managed the next 29 seasons without a deficit. It can be done with the right support group that won’t take failure as an option ...
There might be hope if San Diego Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez has enough clout to get community support. At deadline, her petition to study options is seeking 10,000 signatures to show the SDO board of directors that the city wants to keep an opera company. Let’s find more community leaders to start a crusade.
