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By Adam Hetrick
08 Nov 2008
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| Gérard Mortier |
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| photo by Jean-Christophe Marmara/Opéra national de Paris |
City Opera will no longer serve as the home for the aborning operas based on the film "Brokeback Mountain" and the life of late animator Walt Disney.
As reported by the New York Times on Nov. 7, appointed general manager and artistic director Gerard Mortier has departed his position at City Opera. Variety reports that he will ultimately take with him the two works which he commissioned as part of his proposed programming.
The paper states that Mortier, who was to officially begin his duties in 2009, left City Opera due to budgetary constraints that would have hindered his intended programming that included Charles Wuorinen's opera based on the short story and subsequent Academy Award-winning film "Brokeback Mountain," as well as The Perfect American, the Philip Glass opera about the life of Walt Disney.
Mortier hopes that the productions, both of which were to premiere at City Opera in the 2012-2013 season, will find homes elsewhere.
His lineup at City Opera was to have included Messiaen’s St. François d’Assise, Stravinsky’s Rake’s Progress, Glass’s Einstein on the Beach, Janacek’s Makropulos Case, Britten’s Death in Venice and Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande. He planned to move the company toward a stagione season, in which productions follow one another rather than overlapping.
Renovation of City Opera's New York State Theater, begun under Mortier's stewardship, will continue.
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