Hope? Subscription is required, but here is the text. Downtown San Diego — A sharply reduced budget, innovative programming and a list of donors who will step up if San Diego Opera’s current leaders are replaced might be enough to rescue the company from shutdown in two weeks, a board member said Tuesday. Carol Lazier, the San Diego Opera board member who pledged $1 million to save the company on April 4, said she and others will make that case to the full board on Thursday. She said she’s “hopeful” they can persuade the panel to grant a stay of execution. “I’m pretty confident that once people see the plan we’ve come up with, they’ll change their minds,” said Lazier, chair of a five-member committee appointed by the board late last month to find alternatives to closure. This month, officials with the trade group Opera America has been studying the San Diego Opera’s finances in an effort to keep the company alive. Details of that report won’t be revealed until Thursday’s board meeting, but Lazier said she finds the plan “extremely compelling.” Ideas include moving to cheaper offices, adjusting the season, downsizing productions, moving performances into unconventional venues (like a stadium or warehouses), finding new audiences and tapping new sources for donations. Ian Campbell, San Diego Opera’s general and artistic director since 1983, has been against many of those ideas, saying they would cheapen the company’s grand opera tradition and “be like putting water in the beer.” San Diego Symphony CEO Edward B. “Ward” Gill said Tuesday that his organization has been approached by Lazier’s team. “We are encouraged that some type of a positive solution is possibly in the works,” Gill said. “We don’t have any details at this time, but there may be a way to preserve the opera through the 2015 season.” Last month, board President Karen Cohn said the company would need $10 million in donations to survive through 2015 — the company’s 50th anniversary season. Lazier disagrees and said the budget proposed by Opera America is “significantly lower,” though she declined to be specific. Lazier said “donors have been coming out of the woodwork to support the company,” but most have agreed to donate only if Campbell, 68, and his ex-wife, Deputy General Director Ann Spira Campbell, leave. According to a document of “Financial Obligations After April 2014” published Sunday on the opera’s website, the Campbells would be owed a combined $806,260 in salary, vacation and insurance benefits upon the dissolution of the company. They might not collect the full amount, though, as unsecured creditors. On Tuesday, retired San Diego attorney Michael J. Weaver issued an opinion, at the request of the board, on the company’s financial obligations to the Campbells under their contracts. Weaver, who has no affiliation with the opera or the Campbells, said they would receive “significantly less” if the organization closes than if the company remained in operation and they continued to serve. According to the company’s most recent 990 forms (the tax year ended June 30, 2012), Campbell’s salary was $508,021. Assuming he is still paid the same amount or more, it could mean an obligation of at least $1.524 million by the end of his contract in 2017. Spira Campbell earned $282,345 during 2011-2012. Her contract is renewable annually, but it guarantees a severance of 18 months salary, or more than $423,000. The duo’s high salaries have sparked feverish criticism in the past month. Campbell was almost booed off the stage when he made a pre-curtain speech on April 5, and at the closing performance of “Don Quixote” on Sunday, several subscribers were carrying signs outside the theater urging the Campbells’ ouster. Lazier said the Campbells have served the company well for many years and negotiations over their payout is a “very sensitive and delicate issue.” “We’re seeking a solution that serves the company and the community and is honorable to Ann and Ian,” she said. Campbell was not available for comment on Tuesday. It’s been nearly a month since the San Diego Opera’s board voted 33-1 to shut the company down at the end of the season. The reasons cited were a steady decline in donations and ticket sales and the depletion of a $10 million endowment donated in 2003 by the late San Diego philanthropist Joan Kroc. Campbell encouraged the board to close the company now so it could “go out with dignity, on a high note with heads held high.” The vote came as a shock to the company’s nearly 400 full-time and seasonal employees, the San Diego Symphony (which plays at all performances) and board members who weren’t at the meeting. On April 1, the board agreed to extend the company’s lifeline until April 29 in the hope a solution could be found. The decision to close the company was abrupt, Campbell has said that the board was well aware of the looming problems for years. But in a letter to the board on April 10, Opera America President Marc Scorca said the company’s financial situation — it has $15 million in assets and is debt-free — “does not fit the profile of an opera company preparing to close.” The document of financial obligations, prepared April 9 by company Chief Financial Officer Michael Lowry, lists $8.5 million owed to creditors, including the Campbells, $1.7 million to singers contracted to perform through 2016 and $1.5 million to San Diego Symphony. Although Lazier said she’s excited by the proposal her committee will bring to the board at 2 p.m. Thursday, she knows they face an uphill battle changing the minds of an entrenched block of board members determined to shut the company down. Lazier said that several board members have agreed to vote for closure Thursday and will then resign on Friday. If that happens, Lazier said she still has nearly two weeks to come up with a new solution, and she and her husband, fellow board member James Merritt, refuse to give up. “We want board members to keep their minds open. The arts community wants to work together and people want the opera to continue,” she said. “We’ve got a vibrant arts culture here in San Diego and we just need to find a formula that works for this community.” The public is invited to a town-hall meeting on “Alternative Models of Opera in America” at 4:30 p.m. Thursday in the Copper Room of the San Diego Civic Concourse at Third Avenue and B Street. Scorca of Opera America and David Devan of Opera Philadelphia will speak in a panel discussion led by Nicolas Reveles, San Diego Opera’s education director. Results of the board meeting will also be announced. Admission is free, but reservations are required. Visit savesandiegoopera.org/townhall for tickets.
Posted on: Wed, 16 Apr 2014 02:48:30 +0000
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