They Told Me Not to Take that Job: Tumult, Betrayal, Heroics, and the Transformation of Lincoln Center (24 page)

And all of these matters were aired
following
an ultimatum that was issued by the Philharmonic in a letter to Robert Simon, the president of Carnegie Hall, dated three years before, on January 13, 1941:

If Carnegie Hall is not seriously concerned about the artistic success of the Philharmonic, we are seriously considering curtailing again our dates at Carnegie Hall and resuming our concerts in Brooklyn and the Metropolitan, giving in this way an opportunity of playing concerts in a larger auditorium in the case of the Metropolitan, or of bringing the music to another borough as in the case of Brooklyn.

Does this sound like a happy tenant? Do these exchanges depict a benevolent landlord?

C
OULD THE
N
EW
Y
ORK
P
HILHARMONIC
possibly believe that the reception accorded it at Carnegie Hall seventy years later would be much different? Commitments to other ensembles are now far more numerous, as is the number of Carnegie Hall’s own presentations, as
is the number of its rental agreements. For all of these reasons, satisfying the Philharmonic on performance and rehearsal dates would be much more difficult today, not less. To compound these difficulties, the orchestra’s expectations of how it would be treated at Carnegie Hall had risen, not fallen.

Even worse is the distinct possibility that the staff and trustees at the Philharmonic and at Carnegie Hall never consulted their own history. If they failed to do so, they willfully ignored their past, Santayana and Twain notwithstanding. If they did pay any attention to yesteryear, then both parties ignored the explicit warnings contained in their history. Either way, shame on them.

Sure enough, over the summer months of 2003, representatives of Carnegie Hall and the New York Philharmonic found that they could agree on very little.

The New York Philharmonic, in the person of Zarin Mehta, expected Carnegie Hall to accommodate all of its needs and to acquiesce in its plans virtually unchanged—on scheduling, on artistic and managerial leadership, and on program content. In a stunning display of naiveté, Mehta wondered why Carnegie Hall would want to merge with the world’s third-oldest orchestra only to change it.

For Carnegie, the New York Philharmonic would become only one orchestra among many it would present in the Isaac Stern Auditorium. Although it may have historically played 120–130 dates in Avery Fisher Hall, Carnegie could offer it only about 80 desirable dates in its home. No more. And accommodating the orchestra’s request for rehearsal time on the stage of the Isaac Stern Auditorium before every performance was deemed to be simply out of the question.

There was nothing to be gained by pretending. The effort to avoid fund-raising for capital purposes thrust the New York Philharmonic into a subsidiary role at Carnegie Hall, the true cost of which grew clearer and larger by the day.

For all of the bombast that the merger would be a “win-win” arrangement for both parties and a “perfect deal,” the incompatibilities between these two important organizations were too basic to overcome. The New York Philharmonic Board was left gasping for breath, wondering about the fecklessness of its leaders, who could allow such a breathtakingly public spectacle to occur on their watch.

The announced merger was star-crossed from its inception, and both parties abandoned it. What we witnessed was a travesty, an escape from responsible governance.

Putting our private, personal feelings aside, the Carnegie Hall caper inevitably set back the New York Philharmonic’s relations with Lincoln Center. In attempting to refute members of his own board who had revealed to the press that they were uninformed about the move to Carnegie, Guenther told the media that the matter had been discussed openly at meetings for at least a year.
⁷
He never revealed to Lincoln Center officials that a New York Philharmonic move to Carnegie Hall was being seriously considered. We had participated instead in what we thought were good-faith discussions about the future of a fully renovated auditorium in Avery Fisher Hall.

In the weeks following the initial announcement of a merger, Guenther, Mehta, and Glenn Dicterow, the concertmaster of the orchestra, disparaged Avery Fisher Hall’s acoustics, the very place where the New York Philharmonic had played for four decades.
⁸
At one point, Guenther was quoted by Deborah Solomon of the
New York Times
as saying that the acoustics in Central Park were preferable to those in Avery Fisher Hall.
⁹
All of this hall bashing was not only unnecessary, it was unseemly.

Naturally, the trustees and staff of Lincoln Center and many of the constituents were furious. The gratuitous bad-mouthing of Avery Fisher Hall’s ambience and acoustics amounted to rhetorically kicking their forty-year host on the way out. It was the height of irresponsibility. We were all angry about the wasted time that had been invested in exploring options that the Philharmonic may have never intended to exercise. And we were upset with the negative fallout of the trashing of the reputation of the hall. After all, Avery Fisher Hall was also the home to Lincoln Center’s own successful and critically acclaimed presentations as well as to dozens of highly valued ensembles that rented the space.

Avery Fisher Hall and Lincoln Center deserved better, much better.

Nonetheless, Bruce Crawford and I extended ourselves to Guenther, Mehta, and their colleagues. We swallowed hard and tried to look past the incivility and half-truths to which we had been subjected. We saw our role, publicly and privately, as soothing the ruffled feathers
of trustees and employees and rising above the fray. Perhaps the most significant of many steps taken toward these ends was dropping the threat of litigation and of demands for damages, claims we were very confident we could have won had we pursued them.

By our taking the high road, we hoped the New York Philharmonic would learn its own lesson as a barrage of criticism and ridicule swept over the institution and its leaders. We refused to participate in what must have been a humiliating aftermath. We very much hoped that the passage of time would heal wounds.

I
T DID
.

Belatedly, Guenther resigned. In September 2009 he was succeeded by Gary Parr, a leading investment banker at Lazard Frères. Lorin Maazel was succeeded by the son of two New York Philharmonic musicians, a hometown boy made good, Alan Gilbert. And Mehta was followed by Matthew VanBesien, an experienced executive director of the Houston Symphony and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.

We could feel the fresh air. Parr moved to supplement the trustee cohort of the New York Philharmonic with new members. Vital matters were now discussed openly at executive committee and board meetings. The relationship of Parr with Lincoln Center board chairs Bennack and Farley was excellent. Both worked in every way possible to support him in rebuilding trust between our two institutions, as did all of Lincoln Center’s employees, with my explicit instruction and encouragement.

Alan Gilbert exhibited poise, intelligence, and reliable leadership from the podium and otherwise. His programming and conducting were extremely well received by the critical press and Philharmonic audiences. He became the head of Juilliard’s conducting program. He was a staunch advocate for maintaining and even expanding free concerts in New York City’s parks. He championed the music of living composers, not only in a major new Biennale, but in the core subscription program of the orchestra. He participated willingly in the resumption of serious and sustained discussions about the future of Avery Fisher Hall. He understood what it takes to be a cultural leader.

To the delight of all concerned, Gilbert’s contract with the orchestra was renewed and now runs through 2017.

On the subject of Avery Fisher Hall, Gilbert’s view was far from cramped. It was ambitious. As he energetically communicated to me and others: if we are going to modernize this auditorium, then let’s do it thoroughly and imaginatively. Let’s get it right. Avery Fisher Hall is now surrounded by a magnificently renovated and rejuvenated campus. We need to catch up in terms of the quality of our facility and the level of energy and imagination we bring to it.

No furrowed brow. No defensive crouch.

He even saw a positive side to being unable to play in Avery Fisher Hall for a couple of seasons while construction was under way. Traveling to different venues around New York City would be healthy for the orchestra. It would enlarge audiences, reach out to new donors, and secure additional loyalists. It would put “New York” back in the name of this venerable organization.

And VanBesien? He was a hardworking, experienced, and competent partner to Parr and Gilbert.

During my last few years at Lincoln Center, cooperation and goodwill dominated the relationship with the New York Philharmonic: in clearing dates for the use of Avery Fisher Hall, in artistic consultations, in refreshing a constituency agreement that required a significant overhaul, and in thinking through what kind of auditorium in Avery Fisher Hall would work best for artists and audiences of the twenty-first century.

Even so, the New York Philharmonic remained beset by challenges. That nagging operating deficit just wouldn’t go away. The 2013–2014 operating deficit was $2.1 million, and it was $6.1 million in the prior season. Tellingly, for that just completed fiscal year, the board of directors approved using 6.75 percent of its endowment to support current operations, up from the traditional 5 percent. Had it not instituted this change, the 2013–2014 deficit would have been closer to $5 million.

So, it is clear that the orchestra simply must learn how to live within its means. It also needs to address long-standing structural issues like the continuing lack of a summer home, an asset of so many of the New York Philharmonic’s counterparts: Chicago at Ravinia, Boston at Tangle-wood, Cleveland at the Blossom Festival, Los Angeles at the Hollywood Bowl. The absence of this source of earned income and an associated, enhanced donor base was difficult to compensate for in other ways.

Retaining a consultant to advise it on setting a course for enhanced fund-raising, the New York Philharmonic became acutely aware of how much, offstage, it had fallen behind some of its admired counterparts around the nation. Too little had been asked of trustees. With a new energetic and cooperative leadership team in place and with the future of the orchestra consensus-blessed, now seemed to be the time for raising expectations of giving and getting. Besides, with the stock and real estate markets at record highs in 2014, there could hardly be a more receptive environment.

It was very refreshing for me to witness the frankness with which the Parr, Gilbert, and VanBesien trio acknowledged these challenges and endeavored to deal with them. Positive changes were frequently announced. They established a partnership with the Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra and created an annual fund-raiser on the Chinese New Year. They built on a successful summer residency in Vail, Colorado, by arranging for another with the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, California. They began an effort to enhance their endowment and to set aside funds for the future modernization of the auditorium in Avery Fisher Hall. How serious, sustained, and successful the New York Philharmonic’s capital campaign will be is an open question.

Together, we hoped to prove that, by looking forward and by moving to higher ground, a most unfortunate episode in the life of our organizations could be overcome. Nations do it all the time. So do corporations. How could two sister performing arts organizations with so much in common conduct themselves any differently?

CHAPTER 7

A Death Foretold and a Turnaround Unheralded

AUTOPSY REPORT ON THE DEATH OF THE NEW YORK CITY OPERA

Office of the Medical Examiner