City Opera Departure Brings Questions

New York City Opera’s decision to bail out of Lincoln Center raised the sounds of lamentation from company veterans and opera world officials on Monday, many of whom heard the news as a near death knell.

The anguished expressions of regret came amid a deafening silence from Lincoln Center and City Opera officials, and leaders of other cultural institutions who might serve as hosts for the company in its new peripatetic persona. City Opera’s leaders now face the immense task of extricating the company from Lincoln Center, finding new places to perform and planning a season that is only five months away.

The company’s co-tenant in the David H. Koch Theater, New York City Ballet, expressed concern about the loss of revenues to its home. “It’s a challenge, because clearly we have to make sure the hall is used, so we’re not obligated” for additional costs, said Katherine E. Brown, the executive director of City Ballet. She said it was “very unlikely” that her company would expand its programming. “We feel like we’ve got the right season,” she said.

City Opera’s departure, she noted, creates the opportunity for other performing groups to take up residence in the newly renovated Koch Theater.

City Opera said last week that it planned to leave the theater, where it pays roughly $4.5 million a year in costs; slash its already diminished budget; and trim its 48-member staff. Union officials also said the company was trying to end guaranteed contracts for its chorus and musicians. City Opera officials did not respond to requests for comment on Monday, nor did Lincoln Center officials.

“It would in essence be the end of the New York City Opera as we know it and love it,” said Julius Rudel, who first conducted at the opera when it was founded in 1943 and served as its general director and principal conductor from 1957 to 1979. He blamed “inconsistent board leadership” for the company’s woes and urged the trustees to change their minds.

Francesca Zambello, the opera and theater director, said she was saddened by “this slow demise of what’s so important to all of us.”

“Everyone in our profession is watching with great concern, and has been for several years,” said Ms. Zambello, who was once a contender to be the company’s artistic director. “Removing myself from my own personal relationship with the company, to think that New York City cannot support two companies because of the board’s mishaps is a very depressing fact.”

George Steel, City Opera’s general manager and artistic director, said the company would perform in various locations in New York, seeking a stable home for three full-size operas, and other spaces for two smaller operas and three concerts.

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The obvious possibilities are the Brooklyn Academy of Music; City Center, where City Opera performed before moving to Lincoln Center in 1966; and the Park Avenue Armory. Officials of all three declined to discuss City Opera.

Wherever the company moves, the logistics are daunting and the questions rife. What about old sets that don’t fit? Where can City Opera find theaters with a pit, offstage space and the necessary rigging and lighting? Where will the staff have offices?

“They’ve got these Herculean tasks to accomplish with a diminished staff and a diminished budget,” said Cori Ellison, City Opera’s former dramaturge, who parted company with the opera last year. “That’s tough for anybody.”

City Opera has periodically announced efforts to leave Lincoln Center over the past three decades, citing concerns over the theater’s acoustics. The issue was much less prominent before that time, Mr. Rudel said, when attendance was more robust and the company presented some 20 productions a season, compared with the 5 of the past two seasons.

This time the decision to move came during a period of financial weakness, catching the opera world by surprise. It was accompanied by few details, leaving many wondering what City Opera’s plan was.

“I have the impression they’re going into this half blind,” said William Mason, the general director of the Lyric Opera of Chicago. “Boards don’t understand how opera companies work,” he said. “A board’s job is to provide oversight.”

The City Opera board “has not done well by the management over the past few years,” he added. “It has not done well by the company.”

In 2007 City Opera hired as its general manager the Belgian impresario Gerard Mortier, who insisted on a theater renovation that left the company mostly dark for a season. He then resigned before formally taking over.

But Mr. Mortier also advocated field trips elsewhere in Manhattan, like the Apollo Theater and the Hammerstein Ballroom. There was no word where those spots figured in Mr. Steel’s thinking.

“It can’t be helpful to lose a constituent,” said Peter Gelb, the general manager of the Metropolitan Opera, which operates across Lincoln Center’s plaza. “It’s certainly never healthy to have a house dark.” Mr. Gelb said he knew little of City Opera’s plans, and noted that unlike that company, the Met acts as its own landlord.

“I’m sad they are in financial trouble and are being forced to reassess their situation,” he said in a telephone interview from Vietnam, where he was taking a few days off during preparations for the Met’s tour in Japan.