NYS Music 202​2

Tag: pandemic

  • Metropolitan Opera Taps Into Endowment due to Pandemic, Reduces Number of Performances

    The Metropolitan Opera has announced it will withdraw $30 million from its endowment due to a cash shortfall and lackluster ticket sales as they try to bring audiences back after the pandemic.

    Metropolitan Opera

    The Metropolitan Opera did what is considered a last resort for nonprofit organizations, dipping into their endowment funds. The Met’s endowment, valued at $306 million, was already regarded as small for an institution of its size and was meant to grow over time while producing a steady source of investment income. They are turning to this endowment to help with operating expenses due to weak ticket sales and a lack of donors. Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager said that “The challenges are greater than ever. The only path forward is reinvention.”

    This reinvention will be cutting the number of performances. The company is giving 215 performances this season but plans to reduce this amount by ten percent next season. Instead of putting on classic works, the Met will seek to put on more contemporary performances as they sell better, works such as Terence Blanchard’s “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” last season and Kevin Puts’s “The Hours” this season drew sellout crowds, while Verdi’s “Don Carlo,” had only 40 percent attendance after this month’s run.

    Gelb went on to say that the Met will open each season with a new production of contemporary work. It will begin next year with the company premiere of Jake Heggie’s “Dead Man Walking” and the season will feature its first performances of Anthony Davis’s “X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X”; Daniel Catán’s “Florencia en el Amazonas” and a staged production of John Adams’s “El Niño.” He said there is a big shift with opera singers “embracing new work and understanding that this is the future.”

    Peter Gelb, left.

    The Met is not the only company suffering from this new emergence after the pandemic. According to the New York Times, Portland Opera in Oregon, which is struggling with a decline in ticket sales, has reduced its staff and cut in half the number of operas it has each season to three from six before the pandemic. The Philadelphia Orchestra has seen paid attendance hovering at around 47 percent this fall, down from about 66 percent before the pandemic. Dayton Contemporary Dance Company in Ohio canceled its holiday shows this month because of tepid demand and rising production costs.

    Arts groups like the Metropolitan Opera worry that weak attendance could extend into next season and beyond, as federal assistance which helped many companies survive through the pandemic has dried up. At the Met, subscriptions are expected to fall to 19 percent of total box office revenues this season, compared with 45 percent two decades ago. The company will try to appeal to old and new audiences and get the amount of their endowment back.

    The Met is the premier opera company in the United States, and even so still faces issues from the pandemic, which made a lot of businesses decline or shut down completely. Although the pandemic’s grasp is behind many people now, its effects will remain affecting the visual arts sector for years to come. For more information about events coming up at the Met, go here.

  • Ryan Luce Releases New Illuminating Record “Country House”

    Brooklyn Americana artist Ryan Luce has just released his newest illuminating record titled “Country House.” Ryan Luce explores the subtle nuance of everyday life and studies the inner dramas of fathers, sons, and daughters.

    Brooklyn Americana artist Ryan Luce

    This Americana record was written throughout the pandemic where Ryan found love, lost his backing back, and honed his songwriting abilities. “I had to get back to writing, to what I know is the only thing I’m good at. Those songs became Country House,” stated Luce. 

    “Offers a blend of country-western Americana and Pacific Rock à la Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers to paint energetic narratives with lasting visual effect.” 

    -Rhythm & Boots NYC 
    Brooklyn Americana artist Ryan Luce

    Country House is a ten-song collection filled with heartbreaking lyrics and timeless melodies; Luce certainly pulled from classic country to modern day Americana throughout these releases. 

    “Before the pandemic I was pigeonholing myself in the themes I wrote about. I think I used songwriting as a projection on my own feelings of longing and escape and that limited my abilities,” says Luce. “Writing these songs allowed me to throw away the old ghosts and achieve a caliber of songwriting and production I’d been searching for.”

    Unlike Luce’s 2019 debut EP California Gold, a loose collection of songs from hustling the New York scene, Country House is rather an artifact from his life frozen in time. “I always dreamed of making a record where the songs are from a distinct period, as a time capsule, I could dig up in 20 years and look back on someday.”  

    The world had taken a toll throughout the time of the pandemic, but lots of musicians found a muse throughout being stuck inside. “I think a collective forcefield was blocking artists from creating during the early days of the pandemic including myself.” His band had scattered to the wind as the pandemic began and now, stuck in his apartment, recording plans scrapped, he fought off Covid.  

    The album came together out of the motivation that Luce hadn’t written anything in months. “Something switched on, I had to get back on the horse and start writing songs again. I started playing in different keys and the first song I wrote was the title track.” 

    Listen to more of Country House and to check out more of Ryan Luce, click here.

  • ‘The Phantom Of The Opera’ on Broadway Closes After 35 Years

    Broadway’s beloved The Phantom Of The Opera will close after 35 years on stage due to the ongoing crisis the pandemic has had on the theatre business, with fewer people going to shows over the past two years.

    the phantom of the opera
    Emilie Kouatchou and Ben Crawford lead the current cast of “The Phantom of the Opera” on Broadway.

    The show is the longest-running show in Broadway history and will commemorate its 35 anniversary in January, and then will play its final performance on Broadway on Feb. 18, according to a spokesman. The show has become a staple in Broadway history, however, due to the pandemic it has grossed a lot less money since the reopening of the theatre.

    The musical made almost $900,000 for the week ending Sept. 11, but it is making less than half the money that shows like Hamilton, The Lion King, and Wicked are making. Tickets are also significantly cheaper than other shows, with “Phantom” costing around $80 a ticket, and others costing well over $100 because the demand to see the show is less.

    “Phantom” is a symbol of 1980s Broadway, created by three of the most legendary figures in musical theater history: the composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, the director Hal Prince and the producer Cameron Mackintosh. The show is about a mask-wearing opera singer who frequents the Paris Opera House and falls for a young soprano. It is famous for the mask as well as the chandelier that crashes on stage every night. On Broadway, the show has been seen by 19.8 million people and has grossed $1.3 billion, since opening.

    The Phantom Of The Opera will still have production in London, as well as a brand new one in Australia. The first Mandarin language production is set to open in China next year, and a Spanish-language version is in the works. Tickets will go on sale shortly for the final productions, and for information on when those will be and how to purchase them, go here.

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