NYC Opera Faces Bankruptcy

The New York City Opera's now-running production of Anna Nicole may be its last.

After the curtain falls following the last performance of “Anna Nicole” – an audacious chronicle of tabloid diva Anna Nicole Smith that opened the company’s 2013-14 season – the “People’s Opera” will have only a few days to raise millions of dollars. The 70-year-old company, which has faced financial challenges for a decade, will file for bankruptcy next week if it does not reach its fundraising goals. Earlier this month, the company began a Kickstarter campaign aimed at crowdfunding $1 million of the $7 million needed to carry out the rest of the season. The three remaining productions scheduled for 2013-14 are to be canceled if the goal is not met. To continue to 2014-15, an additional $13 million would be needed. “We have until Monday to raise the rest of the money we need to save our season and save the Company,” general director George Steel wrote in an email to supporters last night, with “Urgent Message” in the subject line. As of yesterday, $1.5 million had been raised, spokesman Risa Heller told the Associated Press.

The company left its longtime home at Lincoln Center two years ago and has since performed at venues around the city.

Brokeback Mountain, The Opera

Yup.

New York City Opera has commissioned American composer Charles Wuorinen to write an opera based on "Brokeback Mountain," a love story about two U.S. ranch-hands that won three Oscars when it was turned into a movie.

The opera house's spokesman Gerard Mortier said in a statement on Sunday that Wuorinen had accepted an invitation to compose an opera based on Annie Proulx's short story. It is slated to premiere during City Opera's 2013 spring season.

This would mark New Yorker Wuorinen's second world premiere at City Opera. He also composed "Haroun and the Sea of Stories," an adaptation of a Salman Rushdie novel which opened in 2004.

"Ever since encountering Annie Proulx's extraordinary story I have wanted to make an opera on it, and it gives me great joy that Gerard Mortier and New York City Opera have given me the opportunity to do so," Wuorinen, 70, said in a statement.

I imagine one of the numbers will be titled I Wish I Could Quit You. What else?

And The Pope Wears A Funny Hat

Worldwide Plaza lobby, Monday, 4pm

Ad Guy 1: Wanna get a drink after work?

Ad Guy 2: Is the governor blind?

That didn't take long.

Arrrrr!

Tonight Little David and I attended Pirates Of Penzance at the New York City Opera. My first Gilbert & Sullivan. We sat in the Lincoln Center equivalent of Shea Stadium's upper deck, but luckily I brought my binoculars, which I used to pick out how many of the pirates I recognized from the Eagle. (At least two.) Anyway, the tickets were only $12, just a little more than a Manhattan movie. After the last time I went to Lincoln Center, I made the mistake of telling some queen that I'd just come from the opera and was icily informed that "Sweeney Todd is not opera, darling." David advised me that tonight falls under "not-opera" too. Guess I'm still an o-virgin. Hey, why are pirates so hot? Because they just arrrrrrr. You're welcome.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that the only song I recognized was Modern Major-General, cuz, you know, Sideshow Bob.