They Told Me Not to Take that Job: Tumult, Betrayal, Heroics, and the Transformation of Lincoln Center (23 page)

For decades, orchestras from domestic and foreign cities like Vienna, Berlin, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, and Philadelphia performed at Carnegie Hall on certain agreed-upon dates. These rarely varied. The New York–based donors and the expatriate supporters of these ensembles attended with enthusiasm. Fund-raisers were held. Some orchestral players brought family members to New York City on holiday. In the media capital of the world, feature stories and critical reviews were much sought after.

Neither Carnegie Hall nor these world-class ensembles were prepared to yield their prime dates to the New York Philharmonic.

As a practical matter, and not even counting the number of needed rehearsals, the 120–130 desirable performance dates of the New York Philharmonic soon began to shrink as the utterly predictable laws of physics were thrown into sharp relief. Two orchestras cannot rehearse or perform on the same stage at the same time. Something had to give. And what ultimately yielded was the New York Philharmonic’s wishful, even magical thinking.

How could Carnegie Hall guarantee that one of its world-class visiting orchestras would not play the same music the New York Philharmonic planned to perform in the same season?

How could Carnegie Hall ensure that there wasn’t competition for special guest artists between the New York Philharmonic and these visiting orchestras?

How could Carnegie Hall allow free rein to the New York Philharmonic’s fund-raising, given the substantial overlap in appeal of both organizations to existing and potential donors?

Lorin Maazel was scheduled to be replaced with a new conductor. As the “owner” of the New York Philharmonic, why wouldn’t Carnegie Hall select his successor?

And in the mix was another septuagenarian, Zarin Mehta, the executive director. He must have assumed that a major role would be reserved for him in the new arrangement. The much-respected head of Carnegie Hall, Robert Harth, about three decades Zarin’s junior, but with plenty of experience, was extremely well-liked and respected in the field. Anyone who knew Harth understood that he had not joined the venerable organization of Carnegie Hall to be deposed or undermined. Naturally, Carnegie Hall wished to determine who would run the outfit. Rumors spread that if this merger were executed, in a matter of months Mehta would be shown the door.

Shrouded in mystery was whether the New York Philharmonic would actually give up its independent charitable status and dissolve into Carnegie Hall, becoming, in effect, a “line of business.” If so, what number of New York Philharmonic trustees would be added to the Carnegie Hall board, and who would they be?

What looked so tempting in theory to the New York Philharmonic faded in the face of these thorny questions. They amounted to one, really: Who would be in charge?

As for Carnegie Hall, what did it find when it belatedly examined with care the books of the New York Philharmonic? Years of consecutive operating deficits and a large unfunded pension liability in excess of $10 million. Harth and Weill also learned to their dismay that the New York Philharmonic’s announcement and potential departure from Lincoln Center might well carry heavy legal liabilities. They could cost well over $20 million. Lincoln Center meant business. It intended to pursue its legal remedies.

We patiently explained to Guenther that from Lincoln Center’s point of view its constituency agreement with the New York Philharmonic had been breached. As a result, we contended that the New York Philharmonic would be responsible for payment of damages, and its privileges as a resident artistic organization of Lincoln Center were subject to nullification.

One might consider the New York Philharmonic’s plans from either the perspective of pursuing freedom
from
a constrained and constricted relationship at Lincoln Center or gaining freedom
to
a promised better deal at Carnegie Hall. What became clear was that the situation at
Lincoln Center was not so bad after all, and the one at Carnegie Hall was more complex and vexing than either side had imagined.

If there were an Olympic gold medal for a sport called backpedaling, the New York Philharmonic would have won hands down. The public reversal of its plans less than six months after a grand public announcement of them was a colossal humiliation.

So much of the difference between the two sides could have been determined by just a little staff homework and by careful consideration of the likely legitimate interests of each party. Apparently, neither happened. I was put in mind of Napoleon’s epigram: “Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.”

Beyond Napoleon’s explanation, could there be another? My view is that the New York Philharmonic simply did not wish to raise its share of the cost of a brand-new auditorium in Avery Fisher Hall, $100–$125 million. Even though Lincoln Center had generously offered to pay as much as 75 percent of the $400 to $500 million total price tag, the prospect of a major capital campaign gave many trustees at the Philharmonic the shivers. In its storied history, nothing approaching that sum had ever been raised, and the orchestra’s chief professional, Mehta, had not the experience, the willingness, or the ability to take the lead in directing such a campaign. Nor did its board chair, Guenther.

To this day, I do not understand why the nation’s oldest orchestra, located in what is by far its largest and wealthiest city, does not perform much better in raising funds. For the fiscal year ending August 31, 2013, the New York Philharmonic’s endowment totaled $187.4 million, with an operating budget of $74.2 million. In other words, its endowment stands roughly at 2.5 times its annual spending needs.

Why is it that the Chicago Symphony, by comparison, ended its 2012–2013 fiscal year with an endowment of $257 million on an operating budget of $73 million, or 3.5 times its annual operating budget?

And why did the Boston Symphony’s endowment total $421.7 million on an operating budget of $83.5 million, five times its annual spending requirements?

The New York Philharmonic seemed to view its lackluster endowment and its consistent annual operating deficits as reasons to shortchange itself. There is, of course, another option. More generous trustees.
More energetic and compelling fund-raising, by the board and the staff. More galvanizing ideas that spur contributed income.

In most of my experience with the New York Philharmonic, tepidness and an absence of zeal have carried the day. Instead of seeing a new auditorium as an exciting investment opportunity that could catalyze superior fund-raising for both capital and endowment needs, it viewed a major fund-raising campaign as out of reach and unrealistic.

Not so in Dallas, where Meyerson Hall was built for the Dallas Symphony in 1989. Not so in Philadelphia, where the Kimmel Center was erected for the Philadelphia Orchestra in 2001. Not so in Los Angeles, where Disney Hall was christened as the dazzling home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2003.

For the New York Philharmonic, the dominant challenge seemed to be how to find a new home without having to raise substantial funds to pay for it. How sad.

Rumors had it that Sandy Weill, Carnegie Hall’s chair, might have offered some kind of substantial commitment to the New York Philharmonic. It was suspected that what Mr. Weill had up his sleeve was an intention to give or raise most, if not all, of the funds needed for the orchestra’s relocation to Carnegie Hall. Given his extraordinary generosity to Carnegie Hall for so many of its major initiatives, financial support directed to helping make possible the New York Philharmonic’s return there would hardly be out of character.

Besides any financial incentive, moving to Carnegie Hall made it unnecessary for the orchestra to perform for a couple of seasons outside its home while construction occurred. Like the renter who keeps his original apartment until he moves into a new one gradually and conveniently, the Philharmonic envisioned staying at Lincoln Center until Carnegie Hall was ready for it to relocate.

If there were an explicit or implicit offer of financial support to the New York Philharmonic, from a sheer real estate perspective one might call this anticipated arrangement a free ride. But from an institutional, managerial, artistic, and operational vantage point it was nothing short of a disaster in the making. All of this could have been fully predicted by looking at the calendar. Just ask the question why no great orchestra
has merged with another institution. Ever. Anywhere. Just consider the issue of who would be in charge managerially and artistically. And what about governance?

Why didn’t the Philharmonic staff obtain a current Carnegie Hall calendar and project onto it all needed New York Philharmonic performance and rehearsal dates? Doing so would have immediately clarified how much displacement of Carnegie’s regular schedule was needed to accommodate the New York Philharmonic’s expectations.

Why didn’t the New York Philharmonic board debate the consequences of a merger for the identity of the orchestra, for its artistic integrity, for its management, and for its governance?

Why wasn’t basic homework done regarding the impact of a merger on fund-raising, on trustee composition, and on the balance sheet of the merged entity? And why didn’t Carnegie Hall’s staff and board undertake similar due diligence from its point of view?

The aftershocks of this orchestral round-trip to and from Carnegie Hall permeated the media. No one followed this story more closely than Robin Pogrebin, who originally broke it for the
New York Times
. No one had more or better sources. Writing on October 14, 2003, she summarized the whole affair this way:

[T]he Philharmonic board itself may ask him [Paul Guenther] to step down [as chair]. Several trustees, who would not comment for the record, said Mr. Guenther mishandled the Philharmonic’s planned departure in a way that cost him the confidence of his board.

Several Philharmonic trustees said that Mr. Guenther decided on the merger without consulting the full board, and that he agreed to a merger before having even begun to consider—or had the board consider—the logistical and programming ramifications. They said he assumed the Philharmonic would have primacy at Carnegie Hall without ascertaining whether Carnegie would agree.

I am aware that grade inflation is quite common in colleges and universities, but as an erstwhile professor myself, I’d conclude that there is no way the New York Philharmonic could have received anything other than a failing grade in Management 101 and Governance 101.

T
HE ULTIMATE IRONY
is that not only did both organizations fail to look forward to the first-order consequences of their future relationship, but also neither appeared to look back to their own history together.

Famously, Santayana once observed: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” I am more partial to Mark Twain’s view: “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.”

A visit to the New York Philharmonic archives reveals that when the orchestra performed at Carnegie Hall, well before it ever moved to Lincoln Center, the relationship between these two artistic institutions was fraught and embattled. From the New York Philharmonic’s perspective, the records are replete with complaints, from very serious issues to minor irritants. The lateness of Carnegie Hall in scheduling performances and rehearsals. The terms and conditions of the use of the venue. The sloppy deployment by Carnegie Hall of the New York Philharmonic’s chairs and music stands. The feeling was that when given a choice, Carnegie offered foreign orchestras favored dates, to the detriment of its resident orchestra, the New York Philharmonic.

We ask why the Carnegie Hall administration always favors a foreign orchestra which takes a few dates over and above New York’s own orchestra which leases more than one hundred dates. Our objections are both important and numerous and I wish to set them forth so that you will see our position more clearly.

So wrote Arthur Judson, the Executive Secretary of the Philharmonic Society, to Wilton M. Bergerman, acting president of Carnegie Hall, on December 15, 1942.

On January 28, 1944, Bergerman returned the favor in a written volley to Judson, complaining about the Philharmonic’s failure to offer a reasonable sum to rent Carnegie Hall’s quarters for future seasons:

Except for the conditional offer of $250,000 contained in Mr. Field’s letter, of September 1st, 1943, I have received no direct word from the Philharmonic on their position. I have informed Mr. Field and told you on a number of occasions that an offer of this amount was unsatisfactory and contained no possibility of an ultimate agreement.

I, too, regret that it has required so much time for the [Philharmonic] Society to formulate an offer of a character warranting serious consideration by us.

By the end of the very same year, on December 20, 1944, the matter still had not been resolved. Bergerman claimed in writing that he was being treated rudely. The Philharmonic, in the person of associate manager Bruno Zirato, denied that such was the case. He expressed his own frustration that settlement discussions were at a standstill.

The correspondence is replete with complaints about major matters and small details. It seethes with animosity. The Philharmonic protested other events booked by Carnegie Hall on inconvenient dates. It importuned management to install water coolers in the corridors and to repair fans causing a draft on the stage. It beseeched the administration of Carnegie Hall to provide clean meeting rooms free of refuse; supply toilet paper, paper tissue, and soap in bathrooms; and ensure that rental tenants began and ended their occupancy on time. There were arguments about access to the green room, about the cleanliness of the hall itself, and about the comportment of the ushers.