Peter Gelb is no longer considering retiring from the Metropolitan Opera.
In a recent article “Does Peter Gelb Have ‘the Most Difficult Job on Earth’?,” Gelb said he has no desire to retire after his contract expires on July 31, 2030, assuming he is healthy and the Met board wants him to continue.
In an expose by the New York Times, Gelb said, “I should leave when I cannot do the job properly or when the board doesn’t want me to be here. I’m a workaholic, I’ve always worked. I don’t enjoy free time. I wake up in the middle of the night thinking about work. Some people have egos that are so satisfied that they don’t need work. I need work. My life would be empty without work.”
The comments come months after he told the Associated Press that he would step down in 2030. In the New York Times article, he said it was an “errant remark.”
In the expose, Ann Ziff, the chairman of the Metropolitan Opera board added, the Met “would be crazy not to try to get another contract from him because of the direction that he’s taken us. He has pulled us through all these crises.” She added, “I have faith in the situation with Peter at the helm.”
The article also noted that senior members of the board of director applauded the Gelb’s efforts to reinvent the company for a new generation and to deal with the financial problems and noted that the vast majority of the board supported him.
The article, which celebrated Gelb’s leadership, saw positive feedback from such prominent figures as Deborah Borda, former president of the New York Philharmonic who said Gelb would be “hard to replace” and John Allison, Opera Magazine editor, who added, “It’s hard to imagine the Met still being with us today if it had continued on the trajectory where it was 25 years ago.”
However, there was some pushback with “Some board members who want the Met, which has a $62 million line of credit coming due in February, to file for bankruptcy protection.” However, Gelb has rejected those ideas calling it “a last resort.”
Gelb has been at the Met since 2006 and has seen the company through a number of financial woes including two credit downgrades and dips into the endowment. His recent deal with Saudi Arabia fell through due to the war in Iran. And according to the New York Times, the HD broadcasts have “collapsed” with audiences longer attending movie theaters with revenues from those performances only covering the cost of the productions.
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