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New York City Opera has laid off 11 members of its administrative staff because of financial pressures and a lack of work caused by the cancellation of most of its season, a spokesman said on Friday.
The employees, mostly in junior positions, were dismissed on Wednesday and given severance packages, said the spokesman, Pascal Nadon. “There is no plan for them to be rehired,” he said in a telephone interview.
The opera is offering limited programming while its Lincoln Center home, the New York State Theater, is renovated. “Fewer staff members are needed to implement the coming season,” Mr. Nadon wrote in an e-mail message. The company “believes that this reorganization will position the opera to deal with current economic conditions.”
The laid-off employees come from a “variety of departments,” Mr. Nadon said, including marketing, development, finance, artistic and production. The entire administrative staff numbers 82.
The layoffs weren’t announced but were confirmed after a reporter’s inquiry and come just before Saturday’s season opener, a concert on Staten Island by City Opera Orchestra and Chorus. The layoffs follow other turbulence, including a quixotic bid by the general manager-designate, Gerard Mortier, to take over the Bayreuth Festival in Germany, which surprised board members.
City Opera faces a deficit of up to $15 million, made up of previous shortfalls and an expected gap this season. Fund-raising had also fallen, as some board members were not convinced by Mr. Mortier’s plans to shake up the company, Mr. Mortier has said. But company officials say the board is now behind him.
In what Mr. Nadon called an unrelated development, the opera’s executive director, Jane M. Gullong, will leave the company, as Mr. Mortier has effectively eliminated her job. “The way Gerard Mortier works is, he never had an executive director in previous functions,” Mr. Nadon said. “It was clear that Gerard would not need an executive director.”
Ms. Gullong, who Mr. Nadon said was leaving on good terms, will depart at the end of the year. She was named executive director in late 2004 and was the chief fundraiser for a decade before that. She did not return a voice mail message left on Friday.
Mr. Mortier is in his last year as director of the Paris National Opera and will take over at City Opera next season. He was in Paris on Friday, and there was no answer at his office.
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