Field Notes Vol. 6 no 3: Turning over rocks: What I didn’t get to say in the “Times”

As many of you have already seen, the March 9th edition of the New York Times carried an article on the ongoing financial struggles of the Metropolitan Opera. (The Met Opera’s Desperate Hunt for Money - The New York Times, March 9, 2026) Because of a post I’d made regarding a previous article on the subject (check out the LinkedIn post here), a reporter from the Times reached out to me a few weeks ago and asked if I would like to be interviewed for this new story. 

When I spoke with reporter and co-author of the piece, Julia Jacobs, I figured I would just speak my mind. I mean, if I’m going to be quoted in the Paper of Record I’d better make it worthwhile! Knowing the restrictions on length and so forth that are a big part of newspaper journalism, I was pleased that the two zingers I’d shared were both quoted:

In the first, I was speaking about the proposed deal between the Met and Saudi Arabia, which would bring up to $200 million to the Met’s coffers over a five year span:

“Setting aside the morality of the agreement and the government in question,” said Jeffrey Nytch, a professor of arts entrepreneurship, “I think it’s a sad statement that our country’s largest performing arts organization — one of its most distinguished and in one of the richest cities in the world — has to turn to a foreign government for what amounts to a bailout.”

In the second, I was speaking about the Met’s recent efforts to raise more money:

“What they’re doing is basically trying to turn over as many rocks as possible to see if there’s any money underneath,” Nytch said.

For the second one (in addition to wishing I could have cleaned up my syntax a little bit), I wish I’d added: “And that’s not a strategy.” You see, it wasn’t until I saw it in print that it dawned on me that some might interpret that sentence to be saying, “Look at them, turning over every stone they can find! Good for them!” Of course, I meant the opposite. Oh well: They published my two zingers, and that’s more than enough.

Still, I have a lot more to say on the subject (shock). And what better way to do it than with another edition of Field Notes?

Let’s start with my original post from February, which opened with this line in response to the announcement that the Met was cutting staff and trimming budgets:

“A sad development, but entirely predictable.”

Why predictable? Because Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, has never had a coherent strategy for maintaining the financial health of the organization. Changes to the schedule or in the number of productions have been reactive moves, not proactive moves guided by a coherent strategy. And when finances still fell short Gelb simply dipped into the Met’s endowment — to the tune of 30% depletion at last count. (Furthermore, in what is nothing short of gross mismanagement, the Board authorized a shift in investment strategy away from the safe and stable instruments of normal endowments to more speculative holdings. The result was sluggish growth while the stock market surged, robbing the endowment of millions of dollars in value it would have otherwise gained.)

So, what now? I’ll begin by acknowledging that I’ve never managed an organization anywhere near the size and complexity of the Metropolitan Opera, with its 3,000 employees and a budget of more than $300 million. I’m sure that if I were to sit down with Peter Gelb he would dismiss me as someone who has no idea what he’s talking about. And I’m sure, in terms of some areas, that’s probably true. That said, I know what an entrepreneurial approach to the Met’s problems would look like, and I can tell the difference between that and just throwing a bunch of spaghetti at the wall to see if anything sticks. And the Met has been going through a lot of spaghetti lately. 

Let’s talk about an entrepreneurial approach, then. Though the Met is certainly not a startup by any measure, the process for an established venture in deep need of reevaluation is the same. And the first step is to ask questions — entrepreneurship isn’t a cookbook, it’s a methodology. And the methodology of entrepreneurship is based on questions: Why isn’t my organization thriving the way I would like? How can I serve the people I want to attract to my product: what do they need and how can I provide that? What blinders/limitations are keeping my organization from thinking creatively about how to move forward? Equally important, entrepreneurs must do everything they can to answer these questions with data, not assumptions; this includes talking not just to your existing customers but also the people you want to become customers. I stress data over assumptions (bold, italics AND underlined, no less!) because many organizations tend to opt for the latter when trying to understand their customers. Performing arts organizations are among the worst offenders, often relying on sketchy or anecdotal data (or, worse yet, bowing to the “armchair quarterbacking” of their donors). We’ve heard these assumptions before: audiences only want the standards, symphony and opera tickets are too expensive, you can’t appreciate classical music without “education,” yada yada. Show me data, and show me what you were doing beyond just marketing promotions to make your offerings appealing to more people. Then we can talk. 

So, here are some entrepreneurial questions that I’m asking of the Met, starting internally and shifting ever-outward: 

1. One of the costliest aspects of the Met’s business model is that it presents in repertory, which means sets must be moved in and out multiple times every week. And on Saturdays, when there is a matinee in the afternoon and a different opera that evening, the turnaround must be done in a matter of hours. Now, part of this is practical: opera singers can’t sing night after night; there needs to be a few days between performances. But: Are there ways to minimize the number of times the stage needs to be reset every week? Are there adjustments to the Met’s calendar that would allow a more efficient use of resources? Unfortunately, the Met is deeply entrenched in the notion of “upholding tradition.” That’s all well and good if we’re talking about mission and purpose; but when it extends to things like certain times or certain days of the week (or even months) when you must perform, “tradition” becomes a noose. There’s a reason they say that the six deadliest words for any organization are, “We’ve always done it this way.” Time to consider what’s possible, not just what’s convenient or familiar.

2. Related to #1: The Met is already exploring ways to bring in other acts when the theatre would otherwise be dark. This is a good thing. What if they could press into this idea further? Rather than the Met mounting its usual schedule and then filling in the gaps where it can, what if the entire season were planned holistically, so that stage resetting was reduced, best-selling times optimized, and revenues increased? Might this be a “both/and” situation, where the other bookings are for organizations with whom the Met is also collaborating on new productions, resulting in new and exciting synergies?

3. New productions for a place like the Met — whether we’re talking about new takes on existing operas or new commissions — are going to be expensive. The entrepreneur, however, asks: Are there ways to make new productions less expensive without compromising the art? (See “synergies” above!) Gelb has appeared to assume that blank checks make for great art, but I don’t accept that. Take the infamous “Machine” from the Met’s last production of The Ring. Did the tens of millions of dollars spent on that mechanism — so massive that it required structural reinforcement to the stage — make that production memorable for anything other than the Machine itself? Could the artistic contributions of the Machine (which were marginal, at best) have been achieved with a more modest approach? Rather than designing a Cadillac plan and then trying to find the money for it, entrepreneurs see what they can do with what they’ve got. Moreover, innovation and invention rarely come out of situations where money is no object; sometimes being forced into a more resourceful mindset can bring out the best in human — and artistic — ingenuity.

4. Related to #3: What can be done to monetize productions after they premiere at the Met? If the only way to recoup the millions spent on a new production is through ticket sales, that’s far from optimal: some (most?) productions of either new commissions or more obscure works from the repertoire may not ever be produced again, and a new production of a canonical work will have to be really fantastic to stick around long enough to recoup the expense. Now, don’t misunderstand me: as a composer and passionate advocate for new work, obviously I want new productions/commissions and understand that these things can’t be driven by a for-profit mindset; great art is often bad business. Still, business-thinking can help stimulate new ideas about how to fund new work and continue to monetize it in the future. (What happened to The Machine, I wonder? Is it sitting in a warehouse somewhere? Was it dismantled for parts? The Met has already moved on: next year they’ll begin a new production of the Ring; the Machine will never see the Met’s stage again.)

5. What are the key demographics the Met would like to see more engaged in opera, and what is the company doing to engage them? What data has the Met collected on the effectiveness of those efforts? And, perhaps more to the point: What data was used to inform those initiatives during the design phase? What is the relationship between the city’s demographics and those of Met regulars? Where there are disparities, what are the reasons? Arts organizations tend to design “outreach” (a term I abhor) based on assumptions, which are frequently wrong. Then, when the initiative fails to deliver the desired result they move on without careful analysis of what went wrong.  You simply can’t skimp on getting as much reliable data as you can — at every stage of the process — and then seeing what possibilities that information opens up for you. 

6. New works must be contextualized in order to attract broad new audiences to works with which they are unfamiliar. This goes far beyond “marketing.” It’s about engaging, in substantive and sustained ways, with the target demographic for the story in question. I was pleasantly surprised to hear that MoMA and the Met are collaborating on an exhibition of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo’s art in conjunction with the upcoming production of Gabriela Frank’s new opera, El ultima sueno de Frida y Diego. I’d had the same idea, and history led me to conclude that the Met would not have the imagination to think of it themselves: it’s just not the sort of thing they’re prone to do. Even so, the MoMA thing is only barely scratching the surface of what’s possible. What if the Met undertook an initiative in the NY Public Schools to teach painting to underserved neighborhoods, using Kahlo and Rivera’s work as an entry point? What if this lasted for the full school year, not just a one-off, culminating in free tickets for participating students and their families and a display of chosen works at the Met during the opera’s run? Instead, I’m told that the Met doesn’t have a single Latinx board member; I’m pretty sure there hasn’t been any meaningful engagement with the Latinx community itself in anticipation of the opera; what a huge lost opportunity. And lastly, why isn’t the Met getting NBC to underwrite this production? Why NBC, you ask? Because they own Rockefeller Tower, the lobby of which has murals that constitute some of Rivera’s most important work. There’s gotta be some kind of partnership to exploit there! These are just some ideas; there might be far better ones on how to partner with the arts and latinx communities. Regardless, these ideas are but examples of how to address the last, most important, question of them all, the question that encapsulates everything else:

   
   

How does the Met make opera relevant to new audiences?

Everything I’ve mapped out above stems from this essential question, and it’s the question that most performing arts organizations don’t want to ask — or, if they do ask it, they’re not serious about listening to the answers. I believe this is because to even ask if genres like operas and symphonies are relevant calls into question the age-old assumption that the “fine” arts are the most “elevated” of human endeavors, and should be treated as such. But I don’t think that’s what asking the question does; it simply acknowledges that the paradigms for experiencing things like live opera and other forms of classical music haven’t really changed much in the last 100 years. So how can we make the case that these things still offer something valuable for today’s audiences when everything about the way they’re offered up screams White-European-Exceptionalism? We absolutely can do it, but it requires creative thinking and intentional, informed engagement and collaborative, ongoing, and substantial partnerships. And this process of connecting with potential customers on their terms is at the absolute core of entrepreneurship. 

So, while Peter Gelb claims the Met is “being entrepreneurial,” what they’re doing is the exact opposite. The Met is trying to bring more people, corporations, and donors into the organization on the Met’s terms; an entrepreneurial approach requires you to go out to your community, to discover their needs and partner to meet those needs on their terms. I’m talking about partnerships and programming that take each season’s works — especially new works — and embeds them in the community. I’m talking about demonstrating relevance, not just talking about it. 

And by the way: none of this is about compromising the art in any way, shape, or form. And it’s not easy, either: it requires creativity, innovative thinking, iteration and, yes, money. And all of those things add up to risk. Here’s the thing: the risk of sticking with the same old lazy marketing and one-off “outreach” events is far greater, because it guarantees the continuation of a status quo that has only one unthinkable (yet inevitable) conclusion.

Of course, Met traditionalists will be clutching their pearls over the ideas I’m presenting here. For many old-timers (a term I use to describe sensibilities more than demographics), the appeal of institutions like the Met is the very fact that they are not reflections of the larger community: they are, by definition, aloof, removed, a safe haven for the elite (as if they need one). But preserving an aura of exclusion and condescension towards “other classes,” however subtle or implicit, is no longer a sustainable model. And desperately hoping for Elon Musk or some other oligarch to swoop in and save the day with a billion dollar check isn’t a strategy: it’s just turning over as many rocks as you can, hoping you can find some money underneath.