Saudis Broker Met Opera Residency

The financial woes of the Metropolitan Opera are no secret. Beset by rising costs and attendance that has yet to return to pre-pandemic levels, the company has been forced to withdraw $120 million from its endowment for operations since 2022.

Now help seems to be arriving in the form of a lucrative agreement with Saudi Arabia that calls for the company to present three weeks of performances each winter, beginning in 2028 and extending through 2032, at the new Royal Diriyah Opera House on the outskirts of Riyadh. The deal, which has not yet been finalized, is projected to bring the Met more than $100 million.

“It’s the right thing to do,” Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, told the New York Times, “because it will make the Met stronger as an institution, both financially and artistically.” He is acutely aware of the Saudi record of human rights abuses, but has been encouraged by the efforts of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to promote new social freedoms and improve the country’s image at home and abroad.

Rendering of the new Royal Diriyah Opera House

“All the democratic governments that I know of are engaged in business with Saudi Arabia,” Gelb notes. “I have to put the survival of the institution… first. I don’t operate the Met according to my personal feelings on every issue.”

The agreement calls for the Met to become the winter resident company of the Royal Diriyah Opera House for five years, beginning with its opening in 2028. Each February the company will stage operas like Mozart’s The Magic Flute and Puccini’s La bohème. Additionally, the Met will train Saudi singers, musicians, composers, directors, set designers, and technicians in New York, and commission an opera set in the ancient city of Al-Ula by the British composer Jonathan Dove.

After an associate of the Saudi government approached Gelb in 2023, he first met with the Saudi cultural minister in Paris, and then traveled to Riyadh in the summer of 2023 to meet with other Saudi officials. That fall, the Met hosted the American debut of the Saudi National Orchestra and Choir. As talks progressed, experts like former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice supported the idea, and Gelb could look at examples of a number of successful partnerships between the Saudi government and the Paris Opera, the Recording Academy, the Smithsonian, the Pompidou Center. and others.

The American Guild of Musical Artists, which represents chorus members, soloists, dancers, and stage managers has blessed the agreement, as has the executive committee of the Met’s board (unanimously).

Gelb tells the Times that while the Met’s survival does not depend on the Saudi deal, it is necessary because cultural institutions are having difficulty interesting a new generation of philanthropists. “The triple-digit billionaires do not give money to the arts,” he lamented. “I’d be very happy if Elon Musk wanted to write a check for $2 billion, which would be a rounding error for him, but I don’t think he’s going to do it.”

How true. Credit Gelb for taking a bold step to secure the Met’s finances.

New York Times