In His Own Words

Alexander Neef, General Director


12/4/2009

Our Long-Term Future

Today, we had a long meeting of our Long-Term Funding Committee, a group of Board members who help us develop strategies to secure that our artistic plans have the necessary financial foundation.

Not only, but especially, in these challenging economic times it is very important to maintain the COC's capacity to produce new works and new productions of existing operas.

Over the years, the COC has built an international reputation for performing unusual repertoire extremely well. The Nightingale and Other Short Fables is just the latest example. But we also need to build new productions of the most important pieces of the standard repertoire, i.e. the 10 to 15 most popular operas by Mozart, Verdi, Puccini and a few other composers.

If we own productions of these pieces, they are between 15 and 30 years old and many of our subscribers and patrons have seen them many times. They deserve to rediscover these pieces in more recent production of the highest quality. This will be a major focus of our programming over the next 10 years while we continue to explore the endlessly fascinating universe of unusual works, works that have never been performed by the COC or haven't been performed by the COC in a very long time.

Most of our revenue is committed to the operational cost of running the company, but we work very hard to save some money for two new productions every season. Some of these productions are only possible if we partner with other companies to share the cost of developing the concept and creating the sets and costumes. Most of them wouldn't be possible without the generous support of individual donors and corporations. Contributing to the cost of a new production is a very meaningful way of contributing to the COC's future for many years to come.

Have a good weekend.

Posted by Alexander Neef / in Planning / comments (0) / permalink