(Credit: Brigitte Lacombe)

Metropolitan Opera general manager Peter Gelb claims that an “agenda” is behind the negative reviews for the season-opening “Grounded.”

In an exclusive story by Page Six, at en event for the Musicians Foundation on Monday, Oct. 7, 2024, Gelb noted the need for more “accessible” works that pull on people’s “emotions as well as their intellect” before going after the New York Times review by Zachary Woolfe, which among other things, called the work “bloodless” and “bland.”

In contrast, Gelb contested that the piece was “brilliant” and “has great emotional impact” before launching into his tirade against the critics and their “agenda.”

“I’ve been around long enough to know that critics write — and they should write — what they feel,” Gelb noted. “But sometimes you get the sense that there’s an agenda, and that’s where it [becomes] troublesome.

“There’s a great deal of resentment on the part of some critics — not all critics, some critics — about the idea that music should be approachable by a large audience and should be available to more people and some critics might [prefer to] keep it sacred, in some ways, for themselves,” he continued.

When pressed regarding what “agenda” he was referring to, Gelb noted that critics seemed to wish that certain pieces were being shown, pointing to operas by Elliot Carter or others that he didn’t think would have popular success.

“I think there’s a — and I don’t know if this is conscious or subconscious effort on their part — but I do believe that anything that they think smacks of accessibility, there is something inherently wrong with, and that’s what I think is so screwed up about this situation,” the general manager, whose father was once the managing editor of the New York Times, added.

The New York Times was not the only publication critical of “Grounded” with Bachtrach claiming that it “fails to take flight.” In my own review, I noted that the opera was “In sum, it was… a frustrating experience – a story that felt like it had more to give (and more to cut as well) and a production that certainly could have done more to fill in those blanks.” The opera was savaged well before its Met premiere with Washington Classical Review noting that it “misses the target” and the Washington Post adding that it “never takes off.” (There some positive reviews too).

So Gelb knew exactly what was coming, especially with composer Jeanine Tesori and librettist George Brant deciding to cut 45 minutes.

More interesting is that this “agenda” is that other contemporary operas that Gelb has served up at the Met have met with more positive reaction.

In his review for “The Hours,” Woolfe said “Every scene in the opera eventually gets to the same place musically and dramatically, whipped into soaring emotion. The tear-jerking gets tiring.” Vulture noted that “Far from being a spinoff of a spinoff, Kevin Puts’s The Hours mixes musical freshness and venerable traditions in a fine and moving music drama.” Theater Mania’s review noted that “Sorrow has never sounded more beautiful.” And two different OperaWire reviews, including mine and Jennifer Pyron’s, across two different seasons, loved the opera.

We can do the same exercise for “Dead Man Walking,” which opened the 2023-24 season and also for “Fire Shut Up in My Bones.” In this context, ironically, “Grounded” has been one of the few misfires when it comes to contemporary works at the Met Opera.

You also won’t find many of those reviews (if any) explicitly calling for Elliott Carter operas or the like to take their place (though I did publish a piece once upon a time suggesting new works the company should bring; again no mention of Elliott Carter, with all due respect).

Also, as pointed out by Alex Ross in a solid critique of Gelb’s “agenda” narrative, Carter wrote one opera, “What Next?” 

This isn’t the first time Gelb has pulled the trump card of being hostile toward media criticism of his projects. Back in 2012, following scathing review by Opera News’ Fred Cohn of the new Ring Cycle production (clocking in at a whopping $15+ million price tag and one of the major projects of his regime), Gelb barred the publication from continuing to review productions at the Met. Negative reaction to his censoring of Opera News (including a scathing comparison of Gelb to Vladimir Putin by Parterre’s Lenny Abramov) forced Gelb to reverse his decision and allow the publication to exercise its right to free speech regarding Met Opera productions.

Moreover, while Gelb might want to shift the blame toward the critics, the audience isn’t necessarily responding the way he’s hoped. A survey of last year’s tickets sales revealed that contemporary operas were outperformed by classic works with only “X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X” drawing above 75 percent audience throughout its run (it had 78 percent attendance overall). The other five contemporary operas, drew in at less than 70 percent with the season-opening “Dead Man Walking” crawling to 62 percent attendance and revivals of “The Hours” and “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” getting just 61 percent and 65 percent attendance. “El Niño” fared worst with 58 percent and “Florencia en el Amazonas” was the best of this group with 68 percent attendance. I don’t have the numbers, but I was in attendance for opening night for “Grounded”  and it was far from a sold-out house.

Additionally, Gelb’s tenure in recent seasons has been far from exemplary or problem-free with the company forced to pull from its endowment following post-pandemic budgeting issues. He’s also been in a highly publicized war of words and then lawsuit with the most famous opera singer in the world, Anna Netrebko; the company was also forced to spend money to pay the soprano. While he has been a major proponent of supporting Ukraine during its fight for freedom from Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, he has also been madly inconsistent in which “Putin-backed” artists he would allow to sing in his house and which he would cut ties with (Victory Day star Evgeni Nikitin was allowed to premiere a new “Lohengrin” production a year after the invasion and months after said Victory Day celebration, but Netrebko was fired very publicly right away, while Hibla Gerzmava, a known Putin supporter, was quietly let go months later; Ildar Abdrazakov, also a known Putin advocate, got a quiet dismissal a year after the invasion).