New York is aquiver. On Saturday the Metropolitan Opera will close its season with a snazzle-dazzle variety show honoring Joseph Volpe, its grandiose, self-aggrandising, about-to-be-ex- general-manager, writes Martin Bernheimer. He steps down after 16 years at the helm of what may be the world’s leading haven for the lyric muse.
The valedictory exercise promises to be the most momentous event at Lincoln Center since David Blaine, drippy but undrowned, recently forsook his fishbowl on the plaza. Volpe has assembled a gaggle of stars – would-be, has-been and bona fide – to deliver characteristic pomp if limited circumstance. The gala should represent a fitting tribute to, and from, a man who has often been accused of being obnoxious and power-hungry and who, like Jesus, began his career as a carpenter.
That’s not all. Just in time for departure fanfares, Knopf has published Volpe’s memoirs, The Toughest Show on Earth: My Rise and Reign at the Metropolitan Opera. The co-author, timidly credited, is Charles Michener, who reviews music for the New York Observer.
Volpe recounts his victories, real and wishful, with glee. He paints opponents as fools. He barely acknow-ledges failure. Having scraped his way to the top without the benefit of wealth or advanced education, he extols his prowess at every turn.
He joined the Met as a carpenter’s apprentice at 23 in 1963, and was soon promoted to master carpenter. The impresario says his cultural light did not flash until he heard Birgit Nilsson conquer all as Puccini’s ice-princess, Turandot. “There’s more to this opera stuff,” he realised, “than building scenery.”
Volpe never shrank from confrontation. “In order to be a successful leader,” he declares, “you sometimes have to behave operatically.” Still, the big boss played defender of the common man. “The Met doesn’t belong to you,” he tells its lofty executive director, Anthony Bliss. “It belongs to everyone who works here and the public who loves and pays for opera.”
Vulgarity is a common denominator. Taking obvious pleasure in exposing the prima-donna tantrums of Kathleen Battle, Volpe cheerfully recalls that Luciano Pavarotti thought the soprano’s problems would be solved by a close personal encounter with “a good man”. In 1994 Volpe ended Battle’s operatic career. “I wasn’t just getting rid of an artist who had become a pain in the neck,” he declares, “I was also announcing . . . that the financial, artistic and emotional [his emphasis] health of the Met mattered more than any one person.” It may be worth noting that Volpe’s imminent successor, the recordings mogul Peter Gelb, insists he would have done everything to keep Battle on the roster.
Of his contretemps with another soprano, Angela Gheorghiu, Volpe reports that “wags called her ‘Draculette’ ”. He once dropped her from Carmen because she resisted wearing the traditional blond wig as Micaela. “The wig goes on,” Volpe admonished, “with or without you.” Gelb is not impressed. “Joe and I,” he says, “have somewhat differing views about the importance of wigs.”
John Dexter, serving the Met as director of productions, was crucial in advancing the young Volpe. Bitterness eventually replaced friendship. “It’s silly,” Dexter complained, “to go on playing Trotsky to Volpe’s Stalin.” Relations with Jonathan Miller, another British director of independent spirit, soured similarly over the years. Volpe ridicules him as “the world’s expert on everything”. Volpe deals harshly with anyone perceived as an adversary, and he does not suffer critics gladly. This journalist can attest to that.
Relations with Beverly Sills became strained when the former soprano became chairman of the Lincoln Center board. It may be worth remembering that Sills was instrumental in appointing Gelb. Volpe derides her as “a diva who has the diva’s desire to be loved by everyone, which is not always a quality helpful to decisive leadership”. In a New York Times interview, Sills responds with faux sympathy. “These last days must be difficult for Joe.”
Volpe does manage to express admiration, usually guarded, for a chosen few. James Levine, his long-time musical collaborator, is spared aspersion, though we are told he is “allergic to confrontations”. He praises Franco Zeffirelli, producer of the kitsch extravaganzas New Yorkers adore. Volpe admits that ticket sales have plummeted at the Met, but blames 9/11 traumas. He points strenuously to a few innovative productions, but rests his laurels on a stubborn pursuit of tradition.
There is no question that this dictator kept an orderly house in a world notorious for chaos. Even Volpe’s detractors praise his organisational skills. It cannot be surprising that he will soon join a consulting firm run by his buddy Rudolph Giuliani, ex-mayor of New York.
“Volpe”, by the way, means “fox”.
