Certainly there were advantages to the collaboration between the NYCO and the Glimmerglass Opera, which Kellogg already managed. Some productions could be built, rehearsed, and performed at the lovely Cooperstown site, then transferred to Lincoln Center at far lower cost than if New York had been point of origin. (Waleson points out—and I don’t think I’d even known this—that Glimmerglass is a non-union house, so the savings on labor, always the biggest single expense in any operatic enterprise, were surely significant.) Kellogg had a well-developed taste for pre-Romantic opera (Handel and the Baroque), for contemporary opera of what is usually called the musically conservative sort, and for the voice types—I call them “Skipover” voices—that to many contemporary ears work well in those repertories in cozy opera houses like Glimmerglass.

But they work noticeably less well in a place like the New York State Theatre (see above), and less well yet when asked, as they not infrequently were, to move into standard repertory works. The City Opera grew vocally undernourished. Down-rent conceptualism and campiness in production did not make up the shortfall. ^(I) And as it became increasingly clear that this was the case, Kellogg was dragged into two disastrous initiatives: the misbegotten installation of audio “enhancement” and the public campaign against the acoustics of his own theatre. There were myriad valid arguments, both artistic and economic, for trying to find a new home for the company. But advertising the unsuitability of the old one while trying to sell admission to it was not sagacious, especially since many could easily recall the time when the venue was perfectly practicable.

The Rudel years really were the glory years of the New York City Opera. That’s not just nostalgia speaking, unless one defines “nostalgia” as having experienced a standard of artistic quality, with all the excitement and emotional gratification that implies, then missing it when it’s no longer around. To be sure, some of the glory did have to do with “alternative rep,” and  especially with all the hopefulness that surrounded what we felt must be the birth of American opera. But two things to note about that: 1) If you’ll take a listen to the few recordings of those works from that day, and if you’re familiar enough with the roster of the NYCO over its last twenty-five or thirty years to make some mind’s-ear comparisons, you’ll hear the same difference in vocal calibre, timbral richness, and individuality of voice we often note with respect to singers of the classical repertory, and I think you’ll find it easy to imagine why the State Theatre (and before it, the City Center, which is no acoustical jewel) did not seem so much of an obstacle. ^(II) 2) Please be aware that, from the time of its founding through the years of Beverly Sills’ directorship (that is, 1944-1989), the vast majority of City Opera performances were of standard repertory operas, sung more often than not in the original languages, and staged in scenically traditional productions. To the extent that its interpretations were “unconventional,” that was nearly always due to the presence of unusual stage personalities and their search, under directors with an appetite for exploring character behavior, for fresh and believable stage life.