Hello and good morning. Welcome to the Backstage Classical podcast. Today's episode, completely in English, takes us to New York, to the Metropolitan Opera in the era of Donald Trump. And my guest is the director of the Opera House, Peter Gelb.
Peter Gelb, general manager of the Metropolitan Opera in New York, is briefly passing through Vienna. He asked if we'd like to meet before he heads off to Ukraine. He's traveling with his wife, conductor Keredin Wilson, who will be conducting there. Peter Gelb wants to visit the region his family came from. Together, they're even planning to meet with Ukraine's first lady, Olena Zelenska. We arranged to meet at the Hotel Imperial right across from the Musikverein. It's the first time Peter Gelb has been back in Vienna in many years. A lot has changed in the US since then. The Metropolitan Opera has made it through the pandemic, but not without major financial losses. Now, Donald Trump is back, and since his return, the promising numbers of recent months have plummeted. New York alone is seeing a 17% drop in tourism and the opera feels that impact, says Peter Gelb. Black t-shirt, still water. That's how he speaks about the problems back home.
The situation in the United States is very complicated right now, to put it mildly. There's no question there's an enormous drop off of tourists. I think 75% fewer Canadians are coming. And the Met, like Broadway, relies upon foreign visitors. We always have before the pandemic, 20% of our audience was made up of international tourists. And that number had been improving as tourism had been improving. And in fact, we projected this season to be our best season of recovery since the pandemic. But in the last couple of months of the season, we suffered as many cultural institutions in New York and across the nation. But of course, the Met is the biggest of the performing arts companies in America. So, we always suffer more. It had a negative impact on our box office.
What is interesting is that Peter Gelb doesn't directly blame Donald Trump for the drop in tourism and audience numbers, even though it's obvious. The US under its new president is attracting fewer visitors. It's no longer seen as a desirable travel destination. And yes, that has a lot to do with Donald Trump. But many artists and cultural figures in the US speak out only quietly, if at all. Yet, it's clear that the Trump administration is interfering with the arts. One of its first moves was to cut what little public funding there was for culture. So, how does all this affect the Metropolitan Opera?
We received actually less than 1% of our budget from the federal government and that was eliminated shortly after the Trump administration took over. In fact, all the arts funding basically has been eliminated from the government. For us it doesn't have a noticeable impact but obviously for smaller arts organizations across the country it could be devastating for them. We rely upon private philanthropy to make up the difference between our earned revenue and our expenses and that gap became even greater after the pandemic because for a variety of reasons, financial instability that's taking place around the world, and it certainly does not encourage donors because although the Met has very loyal faithful supporters and they continue to support us, it is sort of a rule of thumb that in the world of philanthropy when there is a state of economic instability, if the stock market is fluctuating wildly, people who are wealthy, even if they're very philanthropic, become more anxious about giving away money because they like to give away money when it is at the highest value. They don't like to give it away when their own personal wealth is diminished.
To sum all that up, it's not just about government funding cuts or uncertain tourist numbers. Trump's impact on the arts also includes a climate of financial instability that's making donors more cautious. Already in our last conversation, Peter Gelb explained to me that many billionaires have long since stopped investing in the arts. If they give at all, it's to concrete humanitarian causes. For example, healthcare initiatives in Africa or Gaza or as Gelb later notes, some like Elon Musk have stopped donating entirely. It's as if supporting the arts is no longer seen as a social responsibility. So yes, cultural institutions are facing a new enormous financial struggle. But what about artistic freedom? In the US, books are being removed from schools. Performances that take on progressive themes are being cancelled at Kennedy Center. Trump reportedly influences the programming personally.
There certainly is the creeping sense that we see that artistic freedom is threatened. The most obvious example is the Kennedy Center, which is under the financial control of the government, which is why the government was able to make the changes they have made there. I believe very strongly in artistic freedom. I believe that it is a bedrock of democracy and of civilization. And which is why I feel more than ever it is of the utmost importance for institutions like the Metropolitan Opera and other leading cultural institutions around the world because not just in America, freedom is being threatened all over the world with the rise of autocratic governments. What we cannot do is allow our artistic freedom to be harmed or crushed. And I think it's very important that we demonstrate our artistic freedom now more than ever.
So artistic freedom is under threat says Peter Gelb and it's the damn responsibility of cultural institutions to defend it. The situation in the US is also being closely watched in Europe. Some artists like pianist Andras Schiff have said they won't perform in the US while Trump is in power. Others like conductor Franz Welser-Möst argue that now more than ever it is crucial to support American cultural institutions because they are on the front lines pushing back. And Peter Gelb prefers a diplomatic answer.
I can say that I understand that people are frightened. When you have a government that spends a great deal of its time in active retribution, it's very difficult for people and I'm sympathetic to the point that individuals have to not only be speaking for themselves but also protecting the institutions that they run. However, as we've learned, and this is a lesson of history throughout history, that being intimidated by autocratic governments is not a recipe for success. We must be able to speak freely. My hope is that America's democratic principles will in the end prevail. Certainly, America is in a state of peril at the moment.
At the same time, it is clear that American society is more divided than it has been in decades, a phenomenon we are also seeing in Europe. Could institutions like the opera help build bridges in such a polarized climate?
Well, I think in the case of the Metropolitan Opera, all the artists who perform at the Metropolitan Opera and the people who work for the company, we have 2 to 3,000 people working there on any given day, they know that the Metropolitan Opera stands for democracy and for cultural freedom of expression and they have heard me speak about these subjects whether it's at cast parties or in the intermission of a live transmission to movie theaters around the world. For example, when we presented Fidelio around the world, I made a brief speech about how important it is in these dangerous, perilous times to stand up to autocracy. I think the people who come to the Met know that the Met stands for that and I'm very proud of the fact that the Met is a symbol of cultural democracy to people all around the world.
As far as I know, the New York Philharmonic never publicly responded to Andras Schiff's cancellation, but Gelb makes it clear no artist has yet refused to perform at the Metropolitan Opera in protest against Donald Trump.
The only artists who say they don't want to come to the Met, it's for other reasons than political ones. It's usually because they don't feel I've given them the right roles. Okay, that is normal opera business.
