$50 Million Gift to Kennedy Center

Alberto Vilar, the opera world’s biggest charitable donor, has made a gift of $50 million to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

The donation, the largest gift in Kennedy Center history, will be used over the next 10 years to fund annual visits of the Kirov (Maryinsky Theatre) Ballet and Opera companies of St. Petersburg, Russia, and to establish the Vilar Institute for Arts Management.

Vilar, founder of Amerindo Investment Advisors, Inc., a high-tech investment firm, is also the largest single donor to Los Angeles Opera. In September, Vilar donated $10 million to the company, whose artistic director is his close friend Placido Domingo, also artistic director of Washington Opera.

In a telephone interview Wednesday, Vilar, 60, said he directed part of his donation toward management because many people advancing to administrative positions in opera lack comprehensive training. “They are going to rotate through the main functions, from lighting to maintenance to contracts,” he said. “And hopefully we’ll be able to offer courses to newly appointed trustees, so when they get committee responsibility they’ll have an understanding of how an opera house functions.”