Los Angeles Opera’s Executive Director Resigns

Ian White-Thomson, executive director of Los Angeles Opera, has resigned effective Monday after 19 months in the post.

Leonard I. Green, the company’s board chairman and chief executive, will fill the role while the opera launches a search for a new executive director.

White-Thomson, a former chairman and chief executive officer of U.S. Borax Inc. who was named to the opera post in February 2000, announced his resignation at a Sept. 6 board meeting and cited personal reasons.

Green confirmed that it was White-Thomson’s decision to resign. White-Thomson, who had a three-year contract, wanted to remain executive director until the end of the year, but the board felt it was more appropriate for White-Thomson to step down immediately so the company could launch an executive search for a replacement, Green added.

“I decided to take a little time off after 40 years of work,” said White-Thomson, 65, of his abrupt departure. “I started working again almost immediately after retiring [from U.S. Borax], and I really haven’t had a break since 1960.”

He called his tenure with the opera “a valuable experience--and I enjoyed almost all of it. One never enjoys all of anything .... It’s a wonderful company, a wonderful art form, and I think they’ve got a tremendous future in the next five years.”

Green said the opera did not announce White-Thomson’s resignation last week because “we hadn’t made a decision, at that point, as to how to approach the problem. It took a number of days to work out what was best for the opera.”

White-Thomson served as executive director during the leadership transition from former general director Peter Hemmings to the company’s new artistic director, Placido Domingo, whose first season of programming began this month. Hemmings oversaw both the business and artistic sides of the company, but the new leadership was divided between Domingo and White-Thomson, whose primary responsibilities were administrative and financial.

Green said that the company plans to maintain that structure and will replace White-Thomson. Of White-Thomson’s tenure, he said, “I think that it went as smoothly as it could have from the Peter Hemmings era. We went from having a general director to having artistic and executive co-heads, with both Placido and Ian reporting to the board, working together. There were some things that had to be resolved, but finally, we pretty much got it together.”

Thomson said he had no immediate plans beyond some traveling and spending more time at his home in Santa Fe.