L.A. Opera’s ‘War and Peace’ Casualty of Donor Discord

The Los Angeles Opera, a company whose international profile has been raised since the appointment of Placido Domingo as artistic director, has abruptly canceled the most ambitious production of its coming season because of a financial disagreement with its biggest donor.

“War and Peace,” a $3-million production featuring the forces of the acclaimed Kirov Opera, was supposed to open Oct. 23 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. High-tech investment billionaire Alberto Vilar, acknowledged as the leading donor for opera worldwide, had pledged $1 million to the production, which he also supported at its Kirov premiere and subsequent productions in London and New York.

But the budget for the local engagement grew by $600,000--the cost of adapting the massive production to the Pavilion stage. When Vilar was asked to supply the extra funds and also to move up the payment on his $1-million pledge, he declined both requests.

More than an embarrassing public relations problem, the move signals that Domingo’s ambitions for the company--whose budget has grown by $10 million since the globe-hopping tenor took the reins--may not yet be matched by its financial strength.

In an interview Thursday, Edgar Baitzel, L.A. Opera’s director of artistic operations, acknowledged that the need to cancel “War and Peace” had as much to do with growing pains at the company as it did with Vilar’s refusal to pay extra--or to pony up in advance.

“War and Peace” will be replaced by another Kirov production, Shostakovich’s “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk,” but the Prokofiev work had been highly anticipated after its well-received run at the Metropolitan Opera earlier this year.

Speaking by phone from Salzburg, Austria, Vilar said he had already spent a total of $4 million on “War and Peace,” “which is about as much as anybody wants to put into any opera.”

Vilar’s agreement with L.A. Opera was to pay half of the $1 million on the opening date, and the rest a year later--an arrangement Vilar says is standard for all opera company productions he underwrites worldwide.

“Every house is treated the same,” Vilar said. “I have already spent a lot of money on this opera, and then all of a sudden, I heard about this two weeks ago--they needed all this money up front.”

Vilar said he has no plans to change his payment arrangement with Los Angeles Opera in the future because, if he does, “somebody else will call me up and say: ‘You made an exception for L.A.’ ”

“When Alberto told us three weeks ago that we could not expect the pledged money until the end of this calendar year, we of course understood,” Domingo said in a prepared statement. “On the other hand, we were in no position to immediately lay out this large sum of money in advance of the Kirov’s visit.”

In 2000, Vilar promised $10 million to L.A. Opera for new productions--the largest single donation in the opera’s history. The $1 million for “War and Peace” was to have been part of that long-term gift.

Both opera executives and Vilar insist that L.A. Opera’s decision to pull the plug on “War and Peace” has nothing to do with Vilar’s ability to pay the bill.

Since late last year, Vilar has been dogged by rumors that he is not making good on his pledges to the arts, even though the organizations involved report that he has honored all of his contractual obligations. The rumors were fueled by the fact that Vilar’s privately held company, Amerindo Investments Inc., a $5.5-billion company at the beginning of 2000, saw its assets fall to $1.6 billion by the end of last year. Although no figures are available for 2002, Vilar has confirmed that recent stock market downturns have continued to affect his company.

This year has also been marked by a spate of bad health for Vilar. He underwent a series of back surgeries and an emergency operation in late November for a perforated gall bladder.

In a Times interview last month, Vilar said that health problems had caused him to “miss a few payments” to organizations to which he donates funds. He added that financial problems at Amerindo had led him to delay payments in some cases, an option that is written into some of his agreements. But he but maintained that he has never failed to deliver a donation on the agreed-upon schedule.

Both Vilar and opera company leaders insist Vilar’s decision does not represent a rift in the relationship between L.A. Opera and the New York money manager. The company confirms that Vilar, an L.A. Opera board member and close friend of Domingo’s, has met all of his financial obligations to date.

“We trust Alberto,” Baitzel said.

Unlike many major opera companies around the country, Los Angeles Opera has virtually no endowment to cover unexpected costs or funding delays, Baitzel said. And since Domingo took over the company in July 2000, its budget and ambitions have been expanding. In the 2001-2002 season, the first to be programmed by Domingo, the company’s annual budget grew from about $20 million to about $30 million, Baitzel said.

With the Los Angeles Philharmonic leaving the Pavilion next year for the Walt Disney Concert Hall, the opera company hopes, by 2008, to dramatically increase its schedule of productions and performances and double its current budget.

As it was for Vilar, 2001 was a rocky year for L.A. Opera. The company struggled with administrative money problems, and blamed Sept. 11 for disappointing ticket sales for the first two operas of the 2001-2002 season, “Queen of Spades” and “Lohengrin,” which both opened in September.

Also in September, Ian White-Thomson, the opera’s executive director and Domingo’s co-equal, abruptly resigned, calling the job “more pain than fun.” Since November, White-Thomson’s role has been filled by two people: Baitzel, hired originally as Domingo’s right hand for programming and casting, and the company’s then-director of development, Elizabeth Kennedy.

Baitzel said that the company is currently operating slightly in the black--it ended the 2001-2002 season with a $150,000 surplus--but added that the delayed-payment structure of its arrangement with Vilar, which was struck under White-Thomson’s leadership, will remain problematic as long as the company is operating without a significant endowment.

“Nowadays, if we were to be offered such a pledge, we would insist on a different structure,” Baitzel said. Added Kennedy: “The cushion isn’t there, and we now understand better how that works.”