In L.A., a muted drama over donor

The recent woes of billionaire opera philanthropist and money manager Alberto Vilar, released from a New York jail on bail June 20 after languishing there for nearly a month, have had New York and London buzzing. But Los Angeles is surprisingly quiet.

You’d expect to hear something from Los Angeles Opera, the recipient of a $12-million Vilar pledge that fell through. Or from company general director Placido Domingo, who once covered for Vilar out of his own pocket, making donations of more than $2 million in Vilar’s name.

But nobody is talking.

“Right now, the opera is not making any comment on Mr. Vilar,” said company spokesman Gary Murphy.

It’s as if the man who once posed with Domingo, celebrity conductors and members of the board, who delighted in publicly handing out checks and watched performances intently from a seat of honor in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, had never set foot in town.

How did matters reach such a pass for someone once considered opera’s greatest benefactor since mad King Ludwig II, the monarch who nearly bankrupted the state of Bavaria to help support composer Richard Wagner?

Vilar was arrested May 26 and indicted on charges of securities fraud and money laundering for allegedly stealing $5 million given to him to invest by his close friend Lily Cates, 67, the estranged mother of actress Phoebe Cates, who is married to actor Kevin Kline.

According to the indictment, Vilar, 64, spent almost all that money in two weeks, making charitable donations, paying off personal bills and wiring a sum to an account in Luxembourg. The government suspects, said federal prosecutor David Esseks, that the missing $5 million is “just the tip of the iceberg.”

If convicted, Vilar could face more than 10 years in prison. He denies all charges.

A Cuban American with a gift for crunching numbers and spotting trends, Vilar made his wealth by early investing in new technology companies such as Microsoft, Oracle and AOL through the New York-based Amerindo Investment Advisors, a company he co-founded in 1980 with Gary Tanaka, 61. Tanaka faces similar criminal charges.

Amerindo was recently managing $900 million, including pension funds that included a $370-million Los Angeles Fire & Police Pension System account. At its peak, in the late 1990s, Amerindo managed $8 billion. Forbes magazine valued Vilar’s personal fortune at $1.23 billion.

Big donations

For Vilar, who has been described as basically a loner, the money enabled him to indulge his love of philanthropy, particularly to opera groups.

Vilar gave away more than $200 million. Moreover, his pledges in recent years, besides the one to Los Angeles Opera, included $45 million to the Metropolitan Opera in New York, $50 million to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., roughly $36 million to the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in London, $14 million to the Kirov Opera in St. Petersburg, Russia, and $8 million to the Washington Opera, also in the nation’s capital, where Domingo is general director as well.

In gratitude, the Met chiseled his name in gold on its Grand Tier. The Royal Opera created a “Vilar Young Artists” program and added his name to its Floral Hall. There is a Vilar Center for the Arts in Avon, Colo.

But all the adulation dried up as payments stopped coming. The Amerindo Technology Fund imploded by 65% in 2000, then by 51% the year after.

Under attack for missing payments, Vilar cited -- along with market declines -- a series of surgeries for disc problems and a ruptured gallbladder entailing serious postoperative infections.

“You have to have a thick skin, and a missionary purpose, to be a philanthropist, because somebody’s going to pick on you,” he told The Times in 2002.

The picking began that year.

The Washington Opera removed his name from its Young Artists Program after he failed to deliver a promised $1 million a year.

New York Philharmonic music director Lorin Maazel said he had had to put up his own money and seek other funding sources when Vilar failed to supply $700,000 promised for the 2002 Maazel-Vilar Conductors Competition at Carnegie Hall.

The Met removed his name from the Grand Tier a year later because he had not honored a pledge made five years earlier.

In 2003, it also emerged that a $2-million payment to the Washington Opera and the Los Angeles Opera in Vilar’s name was actually made by Domingo. Vilar apparently never repaid that loan.

In a statement at the time, Domingo said, “I’m sorry about Alberto. We wish that everything could get solved in the best possible way for him.”

In late June, the Royal Opera erased his name from the company’s training program; Vilar had made his last payment to the program in March 2002.

So far, the Royal Opera is keeping the name “Vilar Floral Hall,” although the issue will be reviewed at its next meeting, July 13.

Sitting in jail

Under the circumstances, it may not have been surprising that none of his rich friends showed up to help him raise bail. He wound up sitting in the Metropolitan Correction Center in Manhattan until three people, including Kirov Opera conductor Valery Gergiev, came forward with $1.6 million in cash toward a $4-million personal recognizance bond.

Vilar also secured a portion of his bail with personal property, including pieces of art from his Manhattan apartment.

His attorney, Susan Necheles of the New York firm of Hafetz & Necheles, expressed disappointment at the lack of support: “He’s been an extremely generous person,” she said. “He’s put dozens of kids through school and helped lots and lots of people. It’s a sad thing these people are not willing to come forward.”

But it turns out that Necheles too is trying to bail out. She told The Times on June 27 that she applied to withdraw from the case, but Judge Kenneth M. Karas told her to wait until a successor is named. She said she couldn’t comment on her reasons for seeking to withdraw. Another conference is set for July 18 in Karas’ courtroom.

Vilar is “not taking calls at this point,” Necheles said in response to a request for an interview.

Although Vilar made no promises to the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Deborah Borda, president of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Assn., is one of the few people locally willing to speak up for him.

“It’s a terribly sad story,” Borda said recently. “I think really someone has to say something positive about Alberto. It’s easy to look on the negative side. But this is America, and a person is innocent until proved guilty.

“The thing one has to do is go back and focus on the fact that over a period of many years, he has been one of the great arts supporters. I have real sadness about this. It will be sorted out.”

Others are not so kind.

“He wanted his name in lights, OK?” Barry Tucker, president of the New York City-based Richard Tucker Music Foundation, told National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered” in June. “And he got his name in lights temporarily, but that’s it.”

“He was not, how shall I say, quiet, about his giving,” soprano and former Metropolitan Opera Chairwoman Beverly Sills told the New York Times in May. “I think that was a turnoff for other members of the board.”

“He’s a miserable human being and a basic scumbag,” Donald Trump told the Washington Post in June. “But he gave millions to charities and they’ve treated him like garbage. I think that’s terrible.”

Meanwhile, according to Herb Haddad, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office, Vilar is confined to his Manhattan apartment, wearing an electronic ankle bracelet to monitor his movements.

Pasles reported from Los Angeles and Mulligan from New York.