Word: krainik
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Nowhere is the turnaround more visible than at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, where Ardis Krainik, a former actress, chorister and secretary turned iron- fisted administrator, is today running one of the country's most successful and innovative mainstream companies. Since 1981, when she succeeded the late Carol Fox as general director of the Lyric, Krainik, 64, has presided over a string of seasons notable not only for their high musical quality, formidable star power and adventurous repertory, but also for their happy balance sheets and sold-out houses. "Rudolf Bing ((the late general manager of the Metropolitan Opera)) once...
That control extends to everything from hiring singers to choosing a * balanced program that encompasses not only classics and premieres but also thorny modernist works such as Alban Berg's Wozzeck, which last week got a stunning new production that typifies the Krainik style. Krainik had originally planned the project as a co-production with the Chatelet Theatre Musical de Paris, to be conducted in Paris and Chicago by Daniel Barenboim. Following the French performance, Krainik decided that the lighting design was unsuited to the Lyric's stage. "It would have cost us an extra $600,000 just...
Such inspired improvising is characteristic of Krainik's unorthodox management method, which is tactical rather than strategic. "I don't have a master plan," she says, "because there are always developments in the middle that are even better than the master plan...