Word: operas
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...target of all this firepower was Pierre Berge, 58, the autocratic president of the $400 million-a-year Yves Saint Laurent fashion empire and the designer's companion of 30 years. Some said Berge's chief qualification to be head of the governing Association of Theaters of the Paris Opera was that he had contributed handsomely to Mitterrand's re-election campaign last year...
...split puts in conflict two radically different concepts of opera. Barenboim's plan was to concentrate on top talent, starting with himself in charge of everything at an annual salary of $1.1 million; he expected to devote extra time to rehearsals and limit performances to about 160 a year. "He doesn't want a few special roses in a garden of weeds," as Mehta puts it. Berge, who took over the opera association last August, not only requested that Barenboim take a pay cut and give up substantial executive authority but also demanded that the $430 million Bastille opera house...
Berge retorted that he never asked any such thing, only a veto power over Barenboim's decisions. "I have absolutely no interest in artistic control of the new opera," he told TIME. Nonetheless, he argues that Barenboim's choice of classic works is "elitist." Says he: "The program established by Barenboim . . . satisfies neither President Mitterrand nor me." But he puts considerable blame for the furor on the maestro's exalted pay: "I offered Barenboim a salary of 4 million francs (($667,000)), but he would not accept anything less than 5 million...
Berge also complained that Barenboim would be spending only a minimal four months a year at the Bastille. The conductor claimed he would spend at least seven months there and wondered aloud how much time Berge was planning to take off from Saint Laurent to work on opera. "When he refused to accept my conditions," Berge declared, "we broke off negotiations. I cannot let the money of the state be spent in so extravagant a fashion." And he did not like Barenboim's slurs, either. "I am not the head of any old couture house," he said. "I built...
There is actually some difference of opinion about whether Paris really needs an expensive new opera house. The grand old Palais Garnier, with all its gilt mirrors and chandeliers and its resident phantom, has delighted audiences for more than a century. But cultural-monument building is a beloved Parisian occupation, and after the success of President Georges Pompidou's imposing modern-art center, Mitterrand naturally began in 1981 to think about a new opera house. Being a Socialist, he talked glowingly of popular, modern opera, and the edifice was assigned to the gritty Bastille area...