Madrid’s Teatro Real faces a future with a 33% budget cut

After a 33% budget cut for Madrid’s Teatro Real was announced, artistic dir­ector, Ger­ard Mor­tier, said he will keep fight­ing for the theatre in this ‘dan­ger­ous’ time for culture.

Mor­tier cri­ti­cized the Sec­ret­ary of State for Cul­ture, Jose Maria Las­salle , who, he says, remains locked in his office, unwill­ing to dis­cuss the situation.

Mor­tier, who was dir­ector of the Paris Opera from 2004, was appoin­ted dir­ector of the New York City Opera in 2007, with a con­tract due to begin in 2009. In the interim period the fin­an­cial pos­i­tion at the NYCO became dire, and in 2008 he decided to relin­quish the post, and later that same year it was announced that from 2010 he would become the next head of Teatro Real. So he now finds him­self dir­ect­ing a com­pany with grave fin­an­cial prob­lems, though the situ­ation was very dif­fer­ent when he accep­ted the pos­i­tion. Mor­tier wants to meet with Las­salle to talk about the theatre’s future:

I want solu­tions not con­front­a­tion, and this can’t hap­pen if he’s locked in his office.

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