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.
Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano') about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.
His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman's Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia' column for Dancing Times magazine.
