This story is part of “Built to Last,” a look at how some recession-battered nonprofits emerged stronger and more resilient.
On September 29, 2008, the stock market lost more than a trillion dollars in value, its worst single-day drop in history. The next day, Timothy O’Leary, incoming general director of the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, drove to the home of major donors to collect a promised pledge. The donors, Mr. O’Leary discovered, had decided to trim their commitment. “The difference,” he says, “was not unsubstantial.”
The surprise was a portent of the rocky times ahead for an opera at a crossroads. Mr. O’Leary, a veteran of New York opera, was stepping into the role of top executive for the first time, to be joined by a new board chairman and an artistic director. These three would help lead roughly 175 staff members, volunteers, donors, and others to craft a long-term strategic plan for the company — as the country’s economic crisis deepened and lengthened.
Under financial duress, performing-arts organizations often trim their performance schedules and rent crowd-pleasing classics, says Michael Kaiser, the former arts-organization executive known for engineering turnarounds at the American Ballet Theatre and elsewhere. “Some become so concerned about budgets and financials that they get conservative in their art-making. They don’t dream and make exciting art.” The resulting product, Mr. Kaiser adds, dampens audience and donor enthusiasm, pushing an organization deeper into fiscal crisis.
The St. Louis opera, however, decided not to turn away from its 33-year history of commissioning new, innovative work. “That identity is what everybody feels excitement for and loyalty toward,” says Mr. O’Leary. Compromising “would have undermined the very thing that leads to financial stability, which is the love and loyalty and support of our community.”
The downturn hit the opera’s corporate sponsorships the hardest, and revenue slipped further when the company reduced its draw from its $16.5-million endowment. To compensate, it froze salaries, suspended staff 401(k) contributions, and renegotiated deals with its unions. Yet as the opera rallied donors around its commitment to risk-taking productions, individual giving climbed — gradually at first, and then 21 percent in 2011.
“People want to get behind new, exciting projects,” explains Nicole Ambos Freber, director of development.
In 2013, the company saw the payoff from a decision made in the dark days of the recession. That year marked its world premiere of Champion, an “opera in jazz” it had commissioned (with the nonprofit Jazz St. Louis) from the trumpeter Terence Blanchard, known for his scores of Spike Lee films. The unusual melding of music genres delved into the controversial life story of Emile Griffith, a closeted bisexual boxing champion in the 1960s who beat to death an opponent who had taunted him with homosexual slurs. Praised by critics nationwide, Champion generated more revenue than any other debut in the company’s history and was named a finalist for international opera of the year.
Last year, with its endowment now topping $28 million, the company launched a new five-year strategic plan. It again pledged to create a series of original productions, this time paid for in part through an “innovation fund” created to tap donor interest in new work.
The first in the series? Another jazz opera from Mr. Blanchard.
