Joe Volpe, General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera will resign in August 2006, after forty years with the company. He began his career at the Met at the age of 24 as an apprentice carpenter, but he admits that that same giovanile ardore has left him now, as it becomes more troublesome to attend rehearsals and performances and act as the public figurehead of American opera.

I came to love opera at the beginning of Volpe's tenure, and though my memories of his New York working man's voice on the Saturday Met Broadcasts are sweet, I also know that the Met as a company is in serious need of a little revamp. Attendance has been down and deficit up in the past two seasons. The Met is a machine, and perhaps the cogs have begun to rust. According to Volpe, there is no one in place as his successor. Perhaps the comapy could take some cues from the very successful Houston Grand Opera, which never skimps on the finest singers, very progressive productions, and modern marketing techniques.

In other opera news, Danish architect Joern Utzon, the mind behind Sydney's most famous landmark will begin work as principal design consultant on the first major structural refurbishment to the Opera House's exterior since it opened in 1973. Forty years ago, Utzon vowed never to return to Sydney after his plans went over budget and he was asked to leave the rest of the project in frankly inexperienced hands. Though Utzon will not be in Sydney to oversee the physical construction, his son and partner, Jan, will.

I don't blame you, Joern. I'm just glad they didn't have Gehry inflict another one of his ghastly globules on the place!