你想買下紐約大都會歌劇院的冠名權嗎

A bigger glass lobby stretching into Lincoln Center’s plaza. Operas on Sunday. And perhaps, following the lead of its neighboring theaters recently renamed for David Geffen and David H. Koch, slapping another wealthy donor’s name on the storied Metropolitan Opera House.

修建一個延伸至林肯中心(Lincoln Center)廣場的更大的玻璃大堂。週日也安排歌劇演出。也許會效仿周圍的劇院——它們最近分別以戴維·格芬(David Geffen)和戴維·H·科克(David H. Koch)命名——把另一位富有捐款人的名字刻在歷史悠久的大都會歌劇院(Metropolitan Opera House)的牆上。

These ideas, disclosed by Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, in an interview as he prepared to begin his 10th season at the helm of the company, suggest a renewed focus on drawing new audiences and raising desperately needed money for the opera, where attendance has struggled. If Mr. Gelb’s first decade was notable for technological innovations that broadened the Met’s reach outward — his popular “Live in HD” simulcasts of operas at cinemas reached 2.6 million people last season — much of what he would like to do in the coming seasons looks inward.

大都會歌劇院的總經理彼得·蓋爾布(Peter Gelb)在採訪中透露了上述想法。他即將開始第十季對該劇院的掌管。他說，他將把重點轉向吸引新觀衆，爲歌劇院籌集急需的資金。劇院此前的上座率不夠理想。如果說蓋爾布在大都會歌劇院第一個十年最重要的貢獻是技術革新，擴大歌劇院外部的影響範圍——上一季，他組織了Live in HD活動，同時在多家影院播放歌劇，很受歡迎，有260萬觀衆觀看了演出——那麼，未來幾季他主要想做的事有關於內部。

“The last thing that we can do is sit idly by,” Mr. Gelb said during the interview in his office. “We have to keep poking the tires and looking at new ways of approaching the art itself in the form of new productions and commissions, and also looking at the physical plant of the Met, and how we perform. We’re looking at everything.”

“我們最不該無所事事，”蓋爾布在自己的辦公室接受採訪時說，“我們必須不斷檢查，尋找展示藝術的新方法，推出新劇目或委託作品，同時察看大都會歌劇院的設施和效益。我們在察看一切。”

After several years of serious fiscal challenges, the Met’s recent cost-cutting — including from its artists and its workers, who agreed to their first pay cuts in decades last year after a series of bitter labor negotiations — is beginning to bear fruit. The company ended last season with a surplus of $1 million, according to preliminary financial results released on Wednesday; that was a marked improvement from the prior season, when it ran a $22 million deficit, its most serious in decades. And Mr. Gelb said that the Met had raised the first $100 million of a five-year, $600 million fund-raising drive aimed at doubling its endowment, supporting operations and paying for new capital projects, including the hoped-for renovation and expansion of its lobby.

經過幾年嚴重的財務危機後，大都會歌劇院近期節省開支的舉措初見成效。去年，經過一系列痛苦的勞資談判，藝術家和工作人員幾十年來首次同意降低工資。據週三（9月9日）公佈的初步財務報告，上一季該劇院獲得了100萬美元的盈餘。與之前一季相比，這是極大的進步。之前一季，它虧損了2200萬美元，是幾十年來虧損最嚴重的一季。蓋爾布說，大都會歌劇院籌集到了第一個一億美元的捐款。這是目標爲六億美元的五年籌款計劃的第一步，意在使資助額翻倍，以支持運營，支付新的資金項目，包括期望中的對大堂的整修和擴展。

But there was worrisome news on the attendance front: The Met said it had earned only 69 percent of its potential box-office revenue last season, down from 73.2 percent the previous season. That is one reason Mr. Gelb said he would like to add at least some performances on Sundays, initially on a trial basis. Met officials believe it would be the first time they have presented fully staged operas on Sundays. Other major opera houses and Broadway theaters hold Sunday performances, and Mr. Gelb said that the Met had seen its Friday and Saturday productions outsell weeknights in recent years as audience habits have changed.

但是在上座率方面有一些令人擔憂的消息：大都會歌劇院稱，上一季，它僅獲得潛在票房收入的69%，比之前一季的73.2%有所下降。所以，蓋爾布說他想在週日先試驗性地增加一些演出。大都會歌劇院的官員們說，這將是他們首次在週日推出完整的歌劇。其他主要的歌劇院和百老匯的劇院都在週日安排演出。蓋爾布說，大都會歌劇院發現，近些年，週五和週六的演出比平常的演出更賣座，因爲觀衆的習慣改變了。

“If you’re going to experience a three-hour, three-and-a-half-hour opera and want to have dinner, you need time,” Mr. Gelb said. “A Sunday performance would be something that would make a lot of sense.”

“如果你想觀看一場三小時或三個半小時的歌劇，還想用個晚餐，你需要時間，”蓋爾布說，“週日安排演出會是十分合理的做法。”

Significant hurdles remain for many of Mr. Gelb’s plans. Adding Sunday performances would require the agreement of the Met’s work force and its powerful unions, whose relationships with Mr. Gelb were badly strained during last year’s labor talks, and whose members already work punishing schedules during the opera season. Expanding the Met’s lobby into the Lincoln Center plaza would require successful fund-raising as well as the approval of the center’s administration and, possibly, the city. And traditionalists may shudder at the idea of a new name for the opera house, known for more than a century as the Metropolitan Opera — an internationally recognized classic along the lines of the Teatro alla Scala, the Royal Opera House or, closer to home, Yankee Stadium.

蓋爾布的很多計劃都面臨着巨大的障礙。週日增加演出必須獲得歌劇院工作人員和強大的工會的同意。在去年的勞資談判中，他們和蓋爾布的關係變得非常緊張。此外，工作人員的在演出季的日程已經非常艱苦。把大都會歌劇院的大堂延伸至林肯中心廣場需要成功籌款，並獲得林肯中心管理層甚至紐約市政府的同意。保守主義者可能不敢給歌劇院重新命名。大都會歌劇院這個名字已經存在一個多世紀了，是國際知名的經典劇院，與斯卡拉歌劇院(Teatro alla Scala)、英國皇家歌劇院(Royal Opera House)或紐約本地的洋基體育場(Yankee Stadium)齊名。

Mr. Gelb said that the Met needs to do these things, and more, to ensure that it can continue to thrive. One of his ideas — inspired in part by last season’s new production of “Pagliacci,” which featured a troupe of traveling vaudevillians — is to create an opera truck to bring small-scale, staged performances with a small orchestra to communities around New York. He has been working on the project, tentatively called “MET2GO,” with the Dutch director Lotte de Beer, who has an organization, Operafront, which does similar work in the Netherlands. Mr. Gelb, who is working to raise money for the project, hopes to have a traveling version of Verdi’s “La Traviata” ready by June 2016 or 2017.

蓋爾布說，大都會歌劇院需要做這些事以及更多的事情，來確保它能繼續繁榮。他的另一個想法是創立歌劇卡車，在紐約的各個社區巡迴演出僅需小管絃樂隊的小規模劇目。這個想法部分來自上一季的新劇《丑角》(Pagliacci)，它講述的是一個巡演雜耍劇團的故事。另外，他在與荷蘭導演洛特·德·比爾(Lotte de Beer)策劃一個暫時稱爲MET2GO的項目。比爾在荷蘭有個名叫Operafront的組織，從事類似的活動。蓋爾布正在給這個項目籌款，他希望在2016年6月或2017年之前推出威爾第(Verdi)《茶花女》(La Traviata)的巡演版。

“The Met can never be accessible enough,” he said.

“大都會歌劇院應該儘可能地讓觀衆容易接近，”他說。

Toward that end, he said, he wanted to make the Met more welcoming by expanding and renovating its cramped lobby — which the building’s architect, Wallace K. Harrison, was forced to scale back to save money half a century ago. “What was left was this very tight fit between the front doors of the Met and the entranceway, so in a period of 30 to 45 minutes before a performance you have this mob scene of people trying to get into the opera house,” Mr. Gelb said. “Which is good — at least people are trying to get in.”

最後，他說，他想通過擴展和整修狹小的大堂來讓歌劇院更受歡迎。半個世紀前，爲了節省成本，這幢建築的設計師華萊士·K·哈里森(Wallace K. Harrison)不得不按比例縮小了大堂。“結果，大都會歌劇院的前門和入口之間變得非常狹小，在演出開始前的30至45分鐘時間裏，你會看到這裏擠滿了想進入歌劇院的人，”蓋爾布說，“這也是好事——至少人們想進去。”

The Met has engaged Levien & Company, a project management firm that has worked on other successful theater renovations in the city, to study how it might be able to build a low glass enclosure running the width of the Met and extending 30 or 40 feet into the Lincoln Center plaza. That addition would add several thousand square feet of space that would allow the Met to redesign its box-office area, gift shop and art gallery and to possibly add a cafe.

Levien & Company項目管理公司曾成功完成紐約市的一些劇院整修項目。大都會歌劇院正在跟這家公司商量如何修建一個與歌劇院等寬、長三四十英尺的矮玻璃幕牆，延伸至林肯中心廣場。這樣就能增加幾千平方英尺的空間，可以重新設計售票處、禮品店和畫廊，甚至還可能加個咖啡廳。

Jed Bernstein, the president of Lincoln Center, said that it would be premature to discuss the project. But, he said, “In general, I believe that things that are good for the Met are good for Lincoln Center.”

林肯中心的總裁傑德·伯恩斯坦(Jed Bernstein)說，現在討論這個項目有點早。不過他說，“總的來說，我認爲，對大都會歌劇院有益的事肯定也有益於林肯中心。”

“Conceptually, is it a good idea for the Met to try to come up with creative and interesting new ways to engage with their audience?” he asked. “Absolutely. Would we want to support them in that? Absolutely.

“從理論上講，大都會歌劇院努力尋找有創意、有趣的新方法，來吸引觀衆，這難道不是好事嗎？”他問道，“絕對是好事。我們願意支持它嗎？絕對願意。”

“Does it make sense to do a specific thing, like do a glass extension to the Met? I don’t know, because we haven’t seen any idea of really what that would mean, or what that would look like, or any of those things.”

“至於某個具體的項目是否合理——比如給大都會歌劇院加個玻璃幕牆——那就我不太確定，因爲我們不確切知道那意味着什麼，也不知道它看起來會是什麼樣子，什麼都不知道。”

Capital projects are often more attractive to potential donors than equally needed campaigns to, say, increase endowments. The Met’s endowment fell dangerously low in recent years as the company withdrew money to help pay for its high annual operating costs. Those costs are now falling.

對潛在捐款人來說，資金項目往往比同樣急需的籌款活動更吸引人。近些年，大都會歌劇院的捐款額大幅下降，因爲它用部分捐款來支付高昂的運營成本。目前運營成本正在下降。

All told, the Met spent $310 million last season, down from $316 million the season before and $327 million two seasons ago. This year its budget calls for it to spend less than $300 million for the first time since 2010. Its endowment was valued at $266 million at the end of July, according to Mr. Gelb, but that figure does not include $19 million in pledged donations. The Met, which was drawing more than 8 percent of its endowment annually a few years back, has been steadily reducing that amount, from 6.5 percent in 2014 to 6 percent last season and this season; it plans to phase down to 5 percent by 2018.

總的來說，上一季，大都會歌劇院的運營成本爲3.1億美元，與之前一季的3.16億美元和上上季的3.27億美元相比有所下降。今年，按照預算，成本必須控制在三億美元以下，這是2010年以來首次設定這麼低的預算。據蓋爾布說，至7月底，它獲得的捐款額爲2.66億美元，不過這個數字不包括1900萬美元的抵押捐款。幾年前，大都會歌劇院每年提取的額度超過捐款總額的8%，目前正在逐步減少這個比例，從2014年的6.5%降至上一季和這一季的6%；它計劃到2018年逐步降至5%。

Mr. Gelb said that as the fund-raising campaign proceeded, the Met would consider offering naming rights to the theater as a whole if a large enough donation were made. “We’re looking for a significant gift — a major gift that could somehow be associated with this front-of-house renovation and perhaps even the naming of the building,” he said.

蓋爾布說，隨着籌款活動的進行，如果出現鉅額捐款，大都會歌劇院將考慮給予整座劇院的冠名權。“我們在尋找一份重要禮物，一份足以支付前門整修的鉅額捐款，捐款人可能獲得這幢大樓的冠名權，”他說。

Asked how large a gift would be required, he demurred. But he noted that the Met is larger and better known than its next-door neighbors — which were renamed for Mr. Koch and Mr. Geffen after they each donated $100 million.

當被問及捐款額要達到多少時，他沒有回答。不過他指出，大都會歌劇院比它的鄰居們更大、更出名。它的兩位鄰居在分別得到科克和格芬的一億美元捐款後，以兩位捐款人命名。