Thrilled to be in Chicago



I am quoting from a recent article in the Chicago Tribune about the appointment of Anthony Freud to be Lyric Opera's new General Director for 5 years:

"His five-year contract begins Oct. 1 and extends through the 2015-16 season. He will serve as general director designate effective immediately. No salary terms were made public".

“I’m both honored and thrilled” by this appointment,” Freud said. “One of the things that excites me the most is the opportunity to get to know both the company and the city. I’m proud of the work I’ve done in both Cardiff (home of the Welsh National Opera) and Houston but I emphatically don’t believe in a generic opera company serving a generic city. Ultimately an opera company has to identify how it can do the best possible job for its audience and its city, taking its own characteristics into account.”


Now why does that sound so familiar?

I DO recall his speeches when he first came here!
Since he was so thrilled, then, to be chosen as HGO's General Director and CEO (an expanded title which his predecessor did not have) that he just last fall signed an extension to stay at HGO five more years, I do find interesting the coincidences of dates and years:

October 2010,

5 years,

2015!

Hmm. Lucky numbers for Mr. Freud, perhaps?

"It had seemed unlikely that Freud would risk the bad feelings of jumping ship from Houston Grand Opera, especially since in October 2010, HGO had announced with great ballyhoo its pride in Freud’s extending his contract to stay with HGO though July 2015. One might well wonder: What does such a contract mean in the opera world?"

(all Italics are mine)

But I remind my readers that contracts in the world of sports are equally not worth the paper written on :-)!

For more on this go to:
http://www.29-95.com/art/story/anthony-freud-leaving-houston-grand-opera

Well, life goes on. And so will HGO.
IMO a real asset to Houston's varied cultural life!

So Vaya Con Dios, Mr. Freud.