Lincoln Center , livre ebook

LINCOLN CENTER
LINCOLN CENTER
A PROMISE REALIZED, 1979-2006
Stephen Stamas Sharon Zane
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Copyright 2007 by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Inc. All rights reserved
Lincoln Center and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts names and logos are registered trademarks of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Inc., in the United States and other countries. Used here by license.
Published by John Wiley Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey Published simultaneously in Canada
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Stamas, Stephen.
Lincoln Center : a promise realized, 1979-2006 / Stephen Stamas and Sharon Zane. p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-470-10123-0 (cloth)
ISBN-10: 0-470-10123-7 (cloth)
1. Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. 2. Performing arts-New York (State)-New York-History-20th century. 3. Performing arts-New York (State)-New York-History-21st century. I. Zane, Sharon. II. Title.
PN1588.N5S73 2006
790.209747 1-dc22
2006029948
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
CONTENTS
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 All in the Family: Lincoln Center and Its Constituents
Music Theater at Lincoln Center
The Film Society of Lincoln Center
The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center
Lincoln Center Theater
School of American Ballet
Jazz at Lincoln Center
2 Filling Programming Gaps: Lincoln Center Presents
Great Performers
Mostly Mozart Festival
Lincoln Center Festival
American Songbook
Live from Lincoln Center
Community Programming
Children s Programming
Lincoln Center Institute for the Arts in Education
3 The Changing Campus: Architecture and Art Serve the Community
The Rose Building
The New York State Theater
Avery Fisher Hall
The Visual Arts
4 Making Things Happen: Leadership at Lincoln Center
Amyas Ames
Martin E. Segal
George Weissman
Beverly Sills
Bruce Crawford
Frank A. Bennack Jr.
5 A New Look: Redevelopment and Renewal
Chronology 1955-2006
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Inc.
Board of Directors
Senior Staff
Lincoln Center Council
Notes
Credits
Index
PREFACE
The partnership between Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts-the umbrella entity created in the late 1950s to serve as the organizing framework and the real-estate manager of the arts center at Broadway and 65th Street-and its constituent resident artistic companies is surely one of the great success stories of our time. Yet inherent in that relationship have been tensions that occasionally have led to differences between the Center and its resident organizations, also known as constituents. How much power and influence does each have in relation to the other? How are funds raised and distributed? What constitutes programming competition among the various players? Despite these issues, Lincoln Center itself, including the programming it sponsors, and its resident organizations have prospered and produced a half century of excellence in their offerings and global leadership in the field of the performing arts.
This is not a chronicle per se of Lincoln Center s separate resident artistic companies. Each of them-the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center; the Film Society of Lincoln Center; Jazz at Lincoln Center; the Juilliard School; Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Inc.; Lincoln Center Theater; the Metropolitan Opera; the New York City Ballet; the New York City Opera; the New York Philharmonic; the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts; and the School of American Ballet-has its own management and board and is financially and artistically autonomous, even as it functions as part of the Lincoln Center family. Rather, this history is an account of how the umbrella organization known as Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts has evolved to serve and support the family in their own remarkable artistic achievements while at the same time broadening the program offerings at the Center to attract a wider public. In the main, this history seeks to accomplish this by telling a series of stories about the major milestones of the last two and a half decades that together comprise the artistic, physical, and administrative history of Lincoln Center. It also acknowledges the complicated relationship between the Center and its constituents as they have worked together in pursuit of Lincoln Center s overall primary purpose: the presentation of excellence in the performing arts. This chronicle does touch upon the histories of specific constituents insofar as Lincoln Center played a central role in their creation-as with Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and the Film Society of Lincoln Center-or where the Center provided substantial support during difficult times, as with the Lincoln Center Theater.
What follows in this history is intended as an updating of Edgar B. Young s 1980 book Lincoln Center: The Building of an Institution . Young, who played an important part in the establishment of Lincoln Center as a representative of John D. Rockefeller 3rd, has already documented much of the period from 1955 to 1980. With Mr. Young s encouragement, we have included in this account a fuller discussion of some of the developments in the 1970s that help to carry the story forward through June 2006, the end point of the current history.
In the twenty-seven preceding years, Lincoln Center moved well beyond its considerable administrative and real-estate responsibilities to become a major force in programming in areas not covered by its resident organizations, a role contemplated for it from the beginning. This impetus to fill artistic programming gaps had been reflected in the initiatives of the late William Schuman, the president of Lincoln Center in the 1960s, but financial difficulties and the concerns of the constituents about fund-raising and possible program competition put an end to some of his efforts. With growing financial strength and a clearer purpose, which ameliorated the concerns of the resident organizations, Lincoln Center realized in the period of this history much of Schuman s initial vision and contributed further to the luster of what the world at large refers to as Lincoln Center. Yet it is important to keep in mind that central to the institution s luster is the artistic brilliance of its constituents and their achievements over the years.
In the end, this is the story of how Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts has served and supported its constituent groups while producing its own innovative artistic programming and how, in the process, it became a role model for other performing arts organizations around the world.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Special thanks are due to the Lincoln Center Directors Emeriti Council, cochaired by June Noble Larkin and Martin E. Segal, for initiating this project to update the history of Lincoln Center. Grants from the Directors Emeriti Council, as well as additional financial support from Lincoln Center, made this project possible.
In addition, the Lincoln Center staff has been patient and helpful to us as we researched the files, the oral histories, and other records that serve as the basis for this history. Judith Johnson, the archivist at Lincoln Center, and her associates made special efforts in assisting with searches and preparing a chronology of major events, a version of which is included in our text. The Lincoln Center Archives are a remarkable asset.
We also thank Susan DeMark for her resourceful research assistance. It was a pleasure to work with her. In addition, we thank Peter Johnson for his helpful editorial suggestions and Martin Timins for his expert initial copyediting.
Finally, we are grateful to Bonnie Zitofsky for keeping track of us and coordinating our many fruitful meetings.
We have found our own collaboration an easy and rewarding one. While the writing of different sections was divided between us, the final product is the result of joint consultation and discussion and reflects our joint judgments and conclusions.
Stephen Stamas Sharon Zane
INTRODUCTION
In the Spring of 1