It all began, for most impractical purposes, on April 21, 1955. New York
decided to build itself a cultural shopping center — a very big, very
plush, very expensive one. The intentions were lofty. The times were optimistic.
The funds were attainable.
Those were the days.
Supporters of the brave new enterprise at Lincoln Square spoke — no, gushed — of urban renewal and artistic expansion, of social as well as sociological progress, of the erection of a civic and national jewel. Glory loomed, or so we were resoundingly assured.
Forty-six years ago Robert Moses, chairman of the Mayor's Slum Clearance Committee, received official approval from the New York City Board of Estimate to change the face, the tone and the purpose of 15 acres bounded by Broadway and Amsterdam Avenues on one side and by 62nd and 66th Streets on the other. Lincoln Center, America's premier arts complex, thus started to emerge on a number of elite drawing boards. Dwight D. Eisenhower, not the most intellectual of presidents, broke the ground on May 14, 1959.
Detractors emerged almost instantly. Some argued — quite convincingly, it seemed — that it might be better to spread culture around this vast city rather than concentrate so much of it in a single location. After all, there were slums everywhere. The argument still holds.
Many music-lovers were outraged when told that, with Lincoln Center on the way, the city couldn't support any cultural emporia that might seem redundant. Both Carnegie Hall and the old Metropolitan Opera House would have to be destroyed to make way for new buildings.
As a happy fate would have it, Carnegie was eventually saved, thanks to a zealous committee spearheaded by Isaac Stern. Ironically, the acoustics in the old showplace at 57th and 7th proved vastly superior to those at the new Philharmonic Hall, which opened in 1962 and underwent several exhaustive renovations before it became Avery Fisher Hall in 1973. Ultimately, New York learned that it could support concert activity in two major houses. It was reassuring.
The story at the old Met, alas, was less blissful. The historic yellow-brick brewery at 39th and Broadway, home to virtually every operatic icon from Enrico Caruso to Birgit Nilsson, was staunchly defended by an equally zealous committee, this one conspicuously figureheaded by the diva Licia Albanese, together with her husband, Joseph Gimma. Their efforts proved all too futile.
Worrying on a more practical level, pessimists raised additional questions, citing traffic troubles and accessibility problems. Anyone who has fought the mob in quest of a cab after a long winter night spent with Tristan und Isolde knows that cultural uplift in the big city comes at a certain price. Getting home is not half the fun.
Today, Lincoln Center hosts a dozen arts organizations. The neighborhood teems with classy restaurants and nice shops. Revelers gather near the fountain on the plaza in balmy weather to dance and even drink. During the so-called winter season, crowds swarm — at least they swarmed until 11 September 2001 — to the Met for lavish opera, and to the State Theater for adventurous if less glamorous ventures courtesy of the New York City Opera. Symphonic devotees long ago grew accustomed to hearing the New York Philharmonic at problem-ridden Avery Fisher, though the orchestra still sounds better during occasional return visits to Carnegie. The glorious ghost of George Balanchine still haunts the New York City Ballet at the State Theater when the City Opera isn't holding forth. When it comes to recitals, there's interesting activity at Juilliard and at the relatively intimate Alice Tully Hall. Important plays enliven the two houses that comprise the Lincoln Center Theater. More modest venues accommodate art films and lectures. And now, following a three-year renovation, the Performing Arts Library, probably the best in the country, has reopened at last.
In the good old summertime, Lincoln Center has presented special theme festivals, some more ambitious or more successful than others. In recent years, however, we have learned to live with lowered expectations. Major ballet companies, foreign and domestic, still play occasional mini-seasons at the Met, infrequently offset by exotic operatic visitors. The low-risk rituals — Mostly Mozart, band concerts, jazz extravaganzas — move onward if not necessarily upward.
Never mind. All's well, or at least reasonably close to well, in the center of America's artistic universe. Right?
Not quite.
Lincoln Center has endured a plethora of problems from the moment Leonard Bernstein waved the downbeat for the inaugural concert at Philharmonic Hall 39 years ago. That house was just the first of several acoustical disasters. The State Theater, across the plaza, has been deemed such a sonic monster that Paul Kellogg, head of the City Opera, has placed microphones on the stage. One wonders, not incidentally, why no such dishonest crutches were required in the golden days when the brave little company employed such vocal paragons as Norman Treigle, Plácido Domingo, John Alexander, Frances Bible, Johanna Meier and, oh yes, the current do-it-all chairwoman of Lincoln Center, a diva named Beverly Sills. It's a subject that the diplomatic Sills manages to treat with virtuosic obfuscation.
Time, in any case, is taking its elemental toll on the premises. Deterioration is setting in. Tiles are broken here, cement and marble are cracked there, plaster is peeling, fabric is tarnished, seats are broken, cushions threadbare. Some of the stage machinery may be outmoded, and much of the plumbing, we are reminded, is precarious. Still, life goes on. At least no one has to worry any more about the treacherous stairs that flanked the entrance to the Met when the opera house opened in 1966. Instantly coated with ice when winter came, the concrete steps were paved over, long, long ago.
If only the primary crises at Lincoln Center these days were as easy to pave over. It isn't a prosaic matter of upkeep or real estate. The troubles in our idealistic (if hardly idyllic) paradise involve internal unrest among the constituents: nasty rivalries, power contests, unreasonable ambitions, turf wars, ego conflicts and, ultimately, the worst-laid schemes of mice and managers. It's all so operatic. The troubles are exacerbated, of course, by fiscal and civic priorities revised in the wake of the World Trade Center catastrophe.
Recent weeks have seen the unexpected departures of both Gordon Davis, president of Lincoln Center, and Marshall Rose, chairman of its ultra-optimistic $1.5 billion redevelopment program. Instability seems to be on the rise, and grandiose projects are in jeopardy. The timing couldn't be more awkward.
The New York City Opera is lobbying for a new home of its own, possibly in adjacent area known as Damrosch Park. The opulent Met objects, loudly and haughtily. Meanwhile, the City Ballet, which now shares the State Theater, worries about footing the bills alone. Another controversial option would have the City Opera leave Lincoln Center altogether. The move would seem to be unrealistic at the moment, but, if realized, it could offer emphatic advantages in matters of both artistic independence and urban renewal.
Alice Tully Hall, which opened in 1969, is supposed to undergo reconstruction soon. We didn't know it needed fixing. Ditto Avery Fisher Hall. New shops and arcades are intended to embellish the premises. It's a pleasant idea, but it can hardly be high on the list of essential changes. A more drastic, possibly preposterous project would have commissioned the redoubtable architect Frank Gehry to suspend a massive dome of glass and steel above the entire plaza. The concept could be amusing, but who needs it? (Evidently not Lincoln Center and its constituents, who deleted that item from the renovation proposal made public in early November 2001.)
Lincoln Center clearly remains an institution at the crossroads. Moreover, the institution is cumbersome and the crossroads are precarious. Budgets are shrinking. For most of the constituents, ticket sales are dropping alarmingly. Leadership is vacillating, and the guard is changing.
Most observers think this is the wrong time to dream almost-impossible dreams. A recent editorial in The New York Times proposed shelving all redevelopment expenditures beyond the most essential repairs. Not everyone agrees, however. Michael Kaiser, president of the Kennedy Center in Washington, told the National Arts Council that terrorist attacks make it vital for arts institutions to spend more, not less. Cutbacks, he argued, shrink revenue and create new financial problems. Organizations should not be deemed frivolous if they dare refuse to lower expectations in troubled times.
In the best of all possible worlds, a world unencumbered with outside threats, financial woes and internal argument, Lincoln Center would be a thoroughly progressive force in the arts community. In such a Nirvana, the Met would pursue grandeur, even dangerous grandeur, without one eye on the box-office and the other on the donor list. The City Opera would concentrate on nurturing young talent while exploring little-trodden paths, and the ticket prices would be substantially lower than they have to be now. The New York Philharmonic would play in a house with acoustics as good as Carnegie's, perhaps even better. The special off-season fare would focus on major importations — as was the case when the Lincoln Center Festival managed to bring the Bolshoi from Moscow and the La Scala company from Milan. The annual Festival now resembles something of a cultural sprawl, and a less ambitious one at that. If it were to survive, it might well focus its offerings more precisely. It also might take a harder look at what is happening these days in the viable cultural centers of the Old World.
In the best of all possible worlds, Lincoln Center might not be ruled by a committee. Democracy in the arts is a dubious if not dangerous proposition. Enlightened despots have always wielded the best chances of artistic triumph. But until another super-impresario, another stubborn visionary like Wagner or Diaghilev, comes riding in on a white horse, we must make do with the consortium principle. If only it could function with a stronger sense of communal purpose, without internal jealousies, without complacency, without smugness, without undue caution...
No matter what transpires in the next months, it must be time to reassess priorities. Contrary to traditional all-American inclinations, it may be time to think smaller. Our cultural shopping center will, of course, survive the inevitable slings and arrows. One only hopes Lincoln Center can survive with glory, not just with practicality. To be pragmatic, or not to be. Even in the arts, that is the question.
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