San Diego Opera Board Reaffirms Decision to Fold

The San Diego Opera’s board voted Friday to proceed with plans to shutter the 49-year-old company, making Sunday’s season-ending performance of Massenet’s Don Quixote almost certainly the opera’s last, report San Diego public broadcaster KPBS and The New York Times.

The board created a four-member committee to explore last-ditch strategies to preserve the company, but opera leaders reiterated their contention that steadily declining ticket sales and a lack of big donors would doom the opera to likely bankruptcy if it continued.

“We’ve had more publicity in the last two or three weeks than probably [the opera] had in the prior 25 years, yet even though 20,000 signatures came in [on a petition against the shutdown], we didn’t see dollars,” said Pam Slater-Price, a board member and former San Diego County supervisor.

The looming closure has focused attention on the compensation of General and Artistic Director Ian Campbell and Ann Campbell, his former wife and the opera’s deputy director, KPBS also reports. The Campbells were paid a combined $790,000 in 2011-12 and $763,000 last season.