August 7, 2003 | Read Time: 1 minute
Representatives of Sybil B. Harrington, a Texas oil heiress who died in 1998, are suing the Metropolitan Opera, in New York, to recover $5-million of Mrs. Harrington’s donations that they say were misappropriated by the organization. The opera has denied any wrongdoing.
Before she died, Mrs. Harrington requested that her money be used to pay for traditional opera productions.
But a lawsuit filed last month in Amarillo, Tex., accuses the Metropolitan of spending some of her donations to televise a nontraditional production of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde in 2001.
The lawsuit also alleges that the Metropolitan has diverted $34-million of Mrs. Harrington’s endowment — opera officials say the fund contains $26-million, while the donor’s representatives claim it was worth more than $62-million as of September 2002 — to cover costs unrelated to the production of traditional operas.
The suit asks the organization to appoint a trustee to oversee the fund.
The opera’s failure to use Mrs. Harrington’s money in accordance with her directions is the result of a “willful and calculated intent to disregard and evade” her wishes, the lawsuit alleges.
The lawsuit was filed by the Amarillo Area Foundation, which Mrs. Harrington appointed to watch over the opera’s compliance with her requests, and Laurie McWeeney, the executor of the donor’s will.
Sharon E. Grubin, general counsel at the Metropolitan Opera, says that the Met has artistic license to use Mrs. Harrington’s money for productions it considers to be traditional operas, and that the organization “has always done everything according to her wishes.”
Adds Ms. Grubin: “It seems to us that some individuals are trying to assert themselves in control of something over which they have no control.”
