From the Kirov to the Met, Opera Lover Stakes Claim as the ‘Primo Donor’

By ELIZABETH GREENE

It is fitting that the world’s biggest patron of opera, the most lavish of the performing arts, goes in for the grand gesture.

When Alberto Vilar wants something done — a new production of

“La Traviata,” for example, or a distinguished-artist series at the cultural center he built near his Colorado ski home — he bankrolls everything from the props to the director’s fees, and then gets out of the way.

He extends his golden hand to many of the biggest names in classical music, sponsoring productions, building and renovating halls, updating technology, and, among other things, supporting young-artist development programs.

Carnegie Hall, the Kirov Opera and Ballet, the Los Angeles Opera, the Metropolitan Opera, and the Royal Opera House, in London, for example, are all recipients of his largess.

And he has transformed institutions that have been good to him in other realms: his alma mater, Washington and Jefferson College, in Washington, Pa., and the Hospital for Special Surgery, in New York, which repaired his arm after he shattered it skiing.

All told, Mr. Vilar, who is 60, has donated or pledged more than $150-million. His annual budget for philanthropy, he says, is $50- to $75-million, and he expects his foundation to keep giving after he’s no longer around to secure the best seats in the house for himself — or to enjoy the recognition that he now welcomes for his philanthropy.

Mr. Vilar’s foundation, which is incorporated in Switzerland and the Cayman Islands, “will be worth hundreds of millions because I’m worth many hundreds of millions,” says the self-described billionaire, who has homes in the United States and overseas. He plans to give from the interest and capital of the foundation after he retires in 5 to 10 years, but most of his current giving is from his own capital and the appreciation on his assets.

Mr. Vilar has made a fortune for both himself and his clients as the founder and president of Amerindo Investment Advisors, a New York company that manages portfolios for pension funds and other institutions by investing exclusively in emerging-technology growth stocks.

A big investor in Internet businesses, Mr. Vilar has seen his earnings fluctuate considerably, but he dismisses questions about the impact of a volatile market on his giving. “I don’t think there’s any question that the Internet is going to be the biggest thing in 50 years,” he says with characteristic confidence.

Gifts in the Works

Mr. Vilar says that, despite the downturn in technology stocks, he has six big gifts already planned for this year, including one in the arts, one in education, and two in health care. They would push his annual giving well above the $75-million mark, as two of them are each in the $40-million range, he says.

Richard Dukas, an Amerindo spokesman, said his boss was planning a $50-million gift to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, in Washington, but he subsequently sought to retract the statement, saying “nothing is confirmed on this.”

Such a gift would be a big one for the Kennedy Center — more than all the gifts raised by the group in 1999, when it brought in $32.8-million from private sources. But that sort of high-impact giving is what drives Mr. Vilar. He does not just contribute toward the $2-million it costs to mount a production at the Metropolitan Opera, as many donors are content to do, but he underwrites entire productions by himself — six operas to date. And he didn’t just offer seed money for a new junior-year-abroad program at Washington and Jefferson College, but says he will pay just about all the bills for every student who signs up.

“It’s not, ‘Hey, I want this done and go raise the money,’” says Tony O’Rourke, chief executive officer of the Vilar Center for the Arts at Beaver Creek, a Colorado ski resort near Vail. “It’s, ‘Here’s the check and go get it done.’”

Says Joseph Volpe, the Met’s general manager: “He’s in a category of his own.”

Essential to Life

Mr. Vilar, who is divorced and has no children, says that philanthropy is one of his great pleasures. “It’s an essential part of life to help others, to give,” he says.

And because he enjoys the process, he hopes to give away as much as possible during his lifetime. “I want to enjoy my giving while I’m healthy and alive,” he says. “I’d like to see people benefit from it, I’d like to see structures go up, I’d like to see operas performed, I’d like to see all the things that I enjoy seeing.”

Even as a boy in Cuba and Puerto Rico, Mr. Vilar was interested in philanthropy, giving what he could, but his instincts didn’t come from his parents. “I don’t remember one penny ever coming out of them for anything,” he says.

Ironically, though, his father, a sugar executive in pre-Castro Cuba, may have steered him toward philanthropy when he forbade Alberto from taking the violin and piano lessons he wanted so badly and encouraged him to go into business.

Nonprofit leaders point out that Mr. Vilar could never have been much of a philanthropist had he become a classical musician.

“We owe tribute to his dad,” says Mr. O’Rourke in Beaver Creek, noting that the $15-million arts center is the ski resort’s “crown jewel,” a world-class facility that attracts such big names as the Bolshoi Symphony Orchestra, the Moscow Ballet, and Debra Voigt, the opera soprano.

More than any other art form, it is opera that has captured Mr. Vilar’s imagination since he listened to recordings of Mario Lanza with his grandmother in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

He is credited with single-handedly keeping alive the Kirov, in St. Petersburg, Russia. Last September, he announced a gift of $14-million to the struggling company to underwrite six new productions designed for touring outside Russia. A member of the group’s Global Advisory Board, Mr. Vilar also started U.S. Friends of the Kirov last year, to be housed at Amerindo.

“I happened to like Russian opera at a very young age,” he explains.

His legacy, if he continues along his current path, will be most closely tied to preserving opera, which doesn’t generally attract such freewheeling support, around the world.

Mr. Vilar, who is on the board of the Metropolitan Opera, has “expanded the entire world of opera so more people could do more things and take more risks,” says the Met’s Mr. Volpe.

Mr. Vilar gave the Met $25-million in 1998, an early big gift in the organization’s current endowment campaign. In exchange, the Met renamed its Grand Tier seating the Vilar Grand Tier.

Other wealthy people should be doing much more to preserve classical music, Mr. Vilar believes. Says the man who spends most of his free time at the theater: “If there are 10 people in a row and five of them are capable of giving and one of them gives, there’s something wrong with that picture.”

Mr. Vilar wants the other four to ante up.

“I want to do my best to keep the legacy of classical music intact,” he says. “The best single thing you can do is stand up and say, I’m giving to these people because they deserve it.”