Article from the Star on the opening, by Knelman:
Passion that defied all odds
He made opera sizzle and donors wanted in on it
Jun. 12, 2006. 01:19 AM
MARTIN KNELMAN
Now that Toronto's elusive opera house has officially opened, insiders have stopped rolling their eyes and cracking jokes about what Richard Bradshaw has been smoking.
For years the charismatic British-born conductor, who landed in Toronto in 1989 by way of San Francisco and took over running the Canadian Opera Company in 1994, couldn't stop talking about building an opera house.
Did the man not realize there could be no Toronto opera house in his lifetime? The dream of Moshe Safdie's palatial $320 million ballet opera hall at Bay and Wellesley had come crashing down in 1990, amid fears of a looming recession.
Bradshaw was shrewd enough to realize that if there was any hope of resurrecting the dream of a Toronto opera house, it would have to be much less extravagant than the Safdie house. The 1990s downturn turned out to be even worse than expected. As the recession dragged on, the arts became one if its victims, with huge cuts.
Surely if he had enough common sense to recognize a losing set of cards, Bradshaw would have found a post in a city where the odds were less daunting. Instead, he fell in love with Toronto and made building an opera house here his life's mission.
But when he took over the opera company from Brian Dickie, Bradshaw realized his first task was to balance the books and erase a $2 million deficit.
During his first seasons he banished the idea that opera was boring — choosing provocative material and hiring film directors like Atom Egoyan to make it sizzle. Clearly this company had aspirations requiring a true opera house.
Bradshaw set about creating opera mania while becoming the kind of shrewd cultural politician influential people want at their table. Had he not turned himself into a provocateur, it's unlikely the opera house could have drawn the attention it needed from philanthropists and politicians.
The curtain had clearly come down on the era when it would be possible to get governments to commit $200 million in cash and land. But NDP Premier Bob Rae, upset about being blamed for the cancellation of the opera house, offered a consolation prize. His government would put up $24 million toward transforming the O'Keefe Centre into a tolerable ballet opera hall.
Bradshaw became quickly disenchanted as the opera company, the National Ballet and the O'Keefe failed to agree on details. Finally he bolted, insisting compromise was doomed to failure, and only a new house would do. Since the cash-strapped ballet company was unwilling to raise money for a new building, the opera company would have to do it alone.
Things got even worse for the arts in 1995 when Rae was swept out of office by Mike Harris and the Common Sense Revolution. Common sense apparently dictated spending as little as possible on the arts. Step one: Harris withdrew the offer of $24 million to fix the O'Keefe.
The COC began planning a no-frills house privately funded. Yet its board rejected a site offered for $1 and a tax receipt. Joe Tanenbaum, uncle of opera board member Joey Tanenbaum, had died. His estate wanted to dispose of land at Parliament and Front Sts. But key board members considered it downmarket, jokingly calling it "Bradshaw's trench-coat site."
Instead they craved a fur-coat site. One at Queen and University surfaced when Joey Tanenbaum met David Lindsay of the Ontario Real Estate Corp.
On a July morning in 1997, Premier Harris stepped forward in a ballroom of the Sheraton Hotel, overlooking the parking lot, to be hailed as opera's new best friend. Georgia Prassas, then president of the opera board, gave the impression the COC was delighted to pay $16 million for the site — and promised the hall would be built with no cost to the taxpayer. Harris was even saluted by singers Richard Marginson and Jean Stillwell.
There was just one problem. The opera company had found an anonymous lead donor who was willing to put up $20 million for naming rights to the opera house. And this donor (later identified as expatriate Christopher Ondaatje) became incensed at the notion his contribution would be used to pay the government. Ondaatje flew to Santa Fe, where Bradshaw was guest conductor, to explain why he was withdrawing his pledge.
Bradshaw knew the opera company would have to find a new lead donor and a development partner. But he also felt sure that one day Mike Harris would change his mind, and millions of dollars of public money would flow to the opera house.
In 1998 Kevin Garland, a woman with experience in both the cultural world and commercial real estate development, was named head of the opera house project. Her old firm, Cadillac Fairview, signed on as co-developer, planning to build a tower in a corner of the site — only to back out a year later.
Jack Diamond was chosen to design the opera house over other Toronto architects, but only after a move to bring in the celebrated Toronto-born, L.A.-based Frank Gehry was shot down. Bradshaw feared a Gehry building would cost millions more than the COC could raise.
Alex Himmelfarb, then federal deputy heritage minister, became a key ally. But Ottawa couldn't back the opera house without matching funds from Ontario — and it would take a long dance to get them.
In March 2000, furious that Queen's Park was being blamed for the opera house woes, culture minister Helen Johns sent a nasty letter to the opera company refusing to turn over the Queen/University site and accusing the COC of failing to meet its obligations.
For a while, the project seemed dead. But it sprang back to life in May when the Star reported that Philip Reichmann of O&Y Properties offered $20 million for the right to build an office tower next to the opera house.
The prospect of an office tower that might lift downtown Toronto out of its doldrums was appealing to Harris. And Queen's Park was starting to buy into the notion that a package of cultural attractions would spur economic development.
An apparent breakthrough came in late 2001 when the federal Liberals found a way to tempt Harris, with a deal under which the cash-short Ontario government could provide land in lieu of money.
By early 2002, Harris was ready to donate the site that a few years earlier he had proposed to sell to the opera company. The opera house — by then on the short list of projects approved for government funding under the provincial government's SuperBuild program — would get land from Ontario and cash from Ottawa.
But Harris got into a fight with Ottawa about which other projects would get funding. The federal Liberals refused to exclude the National Ballet School and the Royal Conservatory of Music, as Harris demanded. Just before leaving the premier's office, Harris made a unilateral funding announcement, leaving many arts leaders confused and upset.
It was only after Ernie Eves succeeded Harris that a deal could be made — brokered by Ontario culture minister David Tsubouchi and David Collenette, the federal minister in charge of the GTA caucus, who settled it during a gala opening at the Stratford Festival.
One thorny problem they solved: Since Harris claimed the site was worth more than the $25 million cash Ottawa was contributing, he wanted the opera company to pay a rebate to the province. Eves and Tsubouchi dropped that condition and made an outright gift of the land.
Prime minister Jean Chrétien and premier Eves made the announcement at Roy Thomson Hall in June 2002.
Almost immediately, Isadore Sharp announced that Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts was giving $20 million to name the building. By then Reichmann had decided to forego building an office tower on the opera site. But by then the curse had been lifted, and momentum was strong.
Yet Bradshaw faced a big challenge. He was already known as an inspired maestro and brilliant strategist. Now he became the most relentless fundraiser Toronto had ever seen, a man to whom you'd never want to say no. A key part of his strategy: when dealing with people who don't like opera, Bradshaw sold the project on the basis of turning Toronto into a great city.
The curtain came down on the COC's final performance at the Hummingbird on April 15.
Yesterday morning the ribbon cutting ceremony was held at the Four Seasons Centre.
Now during the countdown to Wednesday's gala opening concert at the only real opera house Canada has ever had, it's clear that against all the odds, Bradshaw got the job done.
AoD
