The Problem with Peter

“Since the start of his tenure in 2006, Gelb’s aesthetic censorship has gatekept major developments in opera from the New York landscape, leaving the city trailing far behind the rest of the world. New American opera doesn’t exist in a vacuum, but U.S. audiences are routinely asked to assess their national scene without any knowledge of the global context in which to situate it. If Paris in 2023 can sell out John Adams to an under-30 audience, the Met should have no problem doing the same with Neuwirth or Kurtág—they’ve just never bothered to try.”