Berlin's Staatsoper parts company with general manager Peter Mussbach
May 15, 2008BERLIN - The general manager of Berlin's famed Staatsoper is leaving immediately due to differences over programming, the city government said Thursday.
Peter Mussbach has been general manager at the Staatsoper, where Daniel Barenboim remains the music director, since 2002. His contract was set to run through the 2009-2010 season.
The foundation that oversees Berlin's three opera houses decided in consultation with Mussbach, 59, to "release him irrevocably with immediate effect," a statement from the city government said.
"Both sides were prompted to take this step because they were unable to reach agreement on the future direction of the overall operation and the artistic programming," it added.
It did not give details of the differences, although Mussbach and Barenboim reportedly had long been at odds over whether more money should go into opera productions or into the house's Staatskapelle orchestra.
Opera spokesman Johannes Ehmann said no successor had yet been named.
The departure comes as the opera house looks forward to a major renovation of its 18th-century building on the Unter den Linden boulevard, slated to start in 2010 and last 3 1/2 years. During that time, the Staatsoper is expected to move its productions to Berlin's Schiller Theatre.
The opera house was reopened by East German authorities in 1955 after being gutted at the end of the Second World War. It was last renovated in 1986.
In 2002, a hydraulic stage lift collapsed during a performance of Mozart's "Don Giovanni."
German reunification has left the heavily indebted capital struggling to maintain funding for three opera houses - the Staatsoper and Komische Oper in the east, and the Deutsche Oper in the west.
