The MAGA loyalist Donald Trump has running the Kennedy Center reportedly blew his lid reading a harsh-worded interview with the artistic director of the Washington National Opera.
Richard Grenell, appointed executive director of the feted cultural institution last year, contacted the opera within hours of The Guardian publishing an interview with Francesca Zambello earlier in November, per The Washington Post.
The former ambassador has sought to frame an end to the National Opera’s relationship with the Kennedy Center as a way to “have the flexibility and funds to bring in operas from around the world and across the U.S,” per Grenell’s X post in January announcing the move.
But the Post’s reporting suggests his rage at Zambello’s sitdown with the Guardian may, in fact, have also played a role.
The National Opera has been based at the Kennedy Center since the venue first opened in 1971. Zambello told the Guardian she’d increasingly heard from previously loyal audience members who were appalled by the organization continuing to call the place home amid the Trump administration’s takeover of the performing arts center.
“They say things like: ‘I’m never setting foot in there until the “orange menace” is gone.’ Or: ‘Don’t you know history? Don’t you know what Hitler did? I refuse to give you a penny,’” she said. “People send me back their the season brochure shredded in an envelope and say: ‘Never, never, will I return: while he’s in power.’”
She further noted that ticket sales had dropped to 60 percent of audience capacity, compared to 80 and even 90 percent the previous year, along with a decrease in donations. “Donor confidence has been shattered because many people feel: ‘If I give to the Kennedy Center, I’m supporting Donald Trump,’” she said, adding that the building had been “tainted” as a result of being “politicized by the current management.”
Grenell, according to The Washington Post, was infuriated. He contacted the opera’s board almost immediately, demanding to know whether Zambello would be disciplined over the interview. Board members say he wanted her fired. His team has reportedly denied that.
He apparently went on to tell them he would be looking to end the National Opera’s more than 44-year relationship with the Center. The board shrugged off his purported demands that Zambella be dismissed because it considers her “irreplaceable,” WaPo reports. But they were willing to discuss a departure.
“My first thought remains I consider this whole situation just so sad and tragic,” board member Daniel Glaser told the newspaper. “But I’m glad we had a plan, and I think we’re now better positioned to weather this move.”
The opera’s moves to position itself for a post-Kennedy Center future come as Trump charges ahead with plans to shutter the venue for two years, beginning in July, to undertake what his administration describes as a “modernization” of the building.
Trump says it’ll cost $200 million. Officials at the center have otherwise suggested that figure is well short of the real price tag, which will apparently place a close to $300 million burden on taxpayers.
The president’s drastic remodelling ambitions, announced earlier this month, apparently blindsided even members of his own administration. “It cannot be overstated the degree to which this came as a complete surprise to everybody in the organization, including the office of the president,” one insider told Daily Beast newsletter The Swamp earlier this week.
“While the Democrats neglected the Trump-Kennedy Center for decades, President Trump took bold action to rescue and revitalize this great American institution,” White House Assistant Press Secretary Liz Huston said.
“The president is strengthening its finances, removing divisive woke programming, and initiating major building upgrades for all patrons to enjoy,” she added. “Under President Trump’s leadership, the Trump-Kennedy Center will become the finest performing arts facility anywhere in the world.”
The post Kennedy Center Boss’ Meltdown Over Director’s Mean Interview Revealed appeared first on The Daily Beast.
