New York City Opera’s board voted Thursday to file for chapter 11 protection and dissolve the company if it doesn’t raise $7 million by Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The storied company, which launched the careers of stars such as Beverly Sills and Plácido Domingo, hasn’t yet come close to reaching its emergency fund-raising goal of $7 million, a figure the company had said that it must raise by the end of the month. The emergency capital campaign, which targeted a total of $20 million by the end of the year, came two years after the company’s dire financial straits prompted it to cut its budget, shrink its season and leave its longtime home at Lincoln Center. Those measures, which led to a bruising labor fight, allowed City Opera to balance its budget for the first time in more than a decade, but left the company still struggling with cash-flow problems.
