$1.3M in debt, Opera's finances hit sour note

NORFOLK

With ticket sales and donations diminished, the Virginia Opera's financial difficulties, including its $1.3 million debt, will be aired today at a special meeting of its board.

"There are a handful of people from the Hampton Roads area who called this meeting, and they have some concerns,," said Joan Miller, president of the statewide board of directors.

To keep afloat, the opera company has trimmed expenses in all areas of its operations.

Gus Stuhlreyer, the company's general director and CEO, said Friday that the company had an $850,000 line of credit at BB&T bank when he came on the job in 2003. All of that money has been borrowed. The opera also is making payments on a $450,000 term loan through the same bank, he said.

The available funds on the line of credit have gone up and down each year, as money came in or was needed, Stuhlreyer said, and the opera has not been in danger of bankruptcy and is not anticipating closure.

"Right now, it is a struggle out there," he said. "God willing, I can come up with a plan that gets us to the end of the year on a break-even basis.

"Come summer, when the seasonal staff is gone, and we've collected next season's subscription money and are getting contributions, the line of credit goes down, and sometimes is even paid off."

Four opera companies among the nation's 117 professional groups have closed in the past 18 months, said a spokesman for Opera America, the national service organization.

Virginia Opera's annual budget is $4.8 million, down from $5.3 million in the fall of 2008. The remaining operas for this season, Mozart's "Don Giovanni" and "Porgy and Bess," will be performed as scheduled, Stuhlreyer said.

Teresa Annas, (757) 446-2485, teresa.annas@pilotonline.com