Supporters of Virginia Opera's director hope to spark public outcry

NORFOLK

Members of the Virginia Opera board who back Artistic Director Peter Mark took their appeal directly to the public this week and plan additional public pleas for support.

The leader of the group, opera founding President Edythe Harrison, has no plans to address the opera board herself.

"I don't believe anything I could say would sway them," Harrison said Friday. "They've made up their minds."

She hopes an ad published in Thursday's Virginian-Pilot will spur an outcry about the executive committee's decision to end Mark's tenure when his contract expires in May 2012.

Alan Albert, the president-elect of the board's executive committee, said that body has no plans to respond to the ad. The 19-member committee has the final authority regarding contracts for senior personnel, he said, and has voted unanimously three times in the past year to allow Mark's contract to expire without renewing. The bylaws don't require the committee to reconsider a personnel decision if members of the full board disagree, he said.

Harrison was among 10 opera board members who signed a $2,400 half-page advertisement on Mark's behalf. The signers split the cost. Eight of the signers are members of the full 64-member board; two are members of the Northern Virginia board of governors, which is an advisory board.

The ad followed Harrison's Sunday afternoon post-performance announcement from the opera stage of what she characterized as a secret plot to oust Mark. She also led a Monday news conference at the opera house, named for her and her late husband, where similar allegations were made.

As of midday Friday, Harrison said she had seen at least 100 e-mails from supporters.

"They're just so glowing, so passionate about Peter," said Harrison, who said the concerned board members plan to place another ad in The Pilot, perhaps next week, containing some of the responses.

"I'm trying to save Virginia Opera," said Harrison, explaining the ad. She said she equated Mark with the opera, since he is the founding artistic director who has been with the organization since it started in 1975. Harrison hired him.

Harrison said they bought the ad because, "I would like the structure of the organization to return to a democratic institution, and not have a very small group of people working in secrecy in a totalitarian-type operation."

She said she didn't want it to look like she was merely trying to save Mark his salary, which is about $185,000. Speaking by phone from her home in Boca Raton, Fla., Harrison said there are more than 10 protesting board members, but she didn't provide names. She said that "30 to 40 board members have resigned" in the past year, and many of those may have supported her campaign on Mark's behalf.

In other interviews since Sunday, she has said 20 to 25 board members had resigned in frustration or in protest.

Phone calls to several other of the protesting board members who signed the ad were not returned.

Danielle Canonico, the opera's director of communications, said this week that seven board members left in the past year. Four new members joined.

As to the remaining board members' opinions regarding Mark's contract, Alan Albert said, "I wouldn't presume to speak for anyone."

Albert said the executive committee will update the full board regarding Mark's contract in a meeting scheduled Oct. 30. The full board meets three times a year, and its members are scattered throughout Hampton Roads, Richmond and Northern Virginia.

At the upcoming meeting, board members may discuss Mark with the executive committee, but all the details from Mark's personnel file will not be divulged, Albert said.

On Tuesday, Mark e-mailed his views to The Pilot, saying that a number of the executive committee's assertions are false. He wrote that while the executive committee said he was informed in 2008 that it would be his final contract, he was not actually told that until Sept. 23.

Mark was bothered that a word was left out of his response to the executive committee's Oct. 8 letter to the full board that mentioned his "history of difficulties in working relations."

Mark wrote that "there have been no complaints pursued against me in my 36 years with Virginia Opera." The word "pursued" was omitted.

"By pursued," Mark wrote, "I mean to any adverse legal conclusion."

"All I want to do - especially as the opera is under so much financial pressure - is identify and assure - in open discussion with the board - the safest and smoothest date for transition which will protect the artistic legacy I have created here," he wrote.

Albert said Mark rejected several attempts to set up meetings to discuss his transition and his post-2012 role with the opera.

Meanwhile, Mark said Friday, "I have a signed contract and I have a job." Thursday night, he conducted "Rigoletto" in Fairfax.

Mark said he is in daily contact with the opera staff.

"Nothing's changed at all."

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