By Della Hasselle
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — The New York City Opera has delayed announcing any future programming until the company find a solution to its money woes, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
The company has suspended the announcement of its next season and is also considering other cost cutting measures, like giving up its home at the Lincoln Center of Performing Arts, the paper reported.
"There is no line item that's sacrosanct," opera chairman Charles Wall told the Journal.
The New York City Opera has suffered through several rough years financially and company officials want to take a closer look at the business model.
Financial problems led to the company in recent years to ransack its endowment, which is now down to $9 million from $23.5 million in 2008, according to the Journal. The renovation of the David H. Koch Theater also took a toll on the opera company, forcing it to go dark during that late 2008 to 2009 season.
The New York City Opera already saves costs by employing "non-established future stars," as Wall calls them, and using less extravagant sets than those seen in its rival, the Metropolitan Opera. Regardless, the company expects to have a $5 million deficit this year, the Journal reported.
"For years, arts organizations didn't look at the bottom line, is my sense," Wall told the paper. "But you've got to bring a business outlook to these organizations, or they start dipping into the endowment — they start doing all sorts of things that they shouldn't be doing."
