La Repubblica has gone crawling over Stephane Lissner’s contract and come up with a line that boosts his take-home to a million Euros a year.
It’s a nice round figure but it doesn’t quite ring true.
His basic salary, bottom line, is 449,000 Euros, on which – with several other managers – he has just taken a 10 percent cut.
In addition, the company pays 80,000 to cover his social security. It also pays for his apartment, limo and driver, business-class flights. When his contract ends in 2017, he’s entitled to a golden farewell payment of 300,000 Euros.
A pretty good package, all told, but not quite millionaires row.
Read the article here (in Italian).
One thing the MET never talks about is Peter Gelb’s apartment in the building that used to house Cafe des Artistes which is subsidized by the MET as part of his package….not just the limo driver mentioned the other day. He is well over-paid, especially, as Lissner had real arts and theater management experience before he took over.
It would seem that the hunting season against administrators is in full bloom.
And for the ones believing they can live a lifestyle just like AAA-list conductors, I would suggest this model:
How does Mr. LIssner’s compensation compare against that of other top managers in other top European opera houses?
According to Norman, the article cites the wrong figures, that being the reason for my original statement that “the hunting season on administrators is blooming”. I would imagine there are people earning more than Mr. Lissner at La Scala. At least, he has a lot of experience and successful ones.
BTW, we never met!
Doesn’t anyone who tries to run La Scala deserve hazard pay?