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Thank you thank you. Thank you very much I'm John Lindsay and thank you studio audience for being with us tonight and thank you for listening this year nine hundred sixty nine is the twenty fifth anniversary year of New York city center you know by job as mayor has many trials and tribulations and other difficulties but you should know that there are some fringe benefits side aspects to it that that make it more than worthwhile and one of them is being the president of New York City Center. Designated president by law and the reason is that the New York City center of dance opera ballet drama is a unique city institution. There is no other city in the United States and in fact no other city in the world it has a city institution quite like it the New York City Center I'm sure many of you have been to if not most of you puts on at at low box office prices while the people of the country many of the city. Ballet opera drama Gilbert and Sullivan. And it does it in two locations in our city one at the what is known as the Mecca temple on fifty fifth Street in Manhattan West fifty fifth Street and the other in what is called The New York State Theatre part of the Lincoln Center complex that really is the New York City theater it's owned by the city of New York and the city center occupies a good portion of its time this year represents the twenty fifth anniversary of the city center it was begun under the administration of fear of the Guardian and it's been going ever since the twenty fifth year is a really glorious achievement because I have a feeling it's moving into kind of a new phase of great achievement it's expanding growing and is regarded as one of the great things about our city Incidentally the chairman of the twenty fifth anniversary year is Mrs Arthur recent member of the board of City Center and she's been doing a superb job and in announcing to the world that we're proud to celebrate this anniversary occasion Well here to discuss what the city center of New York City is all about are four of its great performers and stars Melissa Hayden my immediate left brain ballerina with the New York City Ballet joined the company in one thousand nine hundred eighty nine she's appeared in London with the Royal Ballet and the Canadian National Ballet and other companies incidentally she's a born Canadian and then became a New Yorker later. She's played in more than sixty roles on the stage she's the author of two books. Which I hope that you'll take a look at by and if you haven't one of them is Melissa Haden stage and on the other is ballet exercises. I second guessed is Beverly Sills a great singer born in Brooklyn New York she's a leading soprano with a New York City Opera Company for fourteen years she's been a member of the company her roles include man on my greed and foulest Cleopatra in Julius Caesar and April of this year we will be loaning. I say we the New York City said it will be loaning her to law scholar where she will be making her debut on that great opera stage she has sung in opera houses all over the world. Third of Alleluia. Ballet dancer she's the premier dancer for the New York City Ballet born in New York City joined the New York City Ballet Company in one nine hundred fifty seven. He's played every kind of role imaginable incidentally. As a great T.V. special it's being doing that it's being done on him by the Bell Telephone Company called the man who dances canned it was seen in March of one thousand nine hundred sixty eight he's a member of the National Council of the arts incidentally and a further interest did you know that Edward de la took his Bachelor of Science degree in marine transportation He was also a welterweight boxer in college and took his letters in baseball as well our four star is Julius rebel is the senior man of this quartet here in fact is quintet if you include myself because Julius has been with the New York City Center since its beginning in one thousand nine hundred three during the administration of Fiorello La Guardia and he's the director of The New York City Opera and he's just returned from Israel where he spent a month conducting the Israeli soldier Monica orchestra in Tel Aviv in Jerusalem and down in the negative with the Israeli army also in Haifa. Since nineteen forty three's been weathered as I said in director since one nine hundred fifty seven incidentally the opera season opened on Thursday this last Thursday February twenty fifth man starring Beverly Sills sitting here to my right and Julius rebel will conduct Prince Igor on February twenty seventh with Edward dancing the role of a warrior if I said it all right everybody's taken care of let's open with you Julius rebel Why don't you just capsulized What is the city center What does it mean to you and why is it unique it's a big assignment I think for us it's almost a way of life and it is the most exciting concept of a performing center that can be imagined. It combines all the performance arts we have as you know six major companies the ballet the opera given Sullivan the drama of the musicals Joffrey Ballet and it's probably the biggest producer in the world we have roughly one hundred productions a year put on in two houses it's a staggering amount consider it and the ballet an opera have to it extensively at the Valley it's been all over the New York City Opera has been. In Europe at the Brussels World's Fair we've been to the west coast to open the Chandler Pavilion we will probably be invited to the Kennedy Center when it's finished in Washington we've also been invited to a festival and one hundred seventy so there are lots of things as you say things always happening to us and it's it's an extraordinary concept all idea of it as you know the various companies actually live together. As captain and he said one big happy family Mr beloved perform with us in the opera OK and some of our singers perform with the ballet when there's occasionally the votes or something like. That they think. That a lot and I both did good to him several times with the Allied office so that was a lot of give and take I recall with great pleasure the trip that we took to Los Angeles. Join occasion of the opening of the new Chandler Opera House and solemn on a call with their New York City Opera Company played the opening and it was a glorious occasion our opera company received a standing ovation from all of the residents of Los Angeles listen to it and you know people just couldn't believe that in New York City we made it possible for this unique institution to give performances at box office office prices that were below the regular market. That made it possible for families to enjoy opera ballet. Drama without having to pay the staggering cost of the usual ticket at the box office. That's going to spot a possible whole idea behind City Center that is to be made available to every Did you make that trip every course you were there sure. Was one of the most exciting when are we going to V.N.. To have made it I don't know that was a very exciting experience it's a beautiful theater I don't think it's just beautiful as our own but I'm very possible to the State Theatre probably in all the opera houses that I have so I think it's the most beautiful the best acoustics and it really I'm always delighted so I'm home of the biggest to yeah there are there are a couple of larger ones I think the one in Argentina is the largest in the world but we're certainly not there our house as far I don't know what it is for dancers but it separates the big ones from the little ones when you sing in our house really you really have to feel it it's a big place what have you enjoyed most with your in your roles at City Center For this is having the first dressing room with the nicest No I know I think. Now the role I've enjoyed the most is Mondo. Probably the clay or patch or I should be most grateful to my boss and to the pot because it was a great turning point in my career but. And it's a wonderful vocal vehicle but I'm a single with brains and I prefer the more intellectual approach and therefore I found monoid to be the most exciting because it's such a great character you've got more than just brains but you know I thank you very much me along how long have you been with the company since one hundred fifty five my whole youth is somewhere on the stage of the New York Mecca temple there and when I go back I see four in five years sort of floating around in bits and pieces but I have spent my entire tour singing career with The New York City Opera I started there and I'll probably be carried out as why when they talk of nine hundred seventy and seventy one. It just seems impossible but I guess how big is the company the opera company. Well if you count the August chorus and. Everyone backstage in the station you have two hundred fifty people easily now the ballet company is going to make a trip to Monaco right yes in June or early are in June the ballet company is going you're both going oh yes and I hear you're I've been in Mr Lindsey and I are invited to take you you know to present New York City company in New York City Ballet to the stage of Monaco and we'd like to do it we've had to say no for the time being if that changes if it is that change that will change is that all of it is possible we'll do it because we have thoroughly enjoyed taking the opportunity to Los Angeles we're very proud of it and you know show it off as New York City's greatest I managed to go to Monte Carlo the ballet company chips fell out. I mean I've been weather for how long and I've I've been with the New York City Ballet since nine hundred fifty seven that that was really my theatrical debut and it is again that's it's been it was something a place where I have grown up and I'm you started out as a marine engineer. Having been first a boxer welterweight boxer and then a baseball player and you wound up as a ballet dancer and well it's it's a little in the reverse actually I started dancing when I was about ten years old and I was knocked unconscious by a baseball while my mother was taking my sister to a local dance studio Dan Carsen studio in Bayside lovely place to. Eat lunch not on the right but how you got started That's absolutely how I got started and I used to sit there and fidget and my mother said well why waste your time why don't you take a class like how am I going to. I have friends I have friends I want you. To she persisted and from the first class that was and I knew that I really want to do that I think it's because I like to move. I mean I'm totally involved with movement and I was very athletic when I was young and I continued it in high school and college but for me it was a fascination of movement and then to find this totally refined totally extended movement it's the full physical potential. You can't go any further it's that kind of thing it's the most refined form of athleticism and so on Anyway I got very very hard up on that and after a while my parents thought well maybe it's a precarious occupation if I break a leg or this or that and I should go to college and they persisted again I stopped asking for four years I went to the New York State Maritime College at Fort Schuyler I earned my Bachelor of Science degree marine transportation and what how did you pick that up is that just the start of a hunch or no I was fascinated by fascinated by the Sea of course I was sixteen at the time I went to college so I was it was it was a very romantic thing there was a uniform and there were. Three months of trips every summer training cruises to to Europe and of course that fascinated me and. In addition to that it was close to home in addition to that it was a state supported thing which which are I most grateful for. Having not only my my college education but also my my bill had a good education is also involved in that. And so I went after I did all of that and I said well I have done really what my parents wanted me to do and I thought I fulfill that obligation and I never stopped wanting to dance and I said I'm going to I'm going to take a whack at it and I promised my parents that. By the time I was twenty eight if I didn't I didn't sort of make it. Go to zero two so you said they made it OK so that your stuff got to you. And Melissa come back and let your history well I'm about the Right now I'm the oldest Yes B. man senior dancer in the New York City Ballet Company I joined it nine hundred forty nine coming and I was in this country from Toronto for about two years I was with another major company Ballet Theater and I was invited to join the New York City Ballet Company and it wasn't I wasn't sure whether I was doing the right thing because I had seen a performance of it other company as it was ballet society when it first performed at the center I was fascinated with the ballet but I had been dancing with another company I didn't know whether it was the right thing to do but I decided to join the company and I'm I've never been sorry it's been a wonderful experience for me and anyone who has been connected with the center. Has been as any has said it's not only rewarding you see for me anyway I have such a wonderful warm feeling for everyone who has been involved with the company with the company they've contributed so much. I think I think also that. We're not there is a popular price ticket which is one of the main ideas about this but but but apparently you know that goes as far south as a concerned salaries are also popular priced no matter what I was thinking. But. So one finds one so having to dash about the country in the world to subsidize one's own enjoyment and that's really what it is it's our only enjoyment this is the place that we work this is a place that we develop as artists and this is the place that we make I believe our major contribution and what is the role that you've enjoyed most in. I would I would probably say Prodigal Son which is a it's it's a fantastic work it's a balancing for coffee house work it's the biblical story of course but it has all of the major challenges it has the dance challenge the musical challenges. Of this visit the taste and so on but it's also a great dramatic challenge as well and to have to throw yourself through the year maintaining technique and music and so on and at the same time to acquire the dramatic intent fascinates me and of course that role and I just feel so close to it also I think it was a major point in my my career about you Melissa and I was a thing about the any speaking about five percent but the repertoire on the New York City company we do it we have a hundred twenty productions in the in the repertoire right now and each season we dance at least forty of these productions sometimes we repeat productions and there is such a diversity and range of bellows that you are asked to dance and spells at dancing as a matter of fact. You either do something quite dramatic or you do something just completely denser than sake or something quite modern most of the ballets are quite about that balancing we've been very fortunate in that sense because he has in this way we have mature and as Dan says as well as artists. Because he is also has said has so many facets to his personality he is not just a classical choreographer he is a modern He's really quite an add on card player for. Anyone who is a great guy to be as it was before George Balanchine the director the choreographer of the ballet company he's fun to have around he certainly has a sense of humor it's a great wit and it comes out in his work too and that's that I think is so sustaining also to do all of these enormous works in these great classical things and new classic things and at the same time as with. That's what I don't even get there is it was very romantic to leave a sneer about so so so romantic and then you get something like well to Monica Prodicus or. I don't know how to wear now instead so knock is ballet but I wouldn't touch that. It's as late as that of our garden ballet and I think that's Prather frightening but one thing that it would be touched on mostly. That one can probably receive greater salaries and compensation elsewhere what is it that holds the team together at City Center Julius Well I think it's simply that we all believe in this type of presentation of wanting to do things first of all distinctly very free we can really do what we want to do we don't have to be concerned we can make our own rules and live by them that's a wonderful thing and so we all do come back we go elsewhere and then always come back and it's always wonderful to come back now we have represented here the chorus the dance about the opera tell us a little bit about the drama to want to mention that. This is a very important aspect of city so yes that's on the gene Dalrymple and one of the great producers and theatrical people of our city genius and has presented a number of I don't know offhand how many plays but a great number and of course. There are rare and. Awesome wells and many many good performers here there Helen Hayes and again the same idea you see I mean they all we all can make more money elsewhere and still we come back I don't that's not you know if you don't that's may sound a lot of that may sound to some people kind of. Patronizing it isn't meant to be they really want to do it and the fact that we do the artists in fact do in that sense subsidize the audience isn't meant to be you know thrown in their faces just works out that way but we don't mind it because it gives us a chance to really really do things that artistically satisfying and exciting and this one is the Gilbert and Sullivan company and over there we know you know we've been with Dylan so I was in a sense an outgrowth of the Opera Company but there's a lot of that not of us to you know they were sort of each section sort of became separate after getting a start with some production from the opera company the opera company has. On Macy's and then are pretty independent Gilbert Sullivan is a tough one because that's a lot of people you know it's regarded it's a little bit old fashioned the youngsters don't go for too much today I don't think well there is of course a great great tradition of the early copy which there's no point in doing that so our company tries to. Revitalize and evaluate these works and. While the great traditionalists in the audience will resent it but then I think there are people coming up who found that's rather nice to find new facets and given some of the they didn't know existed and so I think it'll eventually find its place there is there's another affiliation which is the Geoffrey ballet and it's important to mention that because I suppose the city center is a whole group of complexes and you are you sure you've been overwhelmed listening audience must have been overwhelmed with listening about the ballet company the Opera Company the go insolvent company. Like all right I get out and shot and now here in town said talking about I can now here comes just so we've got all told six or seven here grouped under this under this house with Geoffrey came in just recently did I survive just as years two years ago the Jeffrey ballet came and they like everyone else's money. Who does everybody. And we all have money the city center has great money trouble don't we we certainly we are supported by we are supported in other words ladies and gentlemen in part by public subscription We are supported by contributions to city center from the public which are tax deductible and in the twenty fifth anniversary year here comes the commercial here comes the plug in the twenty fifth anniversary year. Money is badly needed for the New York City Center mainly to keep the the box office the box office low popular prices that's the chief reason so the youngsters of our town can be introduced to the. World of the Opera Ballet the dance drama. Tickets their parents can afford to buy we try to do as much without any cost as we can in the city like the Shakespeare Festival in the park and this kind of thing but the great things that are lasting always a costly so you can help take the twenty fifth anniversary year by helping this is Arthur Reese and her team who are trying to do something about raising some more funds incidentally one of the things that Mrs Lindsay and I for many many years have enjoyed the most about New York City Center Long before I became mayor and long before I went to the House of Representatives when we were private citizens in our city was becoming what we call friends of City Center anyone can become a friend of City Center what is it twenty five dollars I think so I believe if I believe it's one he may give more one may give more but but. What is asked to become a friend is twenty five dollars at least and anything more that you can afford and that's fun to do I think they're one of the about four thousand now to our families and I hope it's quite dramatically that six thousand it's that Excel Well I don't wait it's good because what can you do if your friend well I think the nice thing is that they first of all feel become a part of us they really feel they belong they have a chance to get to see some rehearsals which is always nice and a look behind the scenes always when it's nice for parents to bring their children to come to a rehearsal and see how it really works when they're there if your friend why that gives you a chance to do that. Other things too I mean they make it they help you get tickets and all that kind of thing incidentally this year we're going after corporate giving in a very large way to for the New York City Center and we try to tell our corporate family here in New York City that this is not on the A very excellent thing to do is way way of civic support and a civic enterprise but it also is a means by which employees young executives and buyers that come in from out of town. Can be accommodated what a nice thing to be able to do as a corporate giver. To see whether you can introduce your corporate family to the joys of City Center Well that's a big plug in commercial but I feel it very deeply and I'm also. To you as a New York City word entitle to do that too as the president of New York City Center and. This is a city institution that we try to help also. Through the city government as much as we possibly can but it's very special in that it's helps not only by the government but it must be assisted by the public in general we're going to reach the end here we've got about one minute you want to put in a last minute plug the well I just hope they send money they cooperate and send money. At you is I second about it I think and then we'll ask for raises thank you and. I just like to say that for the most part we're sold out our performances are sold out so it's really a question of outside support that we need now because we're not really getting it from the box office when we are sold out we are still losing a great deal of money and it has to be made up in another way to keep the price of the take down. Last minute pluggable said well I just hope everybody even if they send in a dollar will all add up to something worthwhile. Incidentally. The New York City Center company. Not Not Not only is a great city institution but it's one that all the public can enjoy the best way to get tickets incidentally is straight through the box office and that's how most people get them to write the box office so they drop around and see it. And I hope that this twenty fifth anniversary anniversary year will receive your your support my thanks go to all of the City Ballet team the opera company and all the rest of them my thanks go to the board of directors and all those who help support it and these four distinguished artists who are here tonight for what they do for New York City thank you for coming and you for this thank. You.