The LA Opera returned to a full season at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on Sept. 18, with a production of Verdi’s Il Trovatore.
It did so without one of its biggest financial backers, Paul Musco, who died the same day, at age 95.
Musco was an opera fan, and a Verdi fan. Our last feature of the larger-than-life exec and philanthropist, in 2018, highlighted his attendance—and bankrolling—of the 3-and-a-half-hour performance of Verdi’s Don Carlo, at the Musco Center for the Performing Arts at Chapman University.
That performance, also by the LA Opera, was highlighted by Musco’s friend Plácido Domingo.
This month’s new beginning for the LA Opera, after the pandemic-related closure, “is framed by the loss of someone who made it possible for us to return with continuing strength and vitality,” the opera company said last week.
“Paul always came forward with significant seven-figure matches at those times LA Opera needed it the most, and he always inspired others to follow,” the group said, noting a $5 million gift in 2019 that “motivated our board to secure the future of the company.”
Musco’s funding couldn’t help save OC’s Opera Pacific, which closed during the Great Recession, giving its last performance in 2008.
“A customer got stuck with $800 in tickets,” Musco quipped after Opera Pacific’s closure. “I told him, ‘I’m in for $2 million.’”
For more on Musco’s legacy, and some of his other choice quotes, see Peter J. Brennan’s front-page feature, and Rick Reiff’s tribute on page 38.
The LA Times noted the LA Opera’s “triumphant” return in its review of Il Trovatore last week, which took place despite a backlog of container ships that kept the production’s original sets from being delivered on time—new sets were built from scratch in a matter of days, it reported.
Musco had been winding down his business activities in recent months, selling his Santa Ana business Gemini Industries to an undisclosed buyer.
In addition, Gemini’s headquarters along Pullman Avenue sold in July for about $14.3 million to an affiliate of Fortress Investment Group in Texas, property records indicate.
One of Musco’s flashier holdings, a white Rolls- Royce, is expected to be auctioned off next month at the sixth annual “Let’s Be Frank About Cancer” Gala in Newport Beach, which benefits City of Hope. The event is named after Frank Di Bella, Musco’s longtime accountant and friend.
Musco was to have been on the host committee for the Oct. 23 event; others on the committee include Milan Panic and Emile Haddad.
Change comes often at the top ranks of Irvine Co.’s leadership team; it has come even faster over the course of the pandemic.
The recent departure of Butch Knerr, who headed the real estate giant’s retail division, means that all of Irvine Co.’s main operating divisions—office, apartments, land sales and homebuilding, resort properties and retail—have seen their top execs leave since early 2020.
A replacement for Knerr, who started four years ago, hasn’t been disclosed yet.
