4 operas
17 hours of music
3 cycles
36 performances
46 weeks rehearsal time
5 years in the making
$32 million - total cost
$60 million - original rumoured production cost estimate$50 million - projected cost of Freyer's initial vision before trimming
$16 to $20 million - cost of four regular operas
$10 million to $15 million - cost of a big Broadway musical
$889,000 - cost per performance (versus $954,000 for Francesca Zambello's San Francisco Ring)
75 year old director, Achim Freyer
50 years - length of Freyer's directing career
2 - number of times Achim Freyer turned the job down before relenting
350 singers, dancers, designers, technicians, costume-makers and backstage staff
82 musicians (about 60 is typical)
53 stagehands (instead of the usual 40)
17 singers, 18 non-singing performers and 70 chorus members
7 singers in 3 of the 4 operas, and an 8th in all 4
$283 plus $94 an hour overtime for each performance or rehearsal for each chorus member
$70,000 to $140,000 per opera for each star (estimate)
1 1/2 times regular pay for singers and musicians when a show extends beyond 3 1/2 hours
$750,000 worth of video projection equipment and software
11 40-foot-long shipping containers to store the sets
2 week-long bauproben ('build rehearsals') in which Freyer got an early look at the sets, stage and lighting effects
400 computer-generated images
$400,000 over 3 years - cost of renting flying gear
"6 figures" - estimated cost of a section of the stage which lifts to reveal the Nibelungenheim
3,000 feet of LED tubing
2 stagehands devoted to tending the custom-made battery packs for the tubing
$250,000 - saving made by raising Erda on a forklift instead of a hydraulic platform
$100 to $2,200 - price of tickets for the full cycle
$14 million - bailout loan from the county Board of Supervisors to finance LA Opera's deficit, collateralized by $30 million in board members' pledges
$6 million - donation from philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad
$13 million in ticket income and $19 million in donations needed to balance LA Opera's budget
80% of the 3,045 seats in the pavilion need to be filled to break even
50% - ticket sales to date
20 - the maximum number of minutes without "something dangerous coming up, musically or physically or dramatically," according to Seattle Opera general director Speight Jenkins
2018 - earliest date of the production's revival
1 - quote from Los Angeles Opera general director Plácido Domingo:
"It is my hope that [audiences] will be looking at the art, not at the money that they think has been spent."
all facts and figures from
