After American Ballet Theatre principal dancer Irina Dvorovenko completes her scheduled performances in the company’s fall City Center season (through November 7), she will go on maternity leave. She and her husband, ABT principal Maxim Beloserkovsky, are expecting their first child in March 2005. Dvorovenko will not perform on the company’s national tour or during the 2005 Metropolitan Opera House season; she plans to return to the company in September 2005. Dvorovenko joined ABT in 1996. She and her husband are both on The Arts Cure’s Artistic Advisory Board of Directors.

The New York City Opera, recently snubbed in its bid to become the cultural anchor of the new arts complex at the World Trade Center site, is now in talks about the possibility of building a new home near Lincoln Center. The opera has been trying to move out of its current home at the New York State Theater for several years, citing the hall’s acoustics, designed for its other tenant, George Balanchine’s New York City Ballet, in order to muffle the sound of pointe shoes hitting the stage. The possible site is the former American Red Cross New York headquarters, on Amsterdam Avenue between 66th and 67th streets. Although that site is not zoned for a tall building, the plans under discussion would call for an opera house beneath a residential tower. It has not been determined who would pay for the opera house or how much it would cost. (New York Times)

American Ballet Theatre, long wracked by financial troubles, has instituted a series of cost-cutting measures that it says are putting the company back on the road to financial health. For the most part, these cuts are occurring offstage; officials say the measures have improved the bottom line without sacrificing artistic quality. About 50 staff members will take a one-week unpaid furlough; many will not receive raises this year. Nancy Fleeter, the company’s general manager, and her $175,000 salary were let go in June, and her duties divided among four other people. And Thanksgiving-week performances scheduled at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in California were canceled because of the expense of putting on shows during a holiday. At the same time, more dancers, performances, and touring time have been added. “When everybody else was tightening their belts, we were expanding. Now it’s time to deal with the sustainability issue,” said artistic director Kevin McKenzie.

Management said it had pared away just over $1 million in cuts that also included a reduction in education programs, not filling a lower-level position, and economizing on several ballets, for example using refurbished costumes for Les Sylphides. Additions include 8 dancers (up to 90) and an extra week of performing at City Center. The company said that in this last year, a chronic budget deficit dropped from $1.3 million to “well under” $1 million; ticket sales for the City Center season increased 18 percent; a $1 million line of credit has been paid off; and this month, the dancers’ union ratified a new contract ensuring a 12 percent raise over 3 years. Chairman Lewis S. Ranieri’s vow to increase the company’s endowment to $30 million by this year has not, however, been fulfilled; at the end of the last fiscal year, in July, the company said its endowment stood at about $6.6 million in hand and about $4.4 million more pledged. (New York Times)

The Metropolitan Opera recently announced its choice of Peter Gelb, a record company executive, as the replacement for general manager Joseph Volpe, who plans to retire at the end of the 2005–2006 season. Gelb will work under Volpe, general manager since 1990, for a year before taking over. Other leading candidates for the job reputedly included the tenor Placido Domingo and Deborah Borda, executive director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Volpe started at the Met as a carpenter; the young Gelb worked there as an usher. Gelb’s career includes three years as the assistant manager of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, more than a decade as a vice president of Columbia Artists Management, and nine years as president of Sony Classical, the classical-music division of media giant Sony. Known in the recording industry for his commercial instincts and popularizing bent, Gelb faces the complexities of an organization comprising 850 full-time and 1,200 part-time employees, a budget of $204 million, as many as 30 productions a year, 18 unions, and several recent seasons showing declining audiences. (New York Times)