Latest news with #Gelb
Newsweek
29-07-2025
- Sport
- Newsweek
Phillies Offer Two-Word Response To Desperate Kyle Schwarber Solution
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. The Philadelphia Phillies lost their series opener against the Chicago White Sox on Monday, just days before the trade deadline, emphasizing the final opportunity to make meaningful upgrades to the roster. The Phillies seem nearly certain to add a high-leverage arm to their bullpen, which has been shaky and will be without Jose Alvarado for the playoffs following a suspension. But the team could also use an offensive upgrade, particularly in the outfield, as Johan Rojas, Brandon Marsh and Max Kepler have struggled at the plate. "As the market starts to take shape, the lack of righty-hitting outfielders is jarring," Matt Gelb wrote for The Athletic. "Desperation could lead to unconventional solutions." If the Phillies are unable to replace a current outfielder with a meaningful upgrade before the deadline, Gelb suggested the team could move designated hitter Kyle Schwarber into a corner spot. Schwarber played left field against the New York Yankees on Sunday but has not maintained a regular defensive position for the last two years. ATLANTA, GEORGIA - JULY 15: Kyle Schwarber #12 of the Philadelphia Phillies walks across the field prior to the MLB All-Star Game at Truist Park on July 15, 2025 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Kevin... ATLANTA, GEORGIA - JULY 15: Kyle Schwarber #12 of the Philadelphia Phillies walks across the field prior to the MLB All-Star Game at Truist Park on July 15, 2025 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images) More Cox/Getty When asked if moving Schwarber to left field for the final months of this season would be something he's comfortable doing, Phillies manager Rob Thomson offered a clear two-word response. "Oh, very," Thomson replied, per Gelb. "I mean, we did that in '22," the manager added, referencing the Phillies' run to the World Series three years ago, per Gelb. "It worked out pretty well, and I think he's moving better now than he did back then." Schwarber has been the Phillies' most dependable slugger this year, hitting 36 home runs and driving in 84 runs. Doing anything to affect his production at the plate would be inadvisable. But if Schwarber is able to solve the Phillies' offensive concerns by moving back to a regular defensive role, it could be the best move the team can hope for in its outfield with the trade deadline looming. More MLB: Could Yankees Land Lockdown Twins Closer in 3-Player Blockbuster?
San Francisco Chronicle
14-07-2025
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
Roller skaters go for world record in Golden Gate Park. Maintaining the vibe is key
Morgana Gelb has skated a marathon and has skated in the all-night roller disco at Burning Man. But she'd never skated for a world record until she joined a human link Sunday afternoon in an attempt to connect 105 skaters in a serpentine in Golden Gate Park. 'A world's record has never been on my list of things to do,' said Gelb, who lives in San Anselmo and happened upon the world record attempt while skating with her family in the San Francisco park, 'but this is the right time and the right place.' Gelb was inlining with her husband, John, and their daughter Lucia, 7, so that was three skaters toward the requisite 105 right there. She had two younger daughters, Gia, 5, and Clara, 3, on scooters, but they were too young to qualify. To be part of the serpentine, you had to be proficient enough on roller skates or blades to be able to join one hand with the skater in front of you and one with the skater behind as it snaked its way along John F. Kennedy Drive from the Sixth Avenue skate rink to the Conservatory of Flowers. 'You have to go 400 meters, and you can't break the chain,' explained event organizer David Miles Jr., who is known as the Godfather of Skate and serves as minister at the Church of 8 Wheels. Miles is a strict enforcer of the rules to qualify for the Guinness World Record because he invented the category back in 2012, when he got 104 skaters to serpentine down JFK Drive. An attempt to beat his own unofficial record in 2015 on the Great Highway failed when it joined only 90 skaters. Sunday was the first attempt to break the record in 10 years. 'The world record is a shiny object. It's cool,' Miles said an hour before the attempt. 'What I really want to do is just get people skating and maintain that special vibe.' To do so, Miles created Skate Week San Francisco, now in its second year in an old airplane hangar, near Forty Point in the Presidio of San Francisco. The serpentine was the first event of the week, which will pick up again with the Red and White Ball on Tuesday night, and build throughout the week to the Friday night skate through the streets of the city and a Saturday event called Skating for Scholarships. This the second Skate Week San Francisco, and last year's inaugural drew 800 people. Miles hopes to double it this year and says he has an army of skaters rolling in from Texas for 'Boots on the Ground,' the Saturday night party at Building 937, the Presidio hangar, which will be transformed into a temporary roller rink called the Church of 8 Wheels Golden Gate. 'I want to make an annual Skate Festival where people converge on San Francisco for a week,' Miles said. Church always happens on Sundays at the skate circle in the park, which becomes a circular disco. That formed the staging area to go for the world record attempt, which was a fundraiser for the scholarships. To become part of the snake, one had to be wearing a number, which cost a $10 donation. Sunset District resident Kasey Nejad bought three of them, for herself and her daughters, Vivien 12, and Frankie, 10. They have a copy of Guinness World Records at home and would not mind being a part of the next edition. 'That's why we came,' Nejad explained. 'This is Golden Gate Park, Church of 8 Wheels, San Francisco. We want to be part of this day.' Just after 1 p.m., the skaters lined up on JFK Drive and joined hands, with Miles at the head of the snake. When it started to move from one side of the street to the next, it looked like the skating scene in 'A Charlie Brown Christmas.' All that was lacking was a Vince Guaraldi soundtrack. 'If I can get 105 skaters to come out and go for the record,' Miles said beforehand, '30 of them will become regulars at the Church of 8 Wheels.' The snake made its way through pedestrians and bicyclists along JFK, and miraculously the chain was not broken along the way, which would have disqualified it. The 400-meter distance was achieved. 'It was hard,' Nejad said afterward. 'But there was positive energy. Everybody was cheering and saying, 'Don't let go. Don't let go.'' Nobody did. But there were not enough of them to break the record or even come close. 'We accomplished the task at hand but not enough people,' Nejad said. 'We're definitely doing it again next year.' The 'Gelb Gals,' as they call themselves, will also be back next year, assuming Miles stages another attempt at the world record. In the end, Lucia was deemed too young to qualify, but next year she will be ready for sure, and her two younger sisters are in training. 'It was a quintessential San Francisco roller blading experience,' Morgana said afterward. 'It was a little bit like a roller blade roller coaster, and no one fell off.'
New York Post
02-07-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Post
Metropolitan Opera's Peter Gelb blames President Trump for sales slump — but needs to look in the mirror
Blaming the president is a popular pastime these days, but one of America's cultural leaders has come up with something really novel in the genre. 'Metropolitan Opera season attendance dropped slightly following the Trump administration's immigration crackdown that coincided with a decrease in tourists to New York.' Who knew rounding up hardened illegal-immigrant criminals would hit the hallowed halls of the country's most prestigious opera house hard? Advertisement 6 President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump attend a performance at the newly de-woked Kennedy Center in DC. REUTERS That line is the first sentence of a June 13 Associated Press news report that takes as fact Metropolitan Opera general director Peter Gelb's explanation for a slump in sales. With the Met's season over, Gelb has been making the rounds, pushing this narrative repeatedly in interviews and podcasts. He even ripped the American president last week from a Kyiv stage, telling Ukrainians his government 'no longer stands for some of democracy's most basic principles.' Advertisement 6 Metropolitan Opera general director Peter Gelb savaged Trump from this Kyiv stage last week. Ukrinform/Shutterstock The Met matched its 2023-24 sales, at 72% of capacity — but had projected 75%. 'We were on track to continue to improve,' Gelb said. 'I attribute the fact that we didn't achieve our sales goals to a significant drop in tourism.' That's 'a direct consequence' of Trump policy, Gelb told German outlet BackstageClassical. Advertisement He said New York saw 17% fewer tourists after President Trump took office, sighing to AP about 'the times in which we live.' Gelb's international Blame Trump tour might make him more popular at Upper West Side cocktail parties (which he's been attending for life: His father was New York Times managing editor Arthur Gelb). But he should look closer to home to understand why he's not seeing success at the storied institution he's run for 18 years. 6 Gelb joined star Anna Netrebko on a Met 2007 red carpet. WireImage Advertisement The impresario can't help putting the political into his productions, even though audiences are anything but enamored of these new, woke operas. And he needlessly canceled the company's biggest star, Anna Netrebko — to make a political point he still crows about even as his decisions have been disastrous for the Met. 'Mediocre or even bad.' 'Flop after flop of terrible productions.' 'Just bad.' Those are some of the judgments I can print in a family newspaper about Gelb's recent runs from Reddit's opera lovers. 'Gelb has had contempt for opera and his own artform since he started,' one declared in a thread with almost nothing positive to say about the manager. 'Grounded' opened this past Met season after a heavy revision from its 2023 Washington, DC, premiere. The 'antiwar opera,' as Gelb calls it, centers on an F-16 pilot grounded after she unexpectedly gets pregnant; on her return to the military, she's still on the ground — going after human targets by manning drones. 6 Emily D'Angelo (left) starred in the season-opening 'antiwar opera,' in Gelb's words,'Grounded.' AFP via Getty Images Advertisement 'This isn't an opera about the tragedy of war — its message is evil only comes from our side,' Post columnist Daniel McCarthy wrote in these pages. Even with a September opening-night red-carpet gala — which the company trumpeted as 'the first opera by a female composer ever to open a Met season' — ticket sales were sluggish: It was the worst-attended opera this season, selling just 50% of capacity. Osvaldo Golijov's 'Ainadamar,' which Gelb described as 'about the murder of the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca by the fascist forces of Franco, eerily mirroring the troubled world in which we live today,' sold just 61% of tickets. What did sell? Advertisement A new production of Verdi's 'Aida' (82%), 'Moby Dick' (81%) and Puccini's 'Tosca' (78%). Even Tchaikovsky's 'Pique Dame (The Queen of Spades)' — not one of the American stage's most popular operas — sold 77%. Those numbers — low for contemporary woke operas, high for great works — can be seen in every recent season. 6 Gelb blames the Met's sales slump on Trump — and not on his hyperpolitical management. Roman Tiraspolsky – Of course, the Met makes even the classics 'relevant.' Last season's 'Carmen' updated the scene to present-day America. People buying pricey tickets to see beautiful sets and costumes up close were treated to singers in jean cutoffs. Advertisement Gelb took to the air on the June 7 live radio broadcast of the Tchaikovsky opera to declare he doesn't want Russian artists 'held hostage' to Vladimir Putin's 'villainous acts,' noting some on stage are Russian. 'We want to cancel Putin, not Pushkin.' It was a bit rich coming from the guy who brags of having personally 'dismissed' the company's biggest star, Netrebko, after Putin's 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. He was gloating about the move just last week to Ukrainian journalists. 'When I arrived at the Met, Netrebko was just getting launched and I immediately saw that she was someone on whose career the Met could hang its hat,' Gelb has said. Advertisement Indeed, she headlined the moneymaking New Year's Eve gala more than once; her Met performances frequently sold out. The Russian soprano denounced Putin's war, but Gelb didn't care. He's never seen an opportunity to grandstand politically he hasn't grabbed. And he's allowed on stage plenty of less-famous Russians who haven't said as much as she has — sometimes even nothing — against the Ukraine war. (Netrebko notes in her lawsuit against Gelb and the Met that the company's continued to feature male singers who, unlike her, have appeared in Russia at Putin- and war-supporting events since the full-scale invasion.) 6 Ex-Met star Netrebko still sells out European opera houses. It's opera lovers in New York and beyond who pay the price — along with the Met's sliding sales. Netrebko is still selling out European houses. WQXR finally broadcast her work last month, with a production from Milan's La Scala. Listeners took to the comments in celebration and complaint. Joe Pearce from Brooklyn — who happens to be the Vocal Record Collectors Society's president — mourned 'the remainder of her best years totally denied to us by a Met Opera manager who doesn't seem to understand that he is running an opera company and not for political office.' What will Peter Gelb do once Trump's second term is over, having lost his raison d'être?
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Met Opera attendance dropped in spring as tourism fell, coinciding with immigration crackdown
NEW YORK (AP) — Metropolitan Opera season attendance dropped slightly following the Trump administration's immigration crackdown that coincided with a decrease in tourists to New York. The Met sold 72% of capacity, matching 2023-24 and down from its 75% projection. 'We were on track to continue to improve,' Met general manager Peter Gelb said Friday. 'We were disappointed by the sales in the last two months of the season — our projections were much higher and I attribute the fact that we didn't achieve our sales goals to a significant drop in tourism." New York City Tourism & Conventions last month reduced its 2025 international visitor projection by 17%, the Met said. International buyers accounted for 11% of sales, down from the Met's projection of 16% and from about 20% before the coronavirus pandemic. 'It's unfortunate, but this is the times in which we live,' Gelb said. The Met said factoring ticket discounts, it realized 60% of potential income, down from 64% in 2023-24 but up from 57% in 2022–23. 'We were able to sell an equal amount of tickets the last year, but there were more discounted tickets,' Gelb said. 'This really was the result of the last two months of the season.' There were 76,000 new ticket buyers, a drop from 85,000 in 2023-24, and the average age of single ticket buyers was 44, the same as in the previous season and a drop from 50 before the pandemic. Subscriptions accounted for just 7% of ticket sales, down from 12-15% before the pandemic, Gelb said economic uncertainty impacted sales for next season. 'The stock market jumping up and down made people feel insecure,' he said. 'In one week we saw an enormous decline in our advance for next season. Then it picked up again.' Met music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin earned $2,045,038 in the year end last July 31, up from $1,307,583, in the previous fiscal year, according to the company's tax return released Friday. Gelb earned $1,395,216, roughly the same as his $1,379,032 in 2022-23,and he also accrued $798,205 listed as retirement or deferred compensation. Assets declined by about $40 million to $467 million, primarily because of an endowment draw following the pandemic. Among individual productions last season, the highest percentage of tickets sold were for the English-language version of Mozart's 'The Magic Flute' and a new staging of Verdi's 'Aida,' both at 82%, followed by the company premiere of Jake Heggie's 'Moby-Dick' at 81% Other new productions included Strauss' 'Salome' (74%), John Adams' 'Antony and Cleopatra' (65%), Osvaldo Golijov's 'Ainadamar' (61%) and Jeanine Tesori's 'Grounded' (50%). The best-selling revivals were Puccini's 'Tosca' (78%), Tchaikovsky's 'Pique Dame (The Queen of Spades)' and Puccini's La Bohème (77% each), Beethoven's 'Fidelio' and Rossini's 'Il Barbiere di Siviglia' (76% each) and Mozart's 'Le Nozze di Figaro' (71%). Lagging were Strauss' 'Die Frau ohne Schatten' (68%0, Verdi's 'Rigoletto' (64%), Offenbach's 'Les Contes d'Hoffmann' and the German-language version of Mozart's 'Die Zauberflöte' (62% each) and Verdi's 'Il Trovatore' (59%).
Winnipeg Free Press
13-06-2025
- Business
- Winnipeg Free Press
Met Opera attendance dropped in spring as tourism fell, coinciding with immigration crackdown
NEW YORK (AP) — Metropolitan Opera season attendance dropped slightly following the Trump administration's immigration crackdown that coincided with a decrease in tourists to New York. The Met sold 72% of capacity, matching 2023-24 and down from its 75% projection. 'We were on track to continue to improve,' Met general manager Peter Gelb said Friday. 'We were disappointed by the sales in the last two months of the season — our projections were much higher and I attribute the fact that we didn't achieve our sales goals to a significant drop in tourism.' New York City Tourism & Conventions last month reduced its 2025 international visitor projection by 17%, the Met said. International buyers accounted for 11% of sales, down from the Met's projection of 16% and from about 20% before the coronavirus pandemic. 'It's unfortunate, but this is the times in which we live,' Gelb said. The Met said factoring ticket discounts, it realized 60% of potential income, down from 64% in 2023-24 but up from 57% in 2022–23. 'We were able to sell an equal amount of tickets the last year, but there were more discounted tickets,' Gelb said. 'This really was the result of the last two months of the season.' There were 76,000 new ticket buyers, a drop from 85,000 in 2023-24, and the average age of single ticket buyers was 44, the same as in the previous season and a drop from 50 before the pandemic. Subscriptions accounted for just 7% of ticket sales, down from 12-15% before the pandemic, Gelb said economic uncertainty impacted sales for next season. 'The stock market jumping up and down made people feel insecure,' he said. 'In one week we saw an enormous decline in our advance for next season. Then it picked up again.' Met music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin earned $2,045,038 in the year end last July 31, up from $1,307,583, in the previous fiscal year, according to the company's tax return released Friday. Gelb earned $1,395,216, roughly the same as his $1,379,032 in 2022-23,and he also accrued $798,205 listed as retirement or deferred compensation. Assets declined by about $40 million to $467 million, primarily because of an endowment draw following the pandemic. Among individual productions last season, the highest percentage of tickets sold were for the English-language version of Mozart's 'The Magic Flute' and a new staging of Verdi's 'Aida,' both at 82%, followed by the company premiere of Jake Heggie's 'Moby-Dick' at 81% Other new productions included Strauss' 'Salome' (74%), John Adams' 'Antony and Cleopatra' (65%), Osvaldo Golijov's 'Ainadamar' (61%) and Jeanine Tesori's 'Grounded' (50%). The best-selling revivals were Puccini's 'Tosca' (78%), Tchaikovsky's 'Pique Dame (The Queen of Spades)' and Puccini's La Bohème (77% each), Beethoven's 'Fidelio' and Rossini's 'Il Barbiere di Siviglia' (76% each) and Mozart's 'Le Nozze di Figaro' (71%). Lagging were Strauss' 'Die Frau ohne Schatten' (68%0, Verdi's 'Rigoletto' (64%), Offenbach's 'Les Contes d'Hoffmann' and the German-language version of Mozart's 'Die Zauberflöte' (62% each) and Verdi's 'Il Trovatore' (59%).
