PND (7/25/2000) -- American Investor Makes $2 Million Gift to La Scala

American tech investor Alberto Vilar, one of the world's most generous patrons of music programs, has made a $2 million gift to Milan's La Scala opera house.

"I've been a lover of music all my life. I started with Italian opera and I've been going to La Scala for many years," he told Reuters. "It's my way of saying 'thank you' to La Scala."

The Cuban-born Vilar has given away roughly $150 million "to keep the operatic tradition alive," making major donations to New York's Metropolitan Opera as well as Carnegie Hall, Austria's Salzburg Festival, the Kirov Opera and Ballet in St. Petersburg, and London's Royal Opera House. His funding of European institutions is intended to help bring U.S.-style private patronage to Europe at a time when many governments are scaling back their arts spending.

"There is no government arts spending in the U.S., so what we don't make in ticket sales has to be made up somewhere else," Vilar explained."The European system must begin to follow this example with a mix of both public and private funding. It will take years, but I hope that through this example there will be more private patronage of the arts in Europe."

Clark, Jennifer. "La Scala Meets the $2 Million Dollar Man." Reuters 7/22/2000.

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