How Did I Get Here?

Peter Gelb

General manager, Metropolitan Opera
  • Education
  • Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School, New York, class of 1971
  • Yale University
  • Work Experience
  • 1969–70
    Usher, Metropolitan Opera
  • 1971–72
    Office boy, Sol Hurok
  • 1972–73
    Assistant, press agent, Gurtman & Murtha
  • 1974–77
    Vice president, Gurtman & Murtha
  • 1977–81
    Director of promotion, assistant manager, Boston Symphony Orchestra
  • 1981–93
    President of CAMI Video, Columbia Artists Management
  • 1993–2004
    President, Sony Classical
  • 2005–Present
    General manager-elect, GM, Metropolitan Opera
  • Life Lessons
  • “My father, Arthur Gelb, was fond of saying, ‘Criticism from all sides is usually an indication that you’re doing something right.’”
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  • “Sol Hurok liked the quote ‘If the people don’t want to come, you can’t stop them.’”
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  • “I remember Vladimir Horowitz said, ‘If the check is good, the acoustics are good.’”
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  • “My father was second-string drama critic at the New York Times—and later managing editor. He took me to Shakespeare in the Park and Broadway and nightclubs.”
  • “On my first day, a fellow usher told me to remove the number on my uniform so people wouldn’t be able to complain about me.”
  • “Hurok was an impresario of classical music. Yo-Yo Ma was his 15-year-old cello prodigy, and we’ve been great friends ever since.”
  • Ma in 1971
  • “Even though the Met’s been around 135 years, I don’t think it has a free pass into the future. I’ve brought in modern directors and a modern production aesthetic, and our live transmission of Saturday matinees is seen by 200,000 people around the world.”
  • Filming a documentary about Claudio Abbado at the Berlin Wall, 1989
  • Madama Butterfly
  • “I just didn’t feel comfortable, so I dropped out after less than a month. Yale now claims me as an alumni.”
  • La Lupe
    “I represented everyone from Carnegie Hall to a Cuban pop performer named La Lupe, who claimed she was driven out of Cuba because Castro thought she might threaten his popularity.”
  • “When Deng Xiaoping signed a treaty with Jimmy Carter, I organized an invitation for the Boston Symphony to seal the new relationship. We didn’t have funding, but within days, we had a 747 donated by Pan Am and money from U.S. companies that wanted Chinese business.”
  • “Our film soundtracks won the Academy Award for best soundtrack four years in a row. Titanic netted Sony Music over $300 million.”
  • With the BSO in China, 1979