Longtime fan donates $35M US to San Francisco opera

Last Updated: Wednesday, October 4, 2006 | 4:54 PM ET

CBC Arts

A longtime opera fan has pledged a whopping $35 million US to the San Francisco Opera in one of the largest donations ever made to a U.S. opera company by an individual.

SFO president George Hume announced the donation onstage Tuesday night, before the curtain rose on the company's production of Verdi's Rigoletto at the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center.

French-born SFO patron Jeannik Méquet Littlefield, who served on the company's board of directors from 1977 to 1992, offered the unrestricted gift.

The donation is but the latest from Littlefield, the widow of industrialist Edmund Wattis Littlefield: she has made several multimillion-dollar gifts to the company over the years.

"I have always loved opera," she said in a statement.

"San Francisco Opera is very important to me, so it was particularly meaningful to provide support to ensure its future for generations to come."

Securing finances

The donation will serve to help secure the SFO's finances, coming after the company recently emerged from multimillion-dollar budget deficits.

According to the company, $10 million US of the amount will be earmarked for annual operating expenses while the remainder goes towards a general endowment fund.

Officials also said Littlefield's donation was the largest the company has ever received from a single benefactor and speculated that it was the largest ever made to any U.S. opera company by a single fan.

In January, New York's Metropolitan Opera received $25 million US — the largest single unrestricted donation in its 123-year history — from Texas oil investor Sid Bass and his wife Mercedes, a longtime arts patron and member of the Met board since 1993.