NORFOLK -- The Virginia Opera's artistic director and longtime leader has been terminated by the executive committee of the Virginia Opera Association board of directors.
Peter Mark, who signed on as general and artistic director for the beginning of the opera's first season in 1975, recently gave up his role as general manager amid conflicts with the opera's board.
Mark is being dismissed immediately, the board said.
Alan D. Albert, president-elect of the Virginia Opera board of directors, said the board decided in 2008 not to renew Mark's contract. But Mark recently said he didn't learn about the decision until September.
"I'm very dismayed that these issues have not been resolved internally," Mark said in a October interview published in the Richmond Times-Dispatch. He expressed hope that he would be part of a transition after 2012 "that would be the best protection for the opera in these economic times."
Albert, in an October letter from the opera's executive committee to its statewide board members, said that Mark had a "history of difficulties in working relations with staff, musicians and board leadership."
In a news release announcing Mark's dismissal, Albert said, “Peter Mark is to be thanked for his many years of service as artistic director of the Virginia Opera and we wish him well in his other ongoing endeavors elsewhere in the United States and overseas.”
(This has been a breaking news update. Check back for more details as they become available.)
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