Opera News & Press

Good News About the Endowment Fund

As reported in previous issues of Bis!, the Opera Association has been engaged for two years in a campaign to recover its Endowment Fund.  Thanks to a favorable Court of Appeal decision, we are now on the verge of complete victory.

The Endowment fund was set up as a separate entity in 1990, its express purpose, and its sole purpose, being to provide a permanent source of support for the New Orleans Opera Association.  Starting in early 2006, however, the directors of the Endowment Fund have made a persistent effort to take the Fund away from us.  They amended the Fund's charter to change its purpose to being support of opera organizations in the southern region, with no mention of the New Orleans Opera Association.  After we complained, changes were made but without reinstating the Opera Association as the sole beneficiary of the Fund.  The Fund's directors even made a significant distribution to the Greater New Orleans Foundation that should have been made to the Opera Association.  As a result of the intransigence of the Fund's directors, in November 2006 we filed a lawsuit to correct those actions.  In September 2007 the Trial Court granted summary judgment in our favor on all points.  The Fund's directors appealed, and a few weeks ago the Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment in our favor, on all points. The Fund's directors have asked the Louisiana Supreme Court to hear the case, but that is very unlikely to happen.

Thus, it is likely that the judgment in favor of the Opera Association will soon be final, restoring the Endowment Fund for the sole benefit of the Opera Association, as intended by the many Opera Association supporters who donated to the Fund.