Peter Gelb

Peter Gelb (born 1953) is an American arts administrator. Since August 2006, he has been General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.

While in high school, Gelb began his association with the Metropolitan Opera as an usher. At 17 Gelb began his career in classical music as office boy to Sol Hurok.

Gelb managed the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s 1979 tour to China at the end of the Cultural Revolution. The following year Gelb became Vladimir Horowitz's manager. Gelb assisted the pianist in the revival of his performing career and managed his historic return to Russia in 1986. In partnership with the Chinese government, Gelb commissioned the premiere of Tan Dun's Symphony 1997, featuring Yo-Yo Ma, which was performed at the handover of Hong Kong to China.

In 1982, Gelb founded, and served as president of, CAMI Video, a division of Columbia Artists Management. In this capacity, he served as executive producer of "The Metropolitan Opera Presents", the Met's series of televised opera broadcasts, for six years. Gelb produced 25 televised productions for the Met, including the 1990 telecast of Richard Wagner’s complete Der Ring des Nibelungen, conducted by James Levine. While at CAMI, Gelb produced and occasionally directed more than 50 programs for television featuring such artists as Herbert von Karajan and Mstislav Rostropovich.

In 1992, Gelb produced both the stage and film versions of Julie Taymor’s first opera production, Oedipus Rex, for Seiji Ozawa’s Saito Kinen Festival. Also for that Japanese festival, in 1994 he commissioned an early opera staging by Robert Lepage, La Damnation de Faust. A re-conceived version of that production was later presented at the Met in the 2008–09 season.

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