Bruce Crawford, Ad Executive Who Ran the Met Opera and Led Lincoln Center, Dies at 96

Bruce Crawford, an advertising executive who managed the Metropolitan Opera and later chaired Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, died on Dec. 28 at his home in Manhattan. He was 96. His granddaughter, Catherine De Beer, confirmed his death this week and said the cause was cancer.

Mr. Crawford built BBDO International into a global agency power before joining the Met’s board in 1976, becoming its president in 1984 and taking over as general manager from 1986 to 1989. He left a $750,000-a-year advertising job for an annual Met salary of about $300,000, and worked to cut production costs, end the company’s money-losing national tours and sign contracts with 780 full-time employees while reducing the part-time workforce to 1,200 from 2,000.

His tenure at the Met included tensions with the conductor and artistic director James Levine and controversial programming choices intended to balance box-office appeal with adventurous repertory. "We want a strong box office, but not necessarily the best box office," he told The New York Times in 1987.

With improved ticket sales and fundraising, the house overcame an $8 million deficit and restored balance to an $88 million budget by the end of his term. After leaving the Met, Mr. Crawford led Omnicom as president and chief executive and later chairman, and remained active at Lincoln Center, serving as its chairman from 2002 until he stepped down in 2005.

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Culture, Bruce Crawford, Metropolitan Opera, Lincoln Center, Bbdo International, Omnicom Group