Joseph Young Jr., a real estate developer whose unabashed love of opera led him to improve its finances by imposing a business structure on a historically expensive art form, died June 28 at his New Orleans home of complications from a fall, said his niece, Norma Jane McClain. He was 96.
Young and his wife, artist Aysen Kural Young, were avid supporters of all the arts, but opera held a special place in their hearts, said James C. “Jay” Gulotta Jr., the New Orleans Opera Association’s president.
“Opera brought together everything they loved,” Gulotta said. “In opera, you have the visual arts, the musical arts, the auditory arts. They loved talking about it.”
But opera, which has been part of New Orleans’ culture since 1796, is prohibitively costly. With dozens of onstage and backstage personnel, scenery and a full orchestra, the average cost of staging an opera is about $500,000, said Christopher Tidmore, a member of the opera association’s advisory board.
Young, who had been the association’s treasurer, was asked to lead the organization in 1985. This coincided with the oil industry crash, which was a major blow to the local economy. To make matters worse, Gulotta said, Young was told he would have to cover any deficit, possibly amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars, as his predecessors had done.
“I didn’t have those kinds of resources,” Young said in a 2024 interview, “so I had to get creative.”
When he became president, the association had only one full-time staffer. Young set up a permanent professional staff and an endowment, organized a series of fundraising organizations, such as the Mastersigners — a play on the Wagner opera “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg” — and the Opera Club. He stressed the importance of ticket sales and established a shop for making and repairing scenery.
“We are one of the only theatrical organizations in the United States that has its own scene shop,” Tidmore said. “It rents sets to (organizations in) 27 states and three countries. It supports a dozen artists and a training program for set designers and electricians. It’s the only part of New Orleans opera that makes a profit.”
Young was asked in the late 1990s to lead the association again. Unlike many arts administrators, he didn’t have a master’s degree in business, and he hadn’t graduated from an arts-management program, Tidmore said.
“He had on-the-job training and joined a lot of organizations and tried to serve them. He was always trying to improve organizations.”
And Young never hesitated to ask people for money, Tidmore said. “He made people feel as if they were doing him a favor. When he asked you for something, it was like he was sharing his passion with you. It wasn’t guile or salesmanship; it was sharing his passion. Joe had a childlike enthusiasm for what he believed in.”
A native of Springfield and a graduate of Springfield High School, Young came to New Orleans to attend Tulane University and never left after earning a degree in political science.
After graduation, Young went into property management, developing housing and strip malls throughout the New Orleans area and in Destin, Florida, said William Coe, a longtime friend.
And he met Aysen Kutalp, a designer and theatrically trained artist who earned a doctorate in political science at Tulane.
The two married and became a force on the New Orleans arts scene. In addition to opera, their causes included the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, the New Orleans Museum of Art and the New Orleans Ballet Association, said Astra Thibodeaux, Young’s stepdaughter.
“Joe had a compelling belief that the arts were essential to New Orleans,” Gulotta said. “He treated it as a full-time job.”
Aysen Kutalp Young died in 2022.
In addition to Thibodeaux, Young’s survivors include a stepson, Dr. Glenn Hedgpeth of Covington.
Lake Lawn Metairie Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements, which are incomplete.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.nola.com ’
