North Park Theatre impresario Leon Natker says many donors have taken ‘sickening losses’ in the stock market. | Photo by Stephen Whalen

The five-show run of the bawdy operetta is the season’s final production for Lyric Opera San Diego, which is dealing with tough times.

Natker, the opera’s general director, is facing a budget gap of as much as $200,000, what with ticket sales off 20 percent and support from well-heeled donors shriveling up.

“They’ve taken sickening losses” in the market, he says. “Donors who used to give $10,000 now give $1,000, or as little as $500.”

It’s a plight shared by other local performing arts nonprofits, not to mention the rest of the nation.

San Diego Opera, for example, has reduced its 2010-2011 season to four from five operas, and Balboa Park’s summer Starlight Theatre is still struggling to pay workers from its 2008 season — it’s reduced its 2009 schedule to two shows from four. The Cygnet Theatre Company has shuttered one of its two stages near San Diego State University.

Recalling the Great Depression when movie houses auctioned dinnerware, the Lyric Opera’s artistic director, Jack Montgomery, takes to the stage at intermission to raffle off donated baskets of food and wine.

As of March 20, the opera had raised $5,400 from the raffles.

“Every dollar helps,” says Natker.

The past eight months has been a nightmare for his organization, responsible for as many as 150 full-time jobs a year, including 20 on staff.

He’s pared his budget to $1.6 million from $2.3 million, and working with a consultant to refinance his $3.9 million mortgage on the 81-year-old building and redo a $400,000 credit line.

If he can refinance the two debts, he’s confident that his nonprofit can survive to perform for another season.

But it’s a challenge. His local bank, which holds the note on an existing equity line, is reluctant to refinance, he says. “Banks aren’t anxious to refinance loans right now,” says Natker.