Lincoln Center in New York City has announced a $20 million gift from Lynne and Richard Pasculano to help revitalize opera, jazz, theater, and dance programming across its campus, the New York Times reports.

To be disbursed over five years, the gift will help the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Ballet, Lincoln Center Theater, and Jazz at Lincoln Center fund some of their upcoming endeavors, such as the U.S. premiere of the Brett Dean opera Hamlet at the Met and the revival of New York City Ballet's annual art series. The funding also will help the arts complex forge closer ties with its constituent organizations, which are run independently, and with which it has competed for resources at times.

In addition, the gift will help Lincoln Center Theater mount a new opera based on Lynn Nottage's play Intimate Apparel, which had been in previews when the pandemic struck, while Jazz at Lincoln Center plans to use its share of the funds to present family-friendly concerts.

Lynne Pasculano said she hoped the gift would inspire others to contribute to the "social revitalization of New York, which will spur tourism and job creation and help to equitably revitalize our city."

Lincoln Center president and CEO Henry Timms told the Times that the gift was part of an effort to encourage more collaboration and innovation across the center. "As arts organizations, we are going to need support over time to re-emerge after the pandemic and also to be creative and to be bold," he said. "This sort of gift builds creative confidence and allows people to take on things that are more ambitious and more rigorous."