The Met vs. the Fourth Estate

Opera company seeks to bar reporters from contract talks.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The empty stairs of the Metropolitan Opera lobby make an eloquent statement.
Photo by Jonathan Tichler © 2013 The Metropolitan Opera.
Sign added by the author.

The impending negotiations between the Metropolitan Opera and the heads of its various unions is scheduled to start May 5, five days before the close of the company’s current season. However, if Metropolitan Opera general manager Peter Gelb has his way, the local New York press (including the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal will not be allowed to attend the sensitive talks.

Lockout Threat Looms for Metropolitan Opera

Labor issues may disrupt 2014-15 season.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

This may be the scene at Lincoln Center next year if the Metropolitan Opera locks out its artists.
Photo elements from the motion picture Lock Up © 1989 Tri-Star Pictures and the Metropolitan Opera's
2013 production of Parsifal. Image of Jonas Kaufmann © 2013 by Ken Howard. Photo alteration by the author.

This is the time of year when opera lovers (and bloggers) look forward to the Metropolitan Opera's release of its upcoming schedule. With its Peter Gelb-mandated slate of six new productions and 20+ revivals building eager anticipation for the coming year, the schedule release is one of the more eagerly anticipated events of the winter season.

Showdown at the Gates of Hades

City Opera's Orpheus threatened by union protest. 

by Paul Pelkonen

Strikebreaker Abraham "Grampa" Simpson describes a trip to Shelbyville.
Image from The Simpsons episode Last Exit to Springfield © 1992 Gracie Films/20th Century Fox.

The New York City Opera is having trouble with unions again. 

However, while the cash-strapped opera company has drawn fire from unions for its hard-nosed tactics in the past year, this protest is not directed directly at City Opera. The conflict is between El Museo del Barrio and members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Local One.

A report in the Wall Street Journal  stated that union officials are counting on a visible picket outside the opera company's new production of Georg Philipp Telemann's Orpheus to open a dialogue between representatives from El Museo and from Local One. The opera is being performed at El Teatro, a jewel box theater usually reserved for lectures and discussion panels. The union's labor leaders want the Upper East Side arts venue to become unionized.

New York Philharmonic Avoids Strike

Orchestra, union sign two-year labor deal.

Filling the seats: the New York Philharmonic poses in Avery Fisher Hall.
Photo by Chris Lee © 2011 The New York Philharmonic.

Well, that was close.

The New York Philharmonic narrowly avoided a strike this weekend.

The orchestra, which embarks today on a three-week European tour, almost got on the picket line instead of the airplane. The musicians, who have played all of this season's concerts without a new contract in place, were prepared to strike if a deal didn't get done.

In late-breaking news on Saturday night, the orchestra told Daniel J. Wakin of the New York Times that they had signed a new two-year contract, maintaining their health benefits and giving players a small salary increase in 2014. There is also a hard cap on pension benefits.

Mr. Wakin first reported the news on Twitter, and then in a Times article compiled by himself and Adam W. Kepler. That article is the source of this story.

Mr. Wakin's article commented that this deal was "short, by industry standards."


The orchestra and its musicians had been at loggerheads over the company's pension fund. According to Mr. Wakin's report, management had taken its proposals for "drastic" health insurance cuts and "radical" benefit reductions off the table. Both sides agreed to reexamine benefit issues in 2014.

In signing a deal, orchestra and musicians have avoided the kind of ugly situation that nearly scuppered the 2012 seasons of the New York City Opera and the Philadelphia Orchestra. The City Opera players settled for an extension of their health care benefits with a severe cut in their performance fees. In Philadelphia, that venerable orchestra filed for bankruptcy before hammering out a deal with their musicians.

Tino Gagliardi, a representative for Musicians Local 802, told the Times that management backed down from a scheme to change players' pensions from "defined benefit" to one where the funds would be supported by contributions from the players' paychecks.