Sour Peaches in Atlanta as Lockout Ends.

Both sides bitter as orchestra lockout ends.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

A new collective bargaining agreement in Atlanta will shrink their symphony orchestra to 88 players.

The lockout is over in Atlanta.

That's the news from both sides of the labor dispute that threatened to axe the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra's 2012-2013 season.

Following the end of their contract, musicians were locked out of the Woodruff Center, the orchestra's home base on Sept. 4. Last night, the players agreed to all of management's demands and cuts in the interest of preserving the ensemble's season and reputation as one of America's better orchestras.

Chicago Symphony Orchestra Resolves Strike

Musicians, management reach agreement.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The rest is silence: the empty stage of Orchestra Hall, home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Image from Music Acoustics and Architecture © 1962 Leo Baranek.

UPDATED: The Chicago Symphony Orchestra has resolved its labor issues for the moment. A tentative agreement has been announced between the Orchestra Association and the players, meaning that the first part of the 2012 season will go ahead as planned. This includes the orchestra's season-opening concerts at Carnegie Hall under Music Director Riccardo Muti.

Ratification of the contract by all parties was completed on Sept. 25, according to a report in the Chicago Sun-Times. The new contract will apply retroactively from Sept. 17, 2012.

The ensemble will open the season with a performance of Carl Orff's ever-popular cantata Carmina Burana on Oct. 3.

The Day the Lights Went Out in Georgia

Atlanta Symphony Orchestra locks out musicians. 
by Paul J. Pelkonen

An empty, silent campus and armed off-duty cops as the

Atlanta Symphony Orchestra locks out its players.

Photo of the Woodruff Arts Center from Wikimedia Commons.

Jail bars added by the author.

A breaking story on Norman Lebrecht's blog Slipped Disc states that a lockout is in effect for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, which threatens that ensemble's 2012-2013 season.

 Last month, Superconductor reported an impending labor impasse between the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Players Association (ASOPA) and the Executive Board of the Woodruff Arts Center (WAC). That impasse has now escalated into a lockout.

Further Down the Death Spiral

City Opera orchestra, chorus plans strike.

The intrepid City Opera scouts Japanese locations
for a planned 2012 staging of Madama Butterfly. 
Naruto Whirlpools by Utagawa Hiroshige.

Even as socialites and royalty celebrated a "new era" for New York City Opera at a gala fund-raising bash this week,  plans for the 2011-2012 season have been jeopardized. 

Talks have broken down between City Opera's management (led by current General Manager George Steel) and representatives for Musicians' Local 802 and the American Guild of Musical Artists. These two unions represent the orchestra and chorus, the backbone of any opera company. 

Mr. Steel plans to rip out that backbone, and essentially pay artists like freelancers, with minimal salary and almost no health benefits. The cash-strapped opera company abandoned its Lincoln Center home last year, and is planning a "roving" season of just five operas, to be staged in various venues in Brooklyn and Manhattan. The abbreviated season and new, smaller venues, also carry higher ticket prices than the former New York State Theater.

According to a New York Times report by Daniel J. Wakin, the company's current offer to the musicians reduces orchestra salaries from a livable $40,000 a year to a "reduced" rate of $4,000. The offer came after City Opera deliberately let the old contracts expire at the end of April, 2011.

In an e-mail obtained by and published by parterre.com, Mr. Steel reported that negotiations were "at an impasse." You can read the whole e-mail here.

Also stripped in the new contract offer: health benefits. Earlier this fall, Local 806 representatives offered to play "for free" if they were allowed to keep their old health benefits. That offer was rejected by Mr. Steel last month.

Other recent sacrifices made by City Opera include the axing of music director George Manahan and the slashing of the Vox program, a workshop which allowed young composers working on new operas to get an airing.

The planned strike will probably not affect the company until January, when rehearsals start for the City Opera's planned performances in February. Those performances, planned for the Brooklyn Academy of Music include an imported Glimmerglass Opera staging of La Traviata and the New York premiere of Rufus Wainwright's new opera Prima Donna. For a full preview of the City Opera's truncated season, click this link.

In other news, the City Opera board recently voted to extend Mr. Steel's contract for three years. According to the Times, Mr. Steel's recent tax returns list his salary at $407,000/year. He did not get a raise.

Will Work For Health Care

City Opera Unions Make a Modest Proposal.
by Paul Pelkonen

Frame-grab from the video for Van Halen's 1993 song "Right Now."
Image © 1993 Warner Bros. Records, Van Halen Publishing, Cabo Wabo Music.

A new twist has emerged in the ongoing struggle between the New York City Opera and the unions for its orchestra and chorus. The two unions: Associated Musicians of Greater New York Local 802 and the American Guild of Musical Artists have offered to work this season--for free.

The union offer was announced in a statement, obtained by the Wall Street Journal. The source for this story is a blog post on WSJ.com by Jennifer Maloney. 

The union's offer is contingent on the musicians and choristers keeping their current health benefits in the 2011-2012 season. The union would then want a voice in selecting repertory and venues for coming seasons, a job that is currently the exclusive providence of company general manager George Steel.

In a statement, AGMA Executive Director Alan Gordon said: "Performing for free is an anathema. But it's a last-ditch alternative to a management plan that would drive City Opera out of existence." According to the Journal article, the City Opera's current offer to the musicians is $4,000, 1/10th of their $40,000 salaries, with severely limited health benefits. In other words, the orchestra and chorus would be freelancers.

Under Mr. Steel. the City Opera ditched its old digs at Lincoln Center last April in an effort to slash operating costs from $31 million to $13 million. In the process, they slashed their staff, including longtime music director George Manahan. The company will play a radically shortened season in 2012, moving between four different venues around New York in an effort to lower costs and drum up interest in its programming.

The City Opera is scheduled to resume operations on Nov. 17 with a concert at Lincoln Center's Rose Theater, featuring singer-songwriter turned composer Rufus Wainwright. The company will then throw a gala fund-raiser on Nov. 28 at the Waldorf-Astoria. There is no word as to whether employees at the historic hotel will be asked to work for free.

It's (kinda) Sunny in Philadelphia

Musicians sign contract, but Kimmel Center is shut down.

Deborah Voigt sings tonight's season-opening gala, which has been moved across the Schuylkill River.

Clouds are lifting over the Philadelphia Orchestra, which has spent the summer mired in bankruptcy proceedings and labor struggles. Their season opens tonight away, but not in their usual home of Verizon Hall.

Due to a Sept. 30 strike by the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (which governs ushers, stagehands, box office and wardrobe workers at the Kimmel Center and the nearby Academy of Music) tonight's gala opening concert will be played at Irvine Auditorium, on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania. 

The concert will feature soprano Deborah Voigt, performing selections from the Great American Songbook. Ms. Voigt is a late replacement for Dawn Upshaw, who withdrew from the concert following a death in the family.

In a prepared statement, the musicians of the orchestra announced that they voted to ratify a new four-year agreement with management. "Although we accept this contract reluctantly," the statement read, "the alternative could cause additional uncertainty and harm to members of this great orchestra."

Recent articles by Peter Dobrin of the Philadelphia Inquirer indicate that the musicians will take a $35 million hit, squarely in the pension fund. The Philadelphia Orchestra Association intends to withdraw from that fund, and may face opposition from the American Federation of Musicians and Employees' Pension Fund.

The labor deal, which offers severe salary cuts and reduces the orchestra's roster by ten players, is subject to approval by a U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

The statement continues: "It is the self-admitted failures of management and the Board that have led us to this point, and we challenge them to make the changes needed to raise the funds necessary to operate and promote the Orchestra with the same passion with which we create music." The statement calls on the Board of Directors to equal the musicians' commitment to stablize the orchestra's finances.

Tomato Pasting

Current Thoughts on New York City Opera

So I'm at Lincoln Center tonight. We were attending the mostly Beethoven concert at Mostly Mozart--review to follow. Anyway it's about 6:15 in the evening and we're sitting under the trees at the newly built "zen" plaza next to the Metropolitan Opera. I'm looking across the plaza at the former New York State Theater and I notice something interesting.

The sign on the building currently reads:

David H. K___ Theater

New York City Ballet. New York City Opera.

After the tumultuous off-season City Opera has been through, engaging in a George Steel-imposed exodus from its Lincoln Center home, I can't help but find it odd that their name is still adorning the building that they have purportedly abandoned.

Even odder was an article in today's New York Times, a candid interview with NYCO general manager George Steel, the mastermind behind the move. Mr. Steel, who is currently locked in a labor negotiation with AGMA and Local 802, the unions representing choristers and orchestra members respectively, has recast the once-proud opera company as a hit-and-run opera company, doing four or five operas in the spring.

The article revealed that Mr. Steel's offices are still in the basement of the once (and future) State Theater despite his repeated statements that the company is packing up what's left of its caravan and going on a campaign to bring opera to five two boroughs.

But for sheer strangeness, nothing will top part of the last two paragraphs, reproduced below:
“In my role as a producer, I spend a lot of time in the future,” Mr. Steel said, “and it makes me happy to live there. But an important part of my job is returning to the present and leading people forward, and in one sense people are living in the past."

"I manage for the future. If I have to take tomatoes from here to there, I can live with that."

Tomatoes, Mr. Steel? Really?

Another George, a Mr. George Costanza, once said that the tomato "never really caught on as a hand fruit."

At the rate things appear to be going, the "New New York City Opera" may not catch on either.

Curiouser and Curiouser

Labor Injunctions May Kibosh City Opera Exit Plan

"I can't fix the budget, Alice. I'm just a flamingo."
Illustration from Alice in Wonderland by John Tenniel.

"He sent them word I had not gone
(We know it to be true):
If she should push the matter on,
What would become of you?"
--Lewis Carroll

Just when you thought things couldn't get any weirder for the once-proud New York City Opera, an announcement today has the opera company falling further down a metaphorical rabbit hole of their own making.

Today, the American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA) which is the musician's union for opera, dance and concert musicians (in other words: the union of the New York City Opera's singers, choristers, and production staff) filed unfair labor practices against City Opera.

The charges accuse the opera company of bargaining with the artists in bad faith as the deadline to renew their contract came and went. City Opera is coming off a disastrous 2010-2011 season which saw the once proud company presenting obscure operas (A Quiet Place, Intermezzo, Séance on a Wet Afternoon) to 40% capacity houses.

City Opera Turns On the Dark

The Zen enso: interplay between Form and Void.
From PSNT.net

Ed. Update: The City Opera has sent out a letter to its subscribers, indicating that the NYCO's 2011-2012 season will be announced in "late May." More news as it's gathered.

The New York City Opera has announced that the organization is suspending plans for a 2011-2012 season, pending a "top to bottom" organizational review, as announced in today's Wall Street Journal.

The season announcement, which has been overdue for at least a month, is on hold pending the review. But at this point, it is unclear whether such a season will happen, given low attendance numbers and the company's $22.5 million dollar operating deficit.

According to the WSJ report, the company is considering a number of cost-cutting options, including a possible move out of its current home at Lincoln Center. In recent years, the company, under the leadership of director George Steel, has put on just five operas in the last two seasons, when 10 or 12 was the norm every year. They were also forced to shorten their fall season, ceding theater time to the New York City Ballet in an effort to curtail costs.


The City Opera's money troubles started after a disastrous 2008 season in which the company was forced to go dark for a year in order to make improvements to its Lincoln Center home in the former New York State Theater. Since City Opera is the secondary tenant in that venue, they were forced to shut down for a year. However, the orchestra and stage hands were still paid under union contract. This  gutted the company's endowment fund, and caused the crisis facing NYCO today.

The organizational review comes just three weeks before the end of the 2011 season, which also marks the end of the opera company's current labor agreements. Whether it is the end of City Opera as we know it, or a draconian labor negotia

Seance for a Wet Afternoon, the fifth and final production of the City Opera's 2011 season, opens April 19th. It may be the last we hear of this once-proud opera company for some time.