Regular readers of SNLC (all 5.7436 of you) know that self occasionally likes to do a mash-up series that also covers the Metropolitan Opera's HD-movie casts of live performances from the Met stage in NYC. This coming season, that particular sub-thread of diaries had been under threat, because of the long-simmering dispute between Met Opera general manager Peter Gelb and the various unions (musicians, stagehands, etc.) that had been simmering all year, waiting pretty much to explode. Given the recent disaster of the Minnesota Orchestra labor dispute, and the evidently ham-handed rhetoric of Gelb in various public statements about the Met was facing bankruptcy in a few years if expenses were not reined in, I, for one, was expecting the worst, namely the equivalent of the Minnesota Orchestra mess to blow up in opera land.
Except that a surprise happened, namely that a settlement was reached, in time to save this coming season. More (sort of) below the flip.....
To be honest, because this story is so convoluted and long-drawn out, even more than usual, extremely selective and tiny cherry-picking of articles and quotes is the order of this diary. But one particular quote from Peter Gelb that caught a huge amount of flak is one reported by the Associated Press back in late July, such as in this Buffalo News on-line article. Gelb threatened to lockout out the Met's labor unions before the start of the season if they didn't cave to his demands:
"We need to impose a lockout because otherwise we have no ability to make them take this seriously. The short-term pain is something we'd have to live with in order to provide long-term survival."
In the arcane world of opera-land, that got a huge amount of blowback. One response on teh internets was c/o Scott Chamberlain, at his blog 'Mask of the Flower Prince'
here, in part:
"I cannot imagine a more inflammatory statement to make to the press - one that makes you look more petty, paternalistic, and completely out-of-touch....
Let me be clear… the union musicians and workers are not your underage children; they are your partners in negotiation. Partners who have legitimate concerns. The fact that you don’t like their concerns doesn’t mean they are somehow illegitimate or un-serious.
And it is shocking that you seem to believe that you get to determine how seriously people are taking this situation, and that you unilaterally get to choose what steps to take as a consequence. Mr. Gelb, you are directly toying with their livelihood… their mortgages, their children’s college funds, their healthcare and more. Trust me - they’re taking this very seriously.
In fact, one could reasonably argue that it is you who has refused to take this situation seriously. You are willing to inflict direct financial pain on hundreds of full-time workers, thousands of additional personnel, and the city as a whole simply to make an economic point. Moreover, you have refused to provide real, concrete financial data that supports your position, or even to negotiate in good faith. Plus, you have repeatedly refused to take any responsibility for your actions."
Of course, given the reality of the world, more people will have read coverage of this story in the
New York Times than a blog, even if the blogger were Alex Ross (or, Earth forbid, the worst and most viciously NYC-hating writer in classical music, who shall remain nameless - but Norman Lebrecht is a good guess). What may have gotten lots in the reaction was this counter-quote from Joe Hartnett, the negotiations coordinator for six units of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE):
"We are willing to tighten our belts if Peter Gelb is willing to cut up his credit cards. It's more than just our labor costs that's the problem."
What Hartnett is referring to, in part, is Gelb's spending on a whole slew of new productions since he became the Met's GM in 2006. James Jorden wrote about this in an op-ed for the
New York Observer here:
"Since his first season in 2006-2007, he has doubled the number of new productions the company presented to six or seven a year."
This has included successes like the Met's first production of Dmitri Shostakovich's
The Nose, but also notorious productions like the new Robert Lepage
Der Ring des Nibelungen production with the infamous "machine" that weighed an ungodly mass and required massive reinforcement of the Met's stage (which actually will probably prove to be a good long term investment - the stage reinforcement, that is, not "the machine" itself). Jorden went on to note:
"Unfortunately, the quality of these [new productions] has been uneven, with transcendent stagings like Dmitri Tcherniakov’s Prince Igor or François Girard’s Parsifal offset by mediocrities like Deborah Warner’s serviceable Eugene Onegin and downright flops like Des McAnuff’s pretentious Faust."
Getting back to mass media coverage, In the
NYT, Michael Cooper is the report who got the long-term assignment to cover this story all year. One example is
this August 10 article, which was a look at how opera fans took sides in this dispute. However, in various comments sections on other articles of Cooper's, he's gotten a lot of flak himself for his apparent bias towards Gelb and subliminal antipathy towards the labor unions.
However, fortunately, at least for now, all of this is moot (typical loser, that 3CM). This is because the labor unions and Gelb reached an agreement a bit less than 2 weeks ago. From this August 18 article by Cooper in the NYT, the unions agreed to a modest pay cut:
"The workers agreed to a 3.5 percent cut in wages upon ratification, and another 3.5 percent reduction six months later - either in the form of another wage cut or, if they agree in further negotiations, as a change in benefits. Part of those cuts would be restored with a 3 percent raise in the second half of the fourth year. It appeared to be the first pay cut at the Met in decades, but would still leave the artists among the best-paid in their fields."
Commentators have noted that this was the first wage concession 'in decades' from the Met's 'unionized workers'. So in that sense, Gelb actually scored a tiny meta-victory, historically speaking. However, again per Cooper, in terms of immediate demands:
"But the cut was far smaller than the nearly 17 percent that Mr. Gelb had initially sought. And, critically for many musicians and singers, the agreement would leave intact their defined-benefit pensions and the complex system of work rules that governs rehearsal pay and overtime and penalty payments - two areas where management had sought big changes."
One other general critical perception of Gelb's general statements throughout this dispute (which was my own POV, admittedly) is that Gelb was demanding sacrifices entirely from the unionized workers, while offering no concessions on the expenses side from his end. That is another aspect of the subtext of Hartnett's "credit cards" remark earlier. In this agreement, though, Gelb and management did offer their own concessions:
"But this labor agreement was somewhat unusual in that management agreed to changes as well. The deal contained something the unions had sought from the beginning of their talks: a promise that the cuts would not be borne only by the Met’s unionized work force, but shared.
To that end the Met’s management agreed not only to match the value of the labor cuts on the administrative side, but also to cut $11.25 million worth of other expenses - which may include cutting costs, scheduling more carefully, or reducing rehearsals - in each of the four years of the contract. And in an unusual provision eagerly sought by the unions, the Met’s management agreed to have an independent analyst monitor its finances."
What's interesting in the evolution of this story is that once an outside analyst was brought in to allow for a look at the Met's finances, things actually accelerated in terms of achieving the negotiated results. One can speculate to no end with scenarios as to why things moved so quickly, like the hypothesis that it might have come out publicly that Gelb was exaggerating the dangers, once outsiders got a real look at the books. Of course, I certainly don't know, and no one would tell me.
Also, given the bias of this site, it's easy to paint a picture of everything from the side of labor and unions as 100% good and everything from Gelb and management as 100% bad. In the case here of Gelb, again given his less-than-felicitous statements, it's easier than usual to paint him as the main villain here. One can argue that his alienation of audiences by the nature of his rhetoric, as well as sour tastes left in Met audience members' mouths by the erratic quality and features of new productions, has contributed to the loss of box office revenue. However, to complicate the picture still further, if you find Cooper's articles and trawl through the comments, you'll find more than your share of comments that are, quite frankly, hidebound and reactionary, from people who prefer the "ultra-realistic" productions of Franco Zeffirelli's hyper-detailed Tosca or the old Otto Schenk production of Wagner's Ring that was the exemplar of 'traditionalism'. In other words, you also have here a hefty portion of NYC-based Met Opera-goers who are intolerant of anything different that upsets their old-school tastes, who know what they like and like what they know, and can't stand the idea of anything new.
Plus, to fill in the picture a bit, part of what contributed to the long-term festering of financial problems was inadvertently due to someone who has not been mentioned yet here, namely the Met's music director, James Levine. Levine has been suffering from major health issues for the past several years, where he was out of action and not conducting at the Met for several seasons. It's gotten to the point now that while he's mentally as hearty as ever, and fortunately is back conducting several productions a year, he has to get around now via motorized wheelchair. The point here is that Levine is a much-loved figure by Met audiences, and had he been present to conduct more often, it's a pretty safe guess that box office would have been better for his appearances, compared to the lesser-known figures who had to fill in his dates for several seasons. (That can be seen as an unfair slam on Fabio Luisi, the Met's principal conductor since Levine's issues really got out of control, which I don't mean as a slam, of course.) Whether that presumed increased box office would have been enough to mitigate annual deficits enough to avoid this dispute is a tough, and impossible, call to make, of course, since we can't go back and do the historical experiment in some alternative universe. Had Levine been healthy and in action all this time, he might also have acted as a bit of a brake on Gelb's big plans. In effect, while Levine was sidelined dealing with his injuries and health issues, Gelb pretty much called the shots artistically all around. The results there have been mixed.
I'm quite aware that in a world rived by Ferguson and ISIS, not to mention Putin, Ted Cruz, Netanyahu and other assorted global whack-jobs, an issue like this is pretty trivial by comparison. But at least compared to those thugs, the Met Opera is at least trying to create something positive, rather than setting out to ruin and destroy. Plus, this kind of topic is what I know and can comment on best. There's already plenty here on the other major issues where my voice would add nothing. So I fill in a perceived gap, such as it is. Make of it what you wish.
So at least in advance of Labor Day, one major potential meltdown has been averted. (Or the can got kicked down the road, if one wants to be cynical, if fund-raising and audience numbers don't tick back up at the Met. Apparently the next classical-world labor meltdown on the horizon is in Atlanta, but that's another story.) With that, time for the standard SNLC protocol, if you wish, or even talk about opera, or the Met's pending season of HD-casts, which might yet provide some SNLC fodder for a while yet.....