Met’s Labor Woes Divide Opera Fans as Well as Participants

The labor strife at the Metropolitan Opera has inflamed the passions of opera lovers, stoking debate in a world that relishes rivalries even in happier times: Wagnerites versus Verdians, Callas worshipers versus Tebaldi-ites, modernists versus those who think opera ended with Puccini.

The conflict, which threatens to silence the Met before its new season gets underway next month, is reverberating far beyond the travertine walls of the opera house. Opera buffs across America and the world, who have become part of the Met’s extended family through its Saturday radio broadcasts and live cinema transmissions, are watching closely and weighing in.

Some are siding with the unions as they resist pay cuts, while others are sympathetic to management’s attempts to rein in costs. But a couple of common refrains emerged in interviews with die-hard opera fans: Many fear that the simmering dispute could endanger the coming season, and several expressed dismay that opera, which at its best offers not just escapism but also catharsis, is becoming mired in a polarizing, all-too-real postdownturn conflict.

“When people go to the opera, those of us that love opera want to be transported,” said Rowna Sutin, 67, of Pittsburgh, who makes it to Met operas several times a year. She said she feared that she had been devoting “too much” attention to the labor battle. “This is really like taking away the magic,” she said. “We just want to go and love it.”

The labor talks at the Met are ending a weeklong intermission after some stormy opening acts, as both sides paused to allow an independent analyst to examine the company’s finances at the suggestion of a federal mediator.

Twelve unions at the opera house failed to agree on new contracts after the old ones expired on July 31, and Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, has threatened to lock out the company’s workers if they do not agree to pay and benefit cuts that he says are necessary to ensure the company’s survival. The unions are resisting, arguing that lower pay could endanger the Met by leading to lower quality. Talks with the unions representing the orchestra and chorus and the mediator are expected to resume this week.

Talks with the third big union at the opera house, Local 1 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, which represents the stagehands, broke off on July 31 after Mr. Gelb asked them at the bargaining table to accept a 14.5 percent cut, according to a letter James J. Claffey Jr., the local’s president, wrote to members last week. The Met declined to comment on the details of the negotiations while awaiting the next move with the mediator.

The strong feelings swirling around the dispute were evident a few weeks ago, when one of the Met’s biggest stars of recent years, the soprano Deborah Voigt, wrote on Twitter and Facebook that she hoped a compromise could be reached — and met with some angry responses from people in the music world. “Very sad to learn the Met union negotiations are not going well,” she wrote in July on Twitter. “Had hoped my colleagues would meet half way.”

Ellen Dinwiddie Smith, a horn player in the Minnesota Orchestra who just endured a 16-month lockout, replied with a post of her own, writing, “You don’t understand union busting” and, “Amazing what you learn about divas #disappointed.”

Ms. Voigt said in an interview that she had hoped to encourage both sides to view the matter as a family dispute, and to have a calmer, open-minded discussion about what to do. “I built my career at the Met Opera and feel very indebted to it and very concerned for its well-being,” she said in an interview from Finland, where she was judging the Mirjam Helin International Singing Competition. She was able to attend the competition, she noted, because a planned appearance in a “Götterdämmerung” in Spain had been canceled because of financial troubles.

Among fans, too, much of the debate has played out online. Comments on the Met’s Facebook page have ranged from pleas to save the season to a complaint that the company was “attempting to demonize unions” to the comment “no wonder I cannot stand unions.”

Opera fans — especially regulars who attend the Met many times a season — are watching with an almost proprietary interest. The Met’s box office started selling single tickets on Sunday, leaving fans with a choice: Buy now, or hold off in case the season is interrupted. (The Met said it would offer refunds if performances were canceled by a lockout.)

Around 100 people were waiting in line when the box office opened on Sunday, and they were met with gifts of either CDs of historic performances, opera-themed bookmarks or opera-themed journals. First in line was Edward Vinciguerra, 84, who left his home in Howard Beach, Queens, at 4 a.m. to make sure he could get aisle seats to the six operas he wanted to attend; he said that he was confident it would be easy to get refunds if the season were to be interrupted.

But Michele Page, 52, who has had a subscription for more than 20 years and usually augments it with tickets to more productions — she takes in 20 performances or more a year — said in a phone interview that she was biding her time.

“We’re hedging our bets and waiting,” Ms. Page said.

The negotiations have served as a catalyst for many writers and opera fans to weigh in with all sorts of recommendations for the Met, some contradictory. There have been calls for cheaper snacks, simpler ticket pricing and shorter intermissions — but also for fewer modern productions (“Eurotrash,” detractors call them) or more modern productions. Mr. Gelb in particular has become a lightning rod, attracting support and criticism. Some fans said they were offended by his comments that grand opera is “a dinosaur art form” that needs to adapt.

Harry Rose, a 16-year-old opera fan who wrote on his blog, Opera Teen, that he hopes to become the Met’s general manager one day, said in an interview that the dispute was “giving a lot of the peanut gallery an opportunity to air their grievances.”

The unions representing workers at the Met, and their supporters, have been especially vocal on social media but have quieted down considerably since the federal mediator has entered the talks. They have posted pictures of other performers holding up “Save the Met” signs in solidarity from Nova Scotia, Cincinnati, Greece and Chicago.

An online petition “encouraging Met Opera management to engage in good-faith negotiations and avert a lockout” attracted more than 11,000 signatures.

“The Met is one of this country’s most valued cultural institutions,” commented someone who signed as Craig R. “The talented artists that create this amazing product deserve a fair contract forged by good-faith bargaining, not shortsighted bullying!”

But some opera fans said they were sympathetic to the need to cut costs, noting that many artists and artisans who work at the company are among the best paid in their fields — overtime helped drive the average pay in the chorus and orchestra to roughly $200,000 in one recent season — and receive better health and pension benefits than most American workers.

Sheila Rao, 55, a certified public accountant and serious opera fan, said that if the expenses could be controlled, ticket prices could be made more affordable. “I think the wage structure there has gotten out of control over the years, and it’s not sustainable,” she said.

Those on all sides of the dispute said they were concerned with saving the Met.

Ed Rosen, 72, who has been going to the opera for decades and attends about 30 performances a year at the Met, said that he hoped both sides could reach an agreement.

“I hope opera never goes away,” said Mr. Rosen, who runs Premiere Opera, a website specializing in live recordings. “It’s something that I love. You like to think that Verdi, Puccini, Wagner will still be around 100 years from now for people to enjoy, the way it is now.”

Source: NYTimes.com