Metropolitan Opera Faces "Disaster Scenario"

Sometimes budget cuts fall in the forest, so while you are all worked up about the plants and animals on Paterson's chopping block, we're betting you turned a deaf ear to the opera's budget drama. The NY Times reports that "the Metropolitan Opera has been bludgeoned by the recession and now faces a 'disaster scenario' unless the company finds major cost cuts, including concessions from its powerful unions."

Word came from the Met’s general manager, Peter Gelb (whose successor could be Placido Domingo), yesterday—who noted that their comfy $300M endowment "has dropped by a third, donations are down by $10 million this season; and ticket sales are expected to be off by several million dollars." For now, senior staff members are cutting their pay, expensive productions are being canceled, and to help encourage folks to attend they've dropped their planned ticket price increase.

The New York City Opera, who just announced George Steel as its new general manager and artistic director, is also feeling the crunch and "has said it would seek union concessions as well." But fear not opera-lovers, you know what they say about the fat lady singing.

Photo of the Met Opera House entrance via Mike Dillingham's flickr.

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By Jen Carlson in News on January 16, 2009 2:51 PM

Comments [rss]

thefacts

Unions fought for all the benefits that the non-union workers now take for granted.

If unions were to disappear, do you really believe that the bosses would not immediately try to revert back to the old system of screwing the workers and keeping the extra profit for themselves?

Of course they would. It's human nature. I'll take a blue collar Joe to a greedy capitalist (think Madoff and all the scuzzy, greedy banks that failed this past year.)

angry_pickle

It isn't that the union concept is bad. But you have these members who want to see benefits increased every couple years just because they feel that's what they are paying for, and you have union leaders who feel the need to justify their high salary. Hence they suck blood until all is gone.

maddoghomie

Uh oh. Rich folks are really feeling the crunch! Now they won't even be able to escape to their box seats at the opera to take their minds off their beloved Rainbow Room going under faster than their 401k's.

Hell, let 'em sweat. Maybe it'll get things going again.

chlyn

"If we could get tickets as easy as

a metrocard the place would be packed."

Screw tickets! Watch from your computer (for a subscription fee):

www.metplayer.org

NannyState

This whole story is just a little operetta.

ides_of_march

Unions = mafia.

Anyway, if it were so easy to run a profitable, legal business and provide all the benfits they want why don't the unions open their own opera company, auto plant, airline etc and show us all how it's done?

Egglantine

Ticket prices for seats where you can actually see something/don't have to stand for three hours are so expensive that the only times I go the Met is through their rush ticket program. I hope they don't get rid of that.

However, for some reason I seem to have no problem dropping a few hundred dollars every summer to see the Mets play. I really need to stop doing that...

west side Michael

Really Creepy comments here.

It's opera's fault for making itself

a quasi-snobby event for the last

100 years.

If we could get tickets as easy as

a metrocard the place would be packed.

Opera is beautiful ,only the prejudice

and stupid words like High brow remain.

If it were not for unions, Airlines,TV production

Cinema production,hospitals & Police etc would not function

so tell me what would you anti-union jerks do with yourself?

I guess those anti-union comments come from cracker bosses.

thefacts

If it weren't for unions, we would still be working 7-day weeks, 12 hours a day, for below minimum wages, and that is our children as well.

We would have no medical benefits, no social security, no unemployment benefits, and no safety measures.

That's right. Get rid of the unions that laid the Golden Egg.

MT

I understand that and appreciate the contributions unions have made to society. The people who founded them and did all the hard work 100 years ago must be spinning in their graves to see what the latest generation has done to their noble cause.

We have laws to protect workers now. Unions are dinosaurs that do nothing but suck every last dollar they can out of companies for their own survival and the political power of their leaders.

bxbrian

no idea why this went under your post, thefacts--sorry.

jchez

George Soros should step in. Back in the old days of robber barons, they assuaged their conscience by building libraries, hospitals, theaters and museums. They also subsidized artists; from John D. Rockefeller to Carnegie to Mellon.

Where would we be now if the Medici (bankers) had not paid for the Italian renaissance, essentially all by themselves. They even threw a scientists in their mix of artists, Galileo.

ides_of_march

Texaco used to subsidize the Met. I wonder if the snotty UWS artsy-fartsy types are missing those evil petrodollars now. As for Soros, he owns the democrat party lock, stock and barrell. Perhaps he'll finance a new opera glorifying his sock puppet Obama.

Nyctini11

What did they expect, they haven't made it affordable for the average person to be able to go, so when the snooty upper class wall street people all lose their jobs aka the Mets donation funders and major ticket holders, looks like the met loses too

bxbrian

you don't seem to do research.

i've gone to the opera once a year, paying $15 a ticket for the "Family Circle" section (read Upper Deck).

GOP

Hate the opera.

Thespis

Good to know.

MT

Maybe the real fear of losing their jobs will finally stop unions from strangling the competitive life out of every industry they touch.

ides_of_march

Unfortunately, union leaders are socialists and it's part of their DNA to kill the Golden Goose. Having said that, a lot of the administrators of the opera live rather cushy lives and should start cutting back on those lavish talent scouting trips to Salzburg, Bayreuth and Milan and other exotic locations.