The Well-Tempered Ear

Classical music: Good news! The Metropolitan Opera season will open on time, now that it has settled disputes with its labor unions.

By Jacob Stockinger

A week ago, The Ear offered readers an update on the labor strife at the Metropolitan Opera (below), which had been partially resolved.

The final results, and successful settlement, came in earlier this week.

And the news is good.

Here is a wrap-up of what happened from several major media outlets, plus a link to the Met so you can check into its various seasons and productions. 

First, here is link to the back story about the first settlements between general director Peter Gelb (below top), who sought even bigger salary rollbacks, and the unions (below bottom):

https://welltempered.wordpress.com/2014/08/19/classical-music-the-shows-will-go-on-or-so-it-seems-as-the-metropolitan-opera-and-two-major-unions-reach-agreement/

Now here are links to three stories that wrap up the labor disputes and the final outcome:

From The New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/21/arts/music/metropolitan-opera-labor-talks.html?_r=0

From The Wall Street Journal:

http://online.wsj.com/articles/metropolitan-opera-reaches-deal-with-stagehands-1408526766

From the Associated Press via Billboard magazine:

http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/6221948/metropolitan-opera-reaches-deal-with-stagehands-union

Last but not least, here is a link to the Met’s own website, where you can see the schedule of productions for the regular Met season -– which opens on Oct. 27 with Giuseppe Verdi’s “Aida” (below, the opera’s show-stoppping Act 2 Triumphal March from a 1989 Met Opera production in a YouTube video) –- and for the productions for “The Met Live in HD,” which are shown locally at the Eastgate and Point cinemas:

https://www.metopera.org/metopera/season/index.aspx?nav=top&gclid=Cj0KEQjw1NufBRCx8ayaqY2t6KkBEiQA2nLWm0XjHlAakMLoTzDM-NoyRoahceCgKqUcDjUgrwGFTjIaAvWB8P8HAQ