“The Metropolitan Opera reached a labor deal with the musicians in its orchestra, paving the way for their return to the pit and the company’s reopening next month,” writes Julia Jacobs in Tuesday’s (8/24) New York Times. “After months of uncertainty, and talks that grew contentious at times, the Met said that the players had ratified a labor deal reached with the union representing the orchestra, Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians. The musicians were scheduled to return to work on Monday for their first official rehearsal since the pandemic closed the opera house in March 2020…. The group was the last of the three major Met unions to come to an agreement…. Several smaller unions have yet to reach deals…. The four-year deal with the musicians institutes pay cuts of 3.7 percent, with provisions to begin restoring some of that pay after the Met’s box office revenues return to 90 percent of their prepandemic levels…. A significant amount of the savings in the deal appears to come from reducing the minimum size of the Met’s full-time orchestra to 83 players through attrition, … down from its current minimum of 90. Many players retired during the pandemic.”
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