After the deadline, silence at the Met
mainBy his own threat, Peter Gelb should have imposed a lockout several hours ago. The fact that he hasn’t suggests that both sides are in a post-deadline huddle to avert disaster. Both are observing radio silence.
Musicians have been told to check at given times with a recorded message on their union line to learn whether or not they should turn up for work.
Have seen photos of signatures and a smiling P Gelb.
A tentative agreement has been reached (in past-the-deadline negotiations facilitated by the Federal mediator) with the orchestra and chorus unions: see http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/19/arts/music/metropolitan-opera-labor-talks.html
The stagehands’ union was not involved in the mediated talks, but the threatened lockout has been called off.
Thank you for this link. I’m so relieved for my friends.
Poor Mr. Lebrecht. No more sensationalism.
I would not be so quick off the mark! There’s another key Union contract still to be negotiated and a deadline has been set for tomorrow.
Besides, do you seriously believe that all the anti-Gelb comments on this blog will cease just because the 2014/15 season will hopefully be going ahead. I seriously doubt it. He has made so many mistakes both before and during the negotiations – and indeed during the entirety of his tenure that the anti-Gelb brigade, of which I am one, are unlikely to be silenced. His stature has been seriously diminished. Add to that the huge on-going funding problems he and the Board still have to tackle, and I can not see him having an easy time in the next few years.
You are absolutely right about the anti-Gelb comments. Peter Gelb could cure cancer today, and by tomorrow this blog would be teeming with complaints that he put thousands of oncologists out of work.
Sadly, Lewes, that really is a pretty pathetic analogy! Gelb is in the business of managing the world’s largest Opera House. He’ s not even qualified to do that. Come to think of it, he’s not qualified to do much more than organise TV shows, run a failing record company and arrange super-expensive tours for his now-deceased godfather, Vladimir Horowitz.
Hopefully, the dire situation in Minnesota during the lockout has helped everyone to realize that valid solutions will have to come through an alternative…
Every other media source in the Western world is reporting that the Met has come to tentative agreements with the two major musicians’ unions, AGMA and Local 802, and that Mr. Gelb has extended the “lockout” deadline a further 48 hours so that an agreement with IATSE can be hammered out. It appears almost certain, then, that the Met will have its season and thousands of people will not, in fact, be thrown out of work.
Slippedisc, though, remains silent, even though in the weeks leading into his successful bargaining session, the blog included several items daily predicting the most disastrous consequences.
Can it be that Norman Lebrecht simply cannot bring himself to speak the hateful words, “Peter Gelb has succeeded?”
“Peter Gelb has succeeded?”
Nice try, but from reports we are getting, way wide of the mark. As for the changes in work practices he claimed to be essential to the future of the House, he seems to have got little or nothing!