Earlier today, we reported that the main opera house in Chile had sacked 13.5 percent of the workforce.
The Municipal Theatre of Santiago has responded to the Slipped Disc report with a press release in English (below). Read carefully and you will find that in addition to the 59 staff who were fired – the headline 13.5 percent – a further 19 people were persuaded to take ‘voluntary’ retirement.
In all more than one in six of the workforce have been laid off. Here’s the official version:
The Municipal de Santiago Announces Reorganization Plan
This measure seeks to secure sustainability and normal operations amid the delicate finance situation it now faces.
Santiago – July 22 nd , 2019. The board of Directors of the Municipal de Santiago approved a reorganization plan for the institution in order to face the delicate economic phase it is now undergoing, thus securing its continuity and healthy operations. The plan, effective as of July 17th , considers a series of measures in order to boost income and reduce costs, including a 13% downsize of the staff, (a total of 59 people) most of which belong to administration and technical areas. Another 19 workers had expressed their wish to retire voluntarily. According to General Director Frédéric Chambert, “it is undoubtly a very serious situation and we had to take painful yet necessary decisions to assure the future of this organization.” Hand in hand with a greater efficiency in costs and commercial strategies aimed to attract new audiences, this adjustments is fundamental in order to implement this new phase, which will translate in savings of 1,500 million pesos per year (2.2 million US$ dollars) which will allow a more flexible operation. The Administration of the Municipal de Santiago deeply regrets that such adjustment affects part of its staff directly, to whom it is grateful for their compromise with the production and diffusion of the arts. The Municipal will continue working for its partners, stakeholders, patrons, workers, in- house and guest artists and general public. All necessary measures will be taken in order to ensure the normal functioning of the theater.
The Baltimore Symphony, which has locked out its musicians, today cancelled its September gala.
The event was previously billed as follows:
Recipients are invited to purchase tickets at Diamond, Emerald, Platinum, Gold, or Silver Level, ranging from $50,000 (table for 20) to $500 (person). ‘The courtesy of your reply is requested by Monday, August 26, 2019. For your money, you get valet parking, creative food stations and cocktails, VIP dessert reception—and yes, a concert.’
Now the BSO says: Against the backdrop of ongoing orchestra contract negotiations (sic), the BSO determined that the spring was a more appropriate time to host this event.
More appropriate? Well Renee Fleming is unavailable, so they have replaced her with Itzhak Perlman.
“We are grateful to our many individual and corporate donors who have already pledged their support for this year’s Gala, and who care deeply for our institution and our musicians,” said BSO President and CEO Peter Kjome. “Just as these generous supporters are committed to the Orchestra’s success, we are committed to presenting an outstanding Gala.” Kjome continued, “We are thrilled that the world-renowned Itzhak Perlman will be the featured artist for the Gala and look forward to welcoming Renée Fleming at a future date. We also look forward to expressing our gratitude to our community by launching our new season with free concerts featuring our extraordinary musicians.”
Hmmm.
Our extraordinary musicians whom we have locked out and no longer pay.
In 1989, an Englishman called Hugh Southern was appointed general manager of the Metropolitan Opera. He was generally thought to be cordial and capable, but James Levine, who had not been consulted about his appointment, demanded his dismissal. In June 1990, after just seven months in the job, Hugh Southern was fired by the board.
Southern, who died last week aged 87, went back to doing more worthwhile things. He will be remembered as the creator of the TKTS Booth in New York City’s Time’s Square, inaugurating the sale of last-minute cheap tickets.
An interesting box-office statistic from Munich: Salome, starring Marlis Petersen and conducted by Kirill Petrenko, is heavily outselling Otello – with Jonas Kaufmann and Anja Harteros and conducted by Ádám Fischer.
Both went on sale yesterday. Each will have three performances.
Antonio Pappano, the most constant of music directors, has been in charge at Covent Garden since 2002 and at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome since 2005.
Today he extended his contract in Rome until 2023, when he will be 64.
The influential experimentalist Ben Johnston – described by our friend John Rockwell as ‘one of the best non-famous composers this country has to offer’ – is being mourned by the new-music community. Word of his death has been posted by the composers Neely Bruce and Christopher Rouse.
A Georgian by birth, Johnston taught at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign from 1951 to 1986. A pupil of John Cage, he worked with the experimentalist Harry Partch on building instruments from scrap and tuning them to his own requirements, though using to A=440 as his compass.
His 10 string quartets have all been recorded, along with a small body of orchestral works.
He was an Americal original.
He became a Roman Catholic in 1970 and wrote devotional songs for the Swingle Singers (or so I noted in my Companion to 20th Century Music). He was also prone to borrow, and bend, bedrick American folklore.
Ben Johnston lived 93 years, and then some.
The festival announced months ago that it would be putting on concert performances of Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten with – fanfare – Nina Stemme, Matthias Goerne and Brandon Jovanovich.
None of the three is actually taking part.
The Verbier website names – no fanfare – Milna-Liisa Värelä, Gerhard Siegel and John Lundgren in their roles.
No explanation, no apology. The Verbier Festival, a Putinist outpost under Valery Gergiev’s regime, is the last place to look for transparency.
Nina Stemme (above) did not list the proposed event on her website calendar.
We hear from distressed musicians at the Municipal Theatre in Santiago, Chile, that 59 people were sacked last week in all departments due to a financial crisis. That amounts to 13.5 percent of the workforce.
The theatre is said to be facing imminent bankruptcy. The next step will be to dismantle the orchestra and chorus.
The government is turning a blind eye.
A petition, posted online, has attracted more than 10,000 signatures. Please sign here.
It might help.
Opposite my hotel in the French Concession, I see an impressive structure going up at the back of the Shanghai Conservatoire of Music.
It turns out to be a new opera house, opening in September.
Seating 400-500 and intended for training purposes, it has a profesional stage with a full orchestral pit. Any chamber opera ensemble that is looking for a venue in China need look no further.
The amazing thing is that no-one – even in Shanghai – seems to have heard about it.
You see it here first.
Word is fluttering around the Glyndebourne hedgerows that the LPO is ready to announce its next music director, successor to Vladimir Jurowski after 12 eventful years.
We hear that the incoming chief will be Edward Gardner, former music director at English National Opera and presently with the Bergen Philharmonic in Norway.
Gardner, 44, is a capable performer with a wide repertoire, well liked by singers and soloists and putting in a good shift as principal guest with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.
He will benefit immediately from higher public recognition than the untested new Finn at the Philharmonia, Santtu-Matias Rouvali. He will also appeal to those who have called for more national content in the post-Brexit landscape.
With Sir Simon Rattle at the LSO, London will for the first time in decades have two leading music directors who are British born and bred.
