Royal Opera House dresses down for an orchestra strike
NewsMembers of the ROH orchestra wore yellow t-shirts instead of concert dress during a performance of Das Rheingold last week to signal their support for an imminent pay strike. The shirts were clearly visible in a cinema screening.
The Musicians Union says they have been negotiating for 12 months for a reinstatement of Covid pay cuts, to no avail.
The players have authorised a strike. It’s just a matter of timing now.
And dress code.
Photo: MU
Presumably you mean that they are striking for their pay to be restored to what it was before covid?
they did so 8 days ago in the cinema-projected performance of RHEINGOLD…reaching a world-wide audience (some players retained evening dress)
Hello. The players who wore evening dress were extras and deputies and would have been in breach of their contract. They wore yellow ribbons in support of the members of the orchestra.
Members of the orchestra were handing out leaflets at the entrances and some in the pit were not wearing evening dress but yellow T-shirts last week.
The orchestra and the resident chorus are amongst the hardest worked groups at ROH and have been taken advantage of ever since Covid. ROH need to treat them with respect not abuse. Stop wasting money mounting rubbish productions and invest in your people.
The orchestra of ROH were, last time of looking, the highest paid orchestra in the UK. And they fewest number of services for that salary to boot. They are a good orchestra, but not without their problems which they have always been very slow to fix. It’s a shame the results are often not as good as that level of reward would suggest, and makes the case for more a harder one than it could be.
I would like to know how you added up “fewest”. They often play six, sometimes even seven days a week for both opera and ballet when the season is on from Sept to July, and it can be 10 shows a week when Nutcracker season is in full swing. No professional orchestra or theatre orchestra in the U.K. does that.
As an occasional visitor to the ROH and a life-long professional musician, my opinion is that this is one of the finest orchestras in the world. As a ‘pit band’ they go relatively unnoticed because they are the ones that make the big stars on stage look good. I go to the ROH to listen to the band, that’s all I have to say. Musicians pay is a joke.
Why was the performance “cinema projected” when ROH has a streaming service? Is it because you might be “seen” by the right people at the cinema, whereas at home with the telly you’re invisible?
What a strange suggestion. Why would anyone go to the cinema to be seen by anyone, let alone ‘the right people,’ whoever they may be? I enjoyed seeing it on a far bigger screen and with far better sound than would have been available to me at home using a streaming service. If it had been streamed I wouldn’t have bothered. The cinema was dark, so I have no idea who else was there, nor do I care.
They do cinema screenings as an ongoing practice for the last 12 years or more. Not everyone can afford the streaming subscription fee, a one off cinema attendance is much cheaper, and it’s live. Also not everyone enjoys watching opera or ballet on a small computer, phone or tablet even if they can afford it. The cinema broadcasts are live, rather like being at the theatre, and have special interviews and recordings in the intervals as bonus extras.
Just look at the ROH Facebook page! Can you see pics of the orchestra in the last 2 years? No!
Only when covid times, when everyone needed music!
Now, it seems like no one care about the musicians…Look what is happening with Northern Ballet Orchestra!
I was at the ROH last night (fantastic production) and for the second time that I’ve seen recently, the orchestra all appeared on stage at the end to terrific cheers.
I am aware that very few orchestras in this country have ‘employed’ musicians, so that is one positive at ROH . But chatting to a couple of the musicians outside, they suggested that while they took the 10% paycut in 2020 yet to be made up, management had had pay rises this year – I don’t know this for a fact, but that’s what the musicians believe. If true, that would be the real shocker. Anyone know?
And Pappano is silent.