ENO orchestra and chorus will strike from February 1
OperaMusicians Union and Equity members will walk out of The Handmaid’s Tale on the night of its revival.
They say ENO plans to make them redundant ahead of the company’s move to Manchester, and to rehire some of them for six months a year.
Naomi Pohl, MU general secretary, said: ‘This is a historic moment for the Musicians’ Union and the UK’s orchestra sector – the first time we’ve been on strike since 1980.’
Does anyone else find it ironic that Stuart Murphy, the ex-CEO who led the company to this disastrous situation, is now being awarded in the King’s honour’s list? Or does doing the Tory Party’s dirty work merit such an title? To quote a wise man on Twitter, shall we also give Herod an award for services to children?
Wow – what a poorly informed position to take. If it wasn’t for the attacking position Stuart took against the Government and ACE there wouldn’t be an ENO Orchestra or Chorus around to strike full stop. The whole organisation would have been wrapped up in April of last year. And unlike ROH, during Covid, ENO had a CEO who determined the organisation should find a way to publicly perform despite asking for way less money as part of the Cultural Recovery Fund than their contemporaries. What a shameful position to take.
What nonsense. The idiot spent 5 years wasting money on ridiculous ideas, knew their time was limited, groped for the failed RING co-pro to keep them in NPO, failed at that, and then resigned days before the ACE info went public – which he knew was happening. Everything after that was pure acting as he knew he had failed. He was a car crash from day one, talk to any staff member inside. Bullying and posing are not worthy of awards.
No not really. He staged a successful campaign to get ENO’s grant reinstated for 3 years and the move put off to a more realistic timescale. Given the cuts made to opera funding he did the best he could in a difficult situation.
I can’t see what it’ll achieve, apart from hurting ENO’s income still further.
Publicity.
So you are faced with losing your job and you decide the most productive course of action is to refuse to work?
The Brits sure love their strikes. Country’s shut down today (Thursday), shutters down for transport, health care and education.
Try France, Denmark, Belgium, Canada, Spain, Norway, Finland, Ireland.
(Statista)
Like the Post Office disaster and CEO returning her gong, Mr Murphy should also do the honourable thing and decline this King’s one apologising and saying publicly why.
Or better still, in view of ENO’s fate, The King himself as a reputed music lover should withdraw the offer of the gong.
( which as we all know, are meaningless anyway)
Ill advised. Strikes work when you have leverage and the days when musicians had leverage have passed.
When musicians attack the already shaky finances of their employers, no one is going to come out of it with anything better.
It will gain publicity; perhaps those involved in striking feel they have nothing to lose. The recent open letter by Pappano, Elder and Gardner suggests that if the management plans are implemented it’s likely to be the end of ENO anyway. Perhaps the strategy is to go down fighting…..
This hardly indicates anything other than the transfer to Gt Manchester, should it in fact happen, is going to be a particularly sour and acrimonious affair.
Having made the decision no doubt ENO, ACE, and someone in Manchester are attempting to do the whole thing on a shoestring and whilst it is reputedly not due to happen until 2029 the amount of animus amongst the ENO Company indicates that whatever the T&C’s they would prefer to stay where they are.
On the other hand the management urged on by ACE seem intent on scuppering the whole thing and in effect what may or more likely may not arrives in Manchester will have no historical connection to ENO as it once was.
Indeed, if the idea is only to mount large scale opera in the Coliseum and scaled back stuff in Manchester then what really is the point? For myself, I don’t want ENO anywhere near here. I’m more than happy with ON and in all honesty there is so much streamed opera to access, ROH and ENO excepted, that I’d rather they just try to reach an alternative local option. Even to the extent of ENO being shut down completely or London funding its continuance.
This is a mess and one that at best will end up satisfying no one. Let London sort it out because London screwed it up in the first place.
Typical small minded divisive Northern claptrap: London this blah blah London that blah blah
So glad I moved south.
The culprit is not London: it’s former Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries, who instructed Arts Council England [ACE] to divert £20 million of funding away from London, “oop North”. The North Yorkshire Moors (Steam) Railway is now an ACE National Portfolio Organisation, in receipt of £750,000 spread over 3 years; and ACE also awarded £1 million to the Manchester National Football Museum, over a similar time period; which is particularly galling, as the museum is well placed to acquire ample funding from wealthy football clubs, rather than by depleting precious ACE funds.
As long as managers continue to have their pay and terms of employment protected, that’s all that matters…