Pappano leaves Covent Garden with a final 30% pay rise
OperaScrutiny of the ROH accounts for the year ending August 27, 2023 shows that the outgoing music director, Sir Antonio Pappano, earned just under £940,000 in 12 months, one-third up on the previous year.
Some of this bonus was accounted to an increased number of performances that he conducted as schedules filled up after Covid.
The chief executive Alex Beard was paid £343,000.
Kevin O’Hare, director of the Royal Ballet, was paid £262,174.
Oliver Mears, director of the Royal Opera, earned £232,842.
Revenues shot up to £170.7m, from £128.9m in 2021-22.
The company employed 1,129 staff.
Tnne salary figures above include pension contributions and national insurance.
Worth every penny. Interesting that Alex Beard still earns less than his predecessor, Lord Hall of Birkenhead.
Is He? That amount of money is sick- when so many musicians are struggling to even eat.
Yes, no other conductor before him could improve the quality and the reputation of the ROH as he did, despite having an inferior orchestra (compared to the other London orchestras). He will be missed, and his replacement is, frankly speaking, a joke… But maybe that is the reason for this inexplicable choice: so AP can somehow keep control. I hear he will continue to conduct important projects (the Ring?). No new, high-standing music director would have accepted his predecessor taking care of such a project.
Pappano will conduct the individual operas of the Ring over the next few seasons. Hrůša will conduct the first complete cycles.
To describe Jakub Hrůša as “a joke” is an insult to a fine conductor.
If the Metropolitan Opera paid salaries like that it might not be in such a financial mess.
The MET’s board has paid the talentless hack Peter Gelb more than that per annum for years, plus free housing. They pay the real talent less.
My immediate thought exactly. Many underlings at the Met earn more than the CEO of the Royal Opera.
The Met can justify its corporate structure six ways to Sunday, but the problem is principally due to a lack of oversight by a feckless board.
As witnessed by the Met’s repeated fiscal shenanigans (they’ve scraped the bottom of their endowment barrel how many times?), it is unsustainable. Charles Ponzi would have been perplexed.
They should be well rewarded for the art, hard work etc that they do but oh dear the ticket prices! Papa o helped get me through Covid with his telling of the operas. Such musicality.
The musicians are not so well rewarded for their art & hard work despite tears & tears of til from a young age
You fail to state how much a mere member of the orchestra got paid…that’s when it really shows.
Or chorus, for that matter.
Exactly.
The orchestra took a 10% pay cut during Covid. Only 5% reinstated after protests and an imminent attendance by the king. Admin pay was unaffected of course.
Not to mention the ushers, who aren’t even paid the London living wage
I just looked it up…not that I didn’t have a pretty good idea. Shocking. And they are better paid than some.
A quick internet search indicates the average musician makes between 42,000 and 45,000 pounds, about $55,000. I would not care to make ends meet in London on that.
They can get paid the same in Spain, and the money will go much further and life will be better. Watch the rise of Spanish orchestras in the years to come.
Goodness if all four of them donated 25% of their salaries that could save Northern Ballet! #keepnorthernballetlive
But there’s no money to reinstate preCOVID wages to other staff members.
With the exception of Pappano they are overpaid and collectively a pretty clueless lot hanging around for a knighthood (just look at the dull programming esp new productions)
ROH needs a thorough clear out and an Arts Council shake up from a new government should make that a priority.
And he did absolutely nothing to support the orchestra through their struggle to get their pay reinstated. Disgraceful, utterly disgraceful.
I agree Pappano has attracted talent, and could doubtless command more money elsewhere. But in taking rises last year and this year Management has shown a lack of solidarity with the orchestra who had to take a cut in 2020.
You fail to mention that it’s his salary plus conducting fees at ROH on top. That accounts for some of the disparity.
Well that’s stupid… if your job includes conducting duties you’re not entitled to charge a separate fee for this.
Why stupid? It’s now a very common way of remunerating Music Directors both in Opera Houses and Symphony Orchestras. They receive a basic fee for administration, planning etc. plus perhaps a guaranteed minimum number of conducting performances. Go over that number and a per performance additional fee is part of the contract. Perfectly reasonable considering you either give these extra fees to the MD or to an outside conductor. They still have to be paid.
Under LOl’s formula, an MD could be asked to conduct all performances for the entire season on a basic salary which naturally would be totally ridiculous! No conductor would agree to such terms and no House would want it!
Did he conduct more performances than the previous year?
It’s absolutely laughable how much money these stick wavers make, compared to orchestral musicians who do the REAL work! While musicians of the LSO and other London orchestras have to take every gig they can to make ends meet, these “maestros” have their snouts firmly in the trough.
“It’s absolutely laughable how much money these stick wavers make, compared to orchestral musicians who do the REAL work!”
Thought I’d clicked on the comments section of The Telegraph by mistake.
Gary Lineker, who just sits and talks about football, gets £1.35 million pa out of the BBC Tax.
Come on, everybody is invited to conduct opera performances if he or she can. If conductors are paid well, it is probably because the demand for good ones is high. I didn’t know, though, that he did not help his musicians in times of need. Welcome to the club with Yannick…
Sickening.
No wonder opera is on its way out, or why few Britons care.
I think nowadays the louder you shout the usual pro-hamas anti-semitic buzzwords the more you will earn
Logically
In America, this usually happens when the corporation is about to go bust and the CEO bails with a hefty pay raise. Think Enron, Toys R’ Us, etc.