Second strike night at Paris Opéra
mainBoris Godunov was blacked out last night, Il trovatore the night before.
The reason? It’s because of a ‘mouvement de grève d’une organisation syndicale concernant une catégorie de salariés’ – one union is in dispute over one category of the pay scale.
No end in sight. The taxpayer continues paying the salaries – and the refunds for disappointed operagoers.
What happens to the freelance singers’ fees in such a case?
They are honored.
Some people swim, some ride bicycles, others run… And the French do strikes! It is their sport.
They do ride bikes, but not well for some time.
Normally, in the contracts of the singers the strike is mentioned under ‘force major’ – so the theatre is not obliged to pay the fees. Sometimes, out of good will, the theatre keeps paying the artists. You can imagine, how much this Trovatore could have costed: at least €60.000 – €65.000 only for the fees of singers and the conductor…
But an internal strike is not a “force major” situation, it is a problem for the house to solve (and I wouldn’t like to be in their shoes right now). Had the strike been a national one, a widespread strike that paralyzes the whole country… Then it would be the case and the “force major” clause would prevail. In this specific situation all soloists were assured they are going to be paid.
As the great Woody Allen remarked, when finding himself early in his career as a stand-up comic in St Louis, Missouri, “My one salvation is the opera. There is none anywhere.”