New York Metropolitan Opera cancels 2020-2021 season

The Metropolitan Opera in New York announced on Wednesday, September 23, the cancellation of its 2020-2021 season due to the Covid-19 crisis. A decision that causes a real financial shock.

The Metropolitan Opera in New York will not be resuming its 2020-2021 season. The decision, taken because of the coronavirus, has a devastating financial impact. Such a decision could “generate a shortfall of 154 million dollars“according to Peter Yellow, the manager of the Met, interviewed by AFP. A huge deficit in forecast for one of the largest theaters in the world, with a capacity of 3,800 people, despite its considerable budget of $ 312 million in 2018-2019. For this season, the Metropolitan Opera had already sold more than 20 million dollars of tickets. The disaster will be even greater if the public decides to be reimbursed rather than exchanging their tickets for the future 2021-2022 season. It is one of the most serious crises the Metropolitan Opera has suffered since it was founded 137 years ago in 1883.

The consequences are also colossal on the musicians and the employees. Almost 1,000 people, including the world famous orchestra and the choir, working full time within the Institution, have not been paid since April. All are in a difficult position, if only to maintain their mutual health thanks to the Met. Peter Gelb contacted the unions yesterday to negotiate a new collective agreement including lower wages which would allow staff to be retained.

A decision already accepted by another company, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, all of whose members were renewed for three years with a 37% salary cut in the first year and an increase depending on the orchestra’s future income. . Discussions may be tense at the Metropolitan Opera after the $ 3.5 million in compensation received by ex-music director James Levine, after his dismissal in 2018 for sexual violence.

Producing to small audiences is costing the Met too much. This is also the case for the New York Philharmonic which should communicate on a new calendar in October, hoping to reopen in early January. The Broadway League, the national trade association for the theater industry on Broadway, is keeping its theaters closed until further notice.

Repeated crises

This is not the first time that the Metropolitan Opera has experienced a big crisis. In 2014, the Institution had already had to face a deficit of 22 million dollars. Expenditure management was then strongly criticized. A few years later, in 2017, 21 members of the administrative staff, which then numbered 243, had been affected by a voluntary departure plan in order to reduce the cost of expenses, greater than $ 294 million the previous season and to limit losses which then amounted to $ 177,000.

What solutions?

The Metropolitan Opera is already thinking about “after the pandemic”. Depending on its capacity, the Institution should add more curtain raisers from 7 p.m., shorten operas or present works such as Boris Godunov by Mussorgsky in versions of 2h30 without intermission or removing the second intermission of Madame Butterfly by Puccini. It should also be aimed more at families with new 90-minute versions of Cinderella, in English.

In September 2021, the back-to-school show will be Fire Shut Up My Bones, an opera composed by jazz trumpeter Terence Blanchard, to be performed later, in another season. This new production, which has already been presented at the Opera Theater in Saint Louis, will be a big event. Camille Brown will be the first black director to lead a production on the main stage of the Metropolitan Opera.

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