Sony Classical has offered to record Richard Danielpour’s latest opera, Margaret Garner, which drew positive reviews when it premiered in Michigan and Philadelphia last season with Denyce Graves in the title role. Operatic recordings are becoming increasingly rare, especially in the U.S., due largely to the cost of retaining an orchestra for the project. In this case, Sony has made a proposal to the Pittsburgh Symphony for the project, and press reports say that the musicians of the PSO are considering the offer. That the musicians would need to approve such a project at all suggests that Sony’s offer may require them to accept a pay rate below the national standard enforced by the union, but several orchestras have begun to skirt such requirements in recent years.