Category: music

The months-long strike at l’Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal is finally over, and details are beginning to emerge not only about the OSM’s new contract, but about the surprisingly small details of workplace conditions that stalled negotiations for more than a year. “After years of seeing their schedules grow ever tighter under the baton of Charles Dutoit, the musicians seemed to have decided that enough was enough. At the same time, general manager Madeleine Careau was demanding concessions to help tame an accumulated deficit that now stands at $3.4-million. To make matters worse, the OSM has been caught in recent years between the demands of its escalating international fortunes and the apparent decline of Montreal’s ability to finance large performing-arts organizations.”

The Cleveland Orchestra and the Zurich Opera are in talks about possible future collaborations. Franz Welser-Möst serves as music director for both groups, and he owes much of his international success to Zurich Opera’s director general, who has tirelessly promoted the sometimes controversial young conductor. “Welser-Möst has been considering using the orchestra pit at Severance Hall – as did Artur Rodzinski in the 1930s and Lake Erie Opera Theater in the 1960s – to present full-scale opera productions. It isn’t unreasonable that a production originating at the Zurich Opera – Pereira mentioned Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos and Capriccio and Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte as possibilities – could be adapted for the Severance Hall stage.”

“The composer-critic Deems Taylor called the City Center Opera ‘democracy in action, a democracy realizing the work of the individual.’ Tickets started at eighty-five cents—nine and a half dollars, in today’s currency—and topped out at $2.20. These days, you have to pay quite a bit more to get through the doors of what LaGuardia dubbed ‘the people’s opera company.’ Tickets go up to a hundred and twenty dollars, which is more than most orchestra seats for ‘Spamalot.’ Don’t blame City Opera for falling short of its populist mission…”

Montreal Symphony musicians have approved a new contract, ending their strike, begun last May. “On Monday, the musicians voted 96 per cent in favour of a tentative agreement reached this weekend. They had been without a contract since Aug. 31, 2003. The new seven-year deal is retroactive and will give the players an 18.23 per cent salary increase over the next seven years, as well as improved premiums and pension benefits. It expires in 2010.”

“The dismembering of Scotland’s national opera company ranged across the organisation, and included the sacking of the entire chorus. No department was spared. Except the 53-strong orchestra.” So now what are the musicians supposed to do?

South Florida’s Renaissance Chamber Orchestra appears on the versge of going out of business. “With no advance warning, the ensemble failed to show up for its season-opening concert Sunday afternoon at the Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale, leaving about two dozen puzzled audience members standing outside.”

Australian Opera’s budget uncertainty has come out of limbo. “The State Government has agreed to make $225,000 available to the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra, to satisfy a condition for the Federal Government to provide funding, too. Until Friday, Opera Australia had been unable to finalise contracts with 2007 season performers because of the budgeting uncertainties.”

Oldies bands are big on the road, selling out arenas and fairs. “The concert box office continues to be dominated by white guys old enough to be grandfathers. With all those seats filled, you’d think that all these wizened rockers must be moving boatloads of CDs, too. But the sales figures tell a different story.”

There’s a tentative deal, say negotiators. Museums have been on strike since May. “Money was a key issue, with no agreement even on the musician’s current status. The players say they work 38 hours a week for a base salary of $61,000, and then have to spend about a quarter of their income on maintaining and insuring their instruments. Management says the average annual salary is $75,000 for a 20 hour week.”

It’s not often that an American music critic takes dead aim at the music director of the local orchestra. “Imagine, then, the horror felt by many people in Cleveland, Ohio, when Donald Rosenberg, critic of The Plain Dealer and one of North American’s most respected music journalists, came back from the Cleveland Orchestra’s recent west coast tour with an extremely blunt assessment of itsAustrian music director, Franz Welser-Möst. Three years into the conductor’s tenure, wrote Rosenberg, Welser-Möst’s interpretations were ‘vacant’; he was a conductor of ‘high proficiency and low inspiration’.”