The Met offers a tradeoff The Met offers a tradeoff

The catch: Employees would have to agree to a 30 percent cut in pay, half of which would be restored once the Met’s box office returned to pre-pandemic levels.

on November 20, 2020 at 6:27 PM
Hoarders Hoarders

“Gelb said the Ring probably will return in five or six years…”

on May 14, 2019 at 11:20 AM
Suit yourself Suit yourself

La Cieca just received a package of pdf files the sender says is a copy of James Levine‘s lawsuit against the Met.

on March 16, 2018 at 11:53 AM
Geh such dir die Stars vom vergangenen Jahr! Geh such dir die Stars vom vergangenen Jahr!

Tristan has been the season-launching opera three times before now, but good luck finding someone to provide a firsthand account of the last time.

on September 23, 2016 at 3:20 AM
The Metropolitan Opera’s 2016-2017 season! The Metropolitan Opera’s 2016-2017 season!

The Met’s 2016-2017 season opens on September 26 with a new production of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle.

on February 17, 2016 at 12:00 PM
The toothless tiger rules the restless jungle The toothless tiger rules the restless jungle

It’s up to you, cher public, to try to decide for yourself what, if anything, this bizarre story in the New York Times means.

on February 01, 2016 at 11:26 PM
Let the shortfall! When it crumbles we will stand tall, face it all together Let the shortfall! When it crumbles we will stand tall, face it all together

“In a fiscal year that challenged the nation’s largest performing arts organization to find a more sustainable financial model for the future, the Metropolitan Opera incurred an estimated $22 million budget shortfall for the 2013-14 season.”

on November 20, 2014 at 9:30 PM
The seven percent solution The seven percent solution

You figured it out a fortnight ago, cher public.

on November 12, 2014 at 11:49 PM
Fun with graphs Fun with graphs

La Cieca has come into possession of an interesting presentation, with fonts and everything, from Local 802, American Federation of Musicians, and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, outlining their solution for the current financial crisis at the Metropolitan Opera.

on July 25, 2014 at 10:00 PM
Séance on a partly cloudy afternoon Séance on a partly cloudy afternoon

Your conduit to the spirit world, La Cieca, isn’t feeling quite as clairvoyante as usual today, cher public, so she’s going to ask your help in predicting what will happen in the course of the Met’s current labor negotiations.

on July 24, 2014 at 4:11 PM
War zone War zone

Alan Gordon, embedded journalist, reports from inside the first AGMA/Met negotiation session.

on May 06, 2014 at 3:31 PM
Rumors addressed Rumors addressed

Peter Gelb sent out an email to the “Public Bulletin Board” earlier today, noting that “inaccurate rumors [are] flying around” and attempting to clarify the Met’s position on upcoming union negotiations.

on May 03, 2014 at 10:36 PM
The Met: What is to be done? The Met: What is to be done?

Coming as Peter Gelb did from the music industry, opera lovers hoped that he would display a more distinctive knack for casting and an improved talent pipeline than Joe Volpe offered during the waning years of his tenure.

on April 15, 2014 at 1:24 AM
Spring breakers Spring breakers

Alan Gordon has mass emailed AGAM again, and La Cieca’s got a copy of the missive.

on March 28, 2014 at 10:22 PM
The Met: Can it be saved? The Met: Can it be saved?

Short answer: yes. But let’s begin by dismissing the a blatant canard. One thing that the Metropolitan Opera does not need to do is to scale back the number of performances in a season.

on March 27, 2014 at 8:00 AM
The Met: what’s really wrong? The Met: what’s really wrong?

The Met’s financial challenges are not meteorological, demographic, or cyclical; they are structural.

on March 18, 2014 at 9:17 AM
Fog lifts over channel Fog lifts over channel

“When you read, and credit, the more feverish musings of the internet chatterati, there is some kind of British invasion storming the bastions of American opera.”

on March 16, 2014 at 2:01 PM
Transparency Transparency

Opera Teen (pictured, second from left) is not kidding us: he had an interview with Peter Gelb.

on November 26, 2012 at 10:52 PM
Encouraging young things to grow Encouraging young things to grow

La Cieca has reviewed the parterre circulation numbers and she is delighted and not a little perplexed to note that the day of the Great Opera News Kerfuffle provided our site with the highest number of pageviews in history.

on May 27, 2012 at 12:00 PM
ENO is enough ENO is enough

The repertory for the upcoming season of the English National Opera (also known as “Peter Gelb‘s shopping list”) boasts the world premiere of a new opera by Philip Glass, The Perfect American, which imagines the last days of Walt Disney.

on April 24, 2012 at 2:07 PM

“After putting off for a week trying to make some sense of the horrific mess that is the Met’s new Faust, I’m finally just going to give up. There are some disasters that bear writing about as what you might call teaching opportunities: this season’s Don Giovanni, for example, as a cautionary tale about the…

on December 09, 2011 at 12:05 PM