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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

Apocalypse later

August 29, 2014 by Terry Teachout

In today’s Wall Street Journal “Sightings” column, I comment on the last-minute settlement of the Metropolitan Opera’s labor negotations. Here’s an excerpt.

* * *

The show goes on. Instead of locking out the Metropolitan Opera’s musicians and stagehands, Peter Gelb, the company’s general manager, agreed to a still-to-be-ratified settlement with their labor unions that will allow America’s biggest opera company to open its 2014-15 season on schedule.

Peter Gelb 2.jpgBeyond expressing relief that the Met didn’t have to scuttle its season, few observers have said much about the specifics of the settlement. Presumably this is because they were not officially released to the press. But they were widely leaked, and it isn’t hard to figure out how Mr. Gelb and the unions managed to get to yes. What’s more, it appears that the terms to which the general manager agreed stand in sharp contrast to what he’d argued was necessary to pull the Met out of its financial quicksand. The company, he claimed, was galloping toward the abyss, and only the most drastic reforms could save it. “No cuts means no Met,” he said….

I claim no inside knowledge of the Met, but it looks to me as though one of two things has happened: Either Mr. Gelb exaggerated the company’s plight as a negotiating tactic, or the unions ate his lunch….

* * *

Read the whole thing here.

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Terry Teachout

Terry Teachout, who writes this blog, is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. In addition to his Wall Street Journal drama column and his monthly essays … [Read More...]

About

About “About Last Night”

This is a blog about the arts in New York City and the rest of America, written by Terry Teachout. Terry is a critic, biographer, playwright, director, librettist, recovering musician, and inveterate blogger. In addition to theater, he writes here and elsewhere about all of the other arts--books, … [Read More...]

About My Plays and Opera Libretti

Billy and Me, my second play, received its world premiere on December 8 at Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach, Fla. Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, runs February 24-March 18 at Houston's Alley Theatre in a new production directed by me. For more information, go here. Satchmo … [Read More...]

About My Podcast

Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I are the panelists on “Three on the Aisle,” a bimonthly podcast from New York about theater in America. … [Read More...]

About My Books

My latest book is Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington, published in 2013 by Gotham Books in the U.S. and the Robson Press in England and now available in paperback. I have also written biographies of Louis Armstrong, George Balanchine, and H.L. Mencken, as well as a volume of my collected essays called A … [Read More...]

The Long Goodbye

To read all three installments of "The Long Goodbye," a multi-part posting about the experience of watching a parent die, go here. … [Read More...]

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