![]() The MN Opera premiered the Pulitzer prize-winning Silent Night in 2012 and received widespread praise for The Manchurian Candidate and The Shining. The musicians’ contributions to the orchestra played a role in the celebrated status of the MN Opera. The Musicians of the Minnesota Opera Orchestra have been a part of the MN Opera for over 60 years. To shore up its position, the MN Opera received funds from a Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG), a federally funded program. This loss resulted from a nearly two-thirds decline in revenue from the previous fiscal year. Paul and instead move them to the Luminary Arts Center, a smaller venue that focuses on art education.Īccording to IRS data, the MN Opera lost over $4.4 million due to ending production. ![]() Specifically, MN Opera management plans to remove two of their productions set to take place at the Ordway Center for performing arts in St. He wrote, “as we all have experienced, that desire to return to familiar patterns conflicts with the fact that the world itself has changed, and we must change with it.” However, according to musicians, he does not cite a lack of interest or financial issues as influencing the decisions to cut production schedules. In a letter addressing Opera patrons, president Ryan Taylor cited the pandemic as a major factor driving the attacks on opera musicians. Since then, they have had several performances, completing their 2021-2022 season. Management for the Minnesota Opera is attempting to justify their attempt to slash work opportunities and pay, claiming they are opposed to agreements that require them to “use the orchestra in the same manner as it did before the COVID pandemic.” At the beginning of the emergency declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, the MN Opera decided to cancel all remaining productions in the 2019-2020 schedule, resuming production in March 2021. Never well funded, institutions like the MN Opera have been hammered by the COVID pandemic. Orchestras, opera companies, museums and other critical cultural institutions rely almost exclusively on the largess of wealthy donors rather than public funds. Plans to remove permanent employment status for the musicians of the MN Opera mirror the efforts of music and theater companies across the United States in recent years to replace their staff with lower-paid temporary workers as part of a broader attack on art and culture. MNOP Orchestra onstage at the Ordway performing Strauss' “Elektra” in 2019 (Musicans of the Minnesota Opera Orchestra) Musicians argue that this also will hurt the reputation of the MN Opera, whose orchestra musicians have been a critical part of achieving the opera’s renowned status. This threatens the livelihoods of musicians, whose work depends upon regular productions and their permanent employment as musicians as part of the MN Opera. Management is attempting to save money by replacing the MN Opera Orchestra musicians with pickup musicians, a commonly used cost-cutting measure in the arts. ![]() Musicians are determined to oppose planned cuts to the schedule of shows and productions for the 2022-2023 season onward that will lead to a reduction of both performances and pay by over 40 percent. They continue to play despite the strike vote, currently performing Daughter of the Regiment, which opened on February 4 at the Ordway Center for performing arts in St. The musicians have been working without a contract for over half a year. The strike vote took place January 27, over one month after the Musicians of the Minnesota Opera Orchestra reported that management sent a letter describing plans to cut much of the orchestra’s work, leading to demands by musicians to have access to basic financial records and artistic programs. The strike vote followed six months of negotiations between the American Federation of Musicians Local 30-73 and Minnesota Opera management. Minnesota Opera Orchestra musicians are continuing to perform after voting overwhelmingly to strike the last week of January.
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