Posted on 01/09/2012 4:55:07 AM PST by jimbo123
It may be curtains for the New York City Opera.
The broke opera company, which is entangled in a bitter contract dispute with two unions, says it plans to lock out its musicians today, throwing the future of the company into doubt.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
musicians should claim for themselves the moniker of “professionals”. I remember being so disgusted with my mom, a writer, when she was thinking of jointing a union at work and speaking about “quittin’ time.” I said, no, a professional “quits” when the job is finished, not when the clock says it’s time.
What next? Surgeon’s unions? And will they quit the heart valve operation at “quittin’ time”? Revoltingly disgusting.
Viola! Perhaps the laid off union workers can get a job singing the praises of the Chevy Volt.
BRAVO! Electrifying Performance!
It’s all over when the Fat Lady doesn’t sing.
So the Obama voting NYC Opera marxists get a taste of their own redistributionist medicine. Nothing left for them to do now but join OWS.
That's too bad, well other than that both unions and opera...SUCK!
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Post Of The Day.
The Unions won’t be happy until all their members are out of jobs.
Maybe the Union Percussionists can join the drumming circles at their local OWS protest. But then they’d only play for 15 minutes then go on break.
I remember when Eastern Airlines employees were marching around celebrating their victory after they and their union destroyed the company with a well timed strike.
Most of them never got a job in the airline industry again because other airlines were smart enough not to hire anyone who had already proved where their loyalty was.
But in their minds they won. They proved to the world that if a union wanted to it could destroy an airline. You would think they would learn.
That said, the New York State Theatre, in which NYCO resides, truly sucks and always has. It was not built to be an opera house, but a ballet theatre. The acoustics are awful in spite of the many attempts to improve them.
Beverly Sills made a huge success of NYCO as general manager in the 1980s when she stepped away from the avant garde and concentrated on the standard operatic repertoire plus adding splashy, large-scale American musicals to the seasons. Houses were filled at well over 90% during her tenure. When she retired, the usual esoteric homosexuals stepped in and staged productions that nobody wanted to see with singers that nobody wanted to hear.
It seems like NYCO has had an ongoing problem with the unions, especially the orchestra, for as long as I can remember. The NYCO orchestra used to complain that they were not paid as well as, say, the San Francisco Opera orchestra. The response was generally that they didn't play as well as San Francisco.
NYCO has not had a high profile general manager or music director since Sills retired. They have gone through a series of no-names and audiences have stayed home. This is no surprise.
This post wins the most pathetic attempt at humor award for today. Maybe it wouldn't be so funny to you if whaterver form of music you listen to was threatened by unions.
thought you might want this for the ping list
Let the NYC liberals support it.
I'm sure Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Etta James etc have had their run-ins with union thugs.
And cello too!
OOOps I thought this thread was about Moochelle My Belle
That’s the Metropolitan Opera. The City Opera used to have younger sopranos, who were slimmer.
No Renee Fleming comments here, either.
If you're a fan of the Big Band era, you can thank the musician's union for playing a major role in killing the big bands. In 1942, the instrumentalists went on strike and refused to make recordings. A Visit From St. Nicholas, the perennially popular Christmas classic by Waring's Pennsylvanians was very nearly a casualty--the recording was finished about a day or so before the walkout began.
The strike lasted more than a year. Meanwhile, the music industry continued to churn out hits, using recordings of live performances or unique choral arrangements which didn't require instrumentalists. Frank Sinatra's Oh, What a Beautiful Morning" and People Will Say We're In Love by Bing Crosby and Trudy Irwin, both from 1943, are examples of songs that scored despite the strike.
When the strike was finally settled, many instrumentalists found themselves out of a career because the record-buying public's tastes had changed. Vocalists and small combos were now in vogue, and the big bands were now passé.
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