The Met Operaâs Musicians, Unpaid Since April, Are Struggling
About 40 percent of the players have left the New York area, and a tenth have retired. Now the Met is seeking long-term pay cuts, and offering them partial pay if they come to the bargaining table.
The musicians in the Metropolitan Operaâs orchestra, seen here at a rehearsal in 2017, have not been paid for nearly a year. Credit...Karsten Moran for The New York Times
Published March 15, 2021Updated March 17, 2021
As the months without a paycheck wore on, Joel Noyes, a 41-year-old cellist with the Metropolitan Opera, realized that in order to keep making his mortgage payments he would have to sell one of his most valuable possessions: his 19th-century Russian bow. He reluctantly switched back to the inferior one he had used as a child.