As the coronavirus shutdown continues, organizations in the classical-music world are now beginning to carry out temporary layoffs or furloughs of their musicians and staff. Last night I heard from the president of the Oregon Symphony that the orchestra was laying off its players and half of its staff — a hundred people in total. It has been reported that the Winnipeg Symphony has laid off more than a hundred workers. Musicians from Opera Australia are protesting a similar decision by the administration. And today the Metropolitan Opera announced the cancellation of the remainder of its season and the furloughing of its full-time union employees, orchestral players included — meaning that they will not be paid past March but that they will continue to receive health benefits. Many more announcements of this kind will follow in coming days. The layoffs mean that musicians and staff can file for unemployment. But there will be questions, to put it mildly, about whether such drastic measures are necessary, particularly in the case of the bigger-budgeted organizations. The assiduously well-informed Zach Finkelstein will have a new story soon on his blog. Zach has pointed out that the question in many cases will not be about the hard economic reality — a seemingly large budget can be burned through very quickly — but about communication and understanding.
It is hard not to feel a certain terror for the future of the arts. I certainly have never lived through anything like this.
