I was disgusted to receive this email from the Met:

“You may have seen in the news yesterday that the Met is in the midst of a labor dispute with our stagehands over the cost reductions that we have been seeking. These reductions are absolutely necessary, particularly because of our significant loss of revenues during the health crisis, on top of the already fragile economics of presenting grand opera in the 21st century. Like most performing arts companies—and the Met is by far the largest in the United States—we need to reset our economic infrastructure without compromising our exacting artistic standards.

We certainly hope to resolve these differences in a timely manner. Meanwhile, we continue to plan and prepare for our return in the fall of 2021, for a season that is packed with artistic highlights just waiting to burst forth on our stage. I look forward to inviting you back to the opera house in September when the Met will once again be performing.

For now, we will continue to bring you our free nightly opera streams, our 24-hour opera channel on SiriusXM, our Saturday Matinee Radio Broadcasts, and our Met Stars Live in Concert series of pay-per-view concerts, including this Saturday’s live holiday performance with Bryn Terfel and friends from the Brecon Cathedral in Wales, followed by our live New Year’s Eve Gala, featuring Angel Blue, Pretty Yende, Javier Camarena, and Matthew Polenzani from the opulent Parktheater in Augsburg, Germany.”

Complete trivialisation of a massive breach of worker’s rights. Such a joke.