While there are similarities between the Lyric Opera musicians’ strike and the last baseball strike, there are significant points of departure as well.
The musicians want higher salaries, a desire common to all working people. Although the musicians don’t receive the rarefied salaries of baseball players, they clearly receive sums well above those of the average worker.
When the baseball players struck, they sought what they considered to be their fair share of substantially increased baseball revenues. The players knew how their demands would be met.
The Lyric, however, is in the midst of a climate of shrinking revenues, with grants from national, state and local sources on the decline. And with the top ticket price at $119 and the house always sold out, the Lyric can’t look to the box office for increased revenues. Do the musicians know how the Lyric would fund their salary demands?
Santayana said that “those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it,” and the musicians can learn from the baseball players’ actions.
There had been other baseball strikes before, but the last resulted in the cancellation of the World Series. With this single act, the game lost millions of fans that they’ve yet to regain.
As the musicians’ strike continues, it draws dangerously close to forcing the cancellation of at least a portion of the coming season. Were this to occur, it would severely damage, if not ruin, opera in Chicago. And once this rhythm of attendance is broken, regaining it would be difficult, if not impossible.
Simply put, in an age when many things compete for the entertainment dollar, people usually find that they can, in fact, live without what they’ve always taken as a “given.”
So the musicians are playing a dangerous game, testing new General Director William Mason. While I am confident he’d dislike canceling all or part of a season, I also believe he would be less willing to preside over the destruction of Lyric’s financial base, something the late Ardis Krainik worked diligently for 15 years to develop.
When employees seek salary increases without regard to how they will be paid for, they are being irresponsible. This is particularly true in the financially fragile arts community.
