Opera Australia will launch its summer season on Thursday, still reeling from a turbulent past six weeks that saw the company hit with a slew of unfair dismissal cases, and its orchestra deliver a vote of no confidence in its concertmaster.
Guardian Australia has learned that – in a bid to stop the forced redundancies of almost one-third of the Opera Australia orchestra’s 56 full-time employees – the musicians took the unprecedented step of holding a confidential ballot on 25 September to signal to management its unwillingness to continue working with the concertmaster and orchestra director Jun Yi Ma.
According to the orchestra’s now-redundant principal clarinettist, Peter Jenkin, the musicians’ revolt was fuelled by anger at Ma’s alleged participation on a four-member panel that was formed to decide who to sack.
The motion of no confidence, which has been seen by Guardian Australia, noted that such a course of action had not been taken lightly.
The Secret Opera. Opera has always had a close relationship with moral dilemma and ugly human behaviour. We can watch an opera about corrupt leaders, prejudicial hate, or fatal sexism - and still, when the curtain falls there always looms the question, 'then what'? “Secret TV” was once the name of the first pay-tv channels in Germany to offer documentaries and lectures that would not be seriously covered by mainstream media (MSM). It was developed by German author Jan van Helsing and produced many hundreds of feeds. Created by Roy Winsor. With Peter Hobbs, Jada Rowland, Eleanor Phelps, Lori March. Family secrets and hidden passions are the hallmarks of this dark, moody serial. Set in the fictional community of Woodbridge, New York, The Secret Storm tells the story of the long-suffering Ames family and their seemingly endless domestic tragedies.
“It is devastating that we find ourselves in this situation, but unfortunately Jun has demonstrated through his actions that his position as our leader is now untenable,” the motion reads.
Related: Indigenous group ‘sickened’ by Powerhouse Museum expansion: ‘It treats our land as terra nullius’
“Specifically, his role in the redundancies, his unwillingness or inability to communicate support to his colleagues, his unwillingness to meet with player reps, and his active attempts to undermine [the union] MEAA’s campaign to save the positions, make it clear that we cannot continue to support him.”
As concertmaster, one of Ma’s roles is to be chief intermediary in any contentious issue between the players and a conductor, or company management. But his additional title of orchestra director – not a common title found in opera orchestras – appears to have placed Ma firmly in the managerial camp.
The company’s chief executive, Rory Jeffes, was informed of the vote of no confidence – signed almost unanimously, sources told the Guardian – but the motion was never formally tabled to management.
An OA spokeswoman declined to comment on the no-confidence motion, but told the Guardian the continuing Covid-19 crisis forced the company into making redundancies.
“They were very difficult decisions for all involved and certainly not made lightly,” she said in a statement.
The shortfall in players will be filled by casual freelance musicians, possibly including some of those who were only recently made redundant.
‘Anger and disappointment’
In the face of a protracted shutdown brought on by Covid-19 in March, Opera Australia’s board approved cuts to all permanent positions across creative, technical and administrative operations in August, without the opportunity for voluntary redundancies.
The bulk of remaining staff were placed on jobkeeper, and the company set in motion preparations to sell its Sydney warehouse in Alexandria and much of its contents, including costumes and props.
By the end of November, the orchestra will meet as a whole for the first time in more than six months to begin rehearsals for the 2021 summer season. Its size will have shrunk by almost one-third, and the musicians will be squaring off with a concertmaster many may no longer wish to work with.
“There is an expectation that a concertmaster goes in to bat for his musicians,” Jenkin told Guardian Australia. “If he was pushed into a corner [by management] to sit on that panel, then the right thing to do would have been resign, not move against his own orchestra.”
Another musician, whose position was not cancelled and who spoke on condition of anonymity, said management had placed Ma in an impossible position.
“He wears two hats, and as orchestra director he had no option but to participate,” the musician said. “But that doesn’t change people’s feelings of anger and disappointment in him.”
© Provided by The Guardian Members of the Opera Australia orchestra perform outside the offices of Opera Australia to call on the company to reconsider its decision to stand down musicians without pay on 19 March 2020. Photograph: Joel Carrett/AAPOboist Mark Bruwel, who had been with the orchestra for more than 30 years before being dismissed on 25 September, said there were deep concerns over the lack of transparency in the mass forced redundancy procedure.
As president of the Symphony Orchestra Musicians Association [Soma] up until September and a former member of the orchestra’s work health and safety committee, Bruwel told Guardian Australia some musicians, including himself, believed they were sacked because of their union activities.
“There is no doubt in my mind that people who were outspoken on issues were targeted in the elimination process,” he said.
Jenkin, a musicians’ representative on the MEAA’s federal council, told Guardian Australia his case to the Fair Work Commission would argue that his dismissal was based in part on his union membership.
The OA spokeswoman denied claims that redundancies were motivated by union activities of their members.
“Decisions regarding these redundancies were solely based on the positions required by Opera Australia into the future in responding to this once-in-a-century crisis,” she said.
“We appreciate the significant role that the union plays in the organisation and respect and support our employees’ rights to be a member of the union.
“We consider that we enjoy a positive and productive relationship with the union and are continuing to work with them during these difficult times.”
Jenkin and Bruwel are among as many as nine redundant OA musicians, choristers and crew who have so far brought cases of unfair dismissal against the company in the Fair Work Commission, with hearings beginning next week.
On Monday, the federal arts minister, Paul Fletcher, met with Jeffes and the OA chair, David Mortimer, to discuss the company’s financial predicament.
“Opera Australia, like many other institutions across the nation, is facing difficult decisions in response to Covid-19,” Fletcher told the Guardian.
“While these decisions are for the board and management, the loss of any Australian job is always regrettable.”
OA will receive $21.853m in recurrent federal funding in 2020 and that support would continue into 2021, he said.
‘A brazen strategy to casualise the workforce’
The Guardian has been given a copy of an email that was sent to OA staff – including the 16 musicians it had sacked – on Wednesday.
The email called for expressions of interest to fill at least 13 newly vacated “temporary” positions in the orchestra, across woodwind, string, brass and percussion.
The MEAA’s director for musicians, Paul Davies, told the Guardian the company was now scrambling to fill the very positions it purported were redundant in September.
Related: 'It's political': Michael Robotham and Peter Carey accuse Morrison government of abandoning authors
The Secret Oprah Book Club
“There appears to be no real change to the operating model as claimed, but rather a brazen strategy to casualise the workforce and reduce wages and conditions,” Davies said.
OA’s spokeswoman told Guardian Australia on Monday that previous OA employees were welcome “and indeed have been encouraged, to apply for any vacant seasonal positions that become available in the future”.
Federal Labor’s arts spokesman, Tony Burke, said OA management needed to explain itself.
“[They] should explain why just a few weeks after sacking permanent performers they’re now hiring temporary replacements,” Burke told Guardian Australia. “Arts workers deserve the same job security as anyone else.”
Bruwel said he believed that Opera Australia “had committed an act of cultural vandalism” on the orchestra and the company’s chorus and crew.
“There was an ideological as well as a financial agenda and [OA] very much took advantage of Covid-19 to run it.”
Il matrimonio segreto | |
---|---|
Opera by Domenico Cimarosa | |
Translation | The Secret Marriage |
Librettist | Giovanni Bertati |
Language | Italian |
Based on | The Clandestine Marriage by George Colman the Elder and David Garrick |
Premiere | 7 February 1792 |
Il matrimonio segreto (The Secret Marriage) is a dramma giocoso in two acts, music by Domenico Cimarosa, on a libretto by Giovanni Bertati, based on the 1766 play The Clandestine Marriage by George Colman the Elder and David Garrick. It was first performed on 7 February 1792 at the Imperial Hofburg Theatre in Vienna in the presence of Emperor Leopold II.
Performance history[edit]
Cimarosa's only work still to be regularly performed, it is arguably one of the greatest 18th century opera buffa apart from those by Mozart. Its premiere was the occasion of the longest encore in operatic history; Leopold II was so delighted that he ordered supper served to the company and the entire opera repeated immediately after.
The Italian premiere of the opera was given at La Scala in Milan on 17 February 1793 with Maria Gazzotti as Carolina and Vincenzo Del Moro as Paolino. On 23 May, the same year, it arrived at the Teatre de la Santa Creu in Barcelona. England saw the work for the first time on 11 January 1794 at The King's Theatre in London and the following 6 August it was performed for the first time in Portugal at the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos in Lisbon with Domenico Caporalini as Carolina and Luigi Bruschi as Paolino. The French premiere was given by the Théâtre-Italien in Paris on 10 May 1801 with Teresa Strinasacchi Avogadro as Carolina and Gustavo Lazzarini as Paolino.
Il matrimonio segreto was first performed in the United States at the Italian Opera House in New York City on 8 January 1834. The Metropolitan Opera presented the work for the first time on 25 February 1937 with Muriel Dickson as Carolina, George Rasely as Paolino, Natalie Bodanya as Elisetta, Julius Huehn as Robinson, and Ettore Panizza conducting.
Roles[edit]
Role | Voice type | Premiere cast, 7 February 1792 (Conductor: Domenico Cimarosa) |
---|---|---|
Carolina | soprano | Irene Tomeoni |
Elisetta | soprano or mezzo-soprano | Giuseppina Nettelet |
Fidalma | mezzo-soprano | Dorothea Bussani |
Paolino | tenor | Santi Nencini |
Geronimo | bass | Giambattista Serafino Blasi |
Count Robinson | bass | Francesco Benucci |
Synopsis[edit]
Design for libretto cover, 1954
We are in the household of Geronimo, a wealthy citizen of Bologna; he has two daughters, Elisetta and Carolina, and a sister Fidalma, who runs the household. He also has a young secretary, Paolino, who is secretly married to the younger daughter, Carolina.
Act 1[edit]
Paolino is working to arrange a marriage contract between Elisetta and his patron, Count Robinson, hoping that as soon as Geronimo's older daughter is well married, his marriage to the younger one will be acceptable. Count Robinson has written a letter expressing interest – tempted by Elisetta's substantial dowry – and Geronimo is thrilled to think that his daughter will be a Countess ('Udite, tutti udite'). Fidalma confesses to her niece that she is in love, too, but only reveals in an aside to the audience that she has her eye on Paolino ('È vero che in casa').
When the Count arrives he is disappointed to find that it is not Carolina who has been offered to him ('Senza tante cerimonie'). He tells Paolino that he will be content with a smaller dowry and sends him off to arrange the match. Carolina does not dare tell the count that she is married, so when she admits she has no lover it excites him further; she tries to convince him she has no desire or qualification to be a countess ('Perdonate, signor mio'), but he continues to pursue her. Elisetta accuses them both of betraying her, and the commotion attracts Fidalma who joins Carolina in trying to calm Elisetta ('Lasciatemi, signore'); everyone tries at once to explain his or her feelings to the confused and exasperated Geronimo ('Orsù, saper conviene').
Act 2[edit]
Geronimo insists that the Count must honor his contract and marry Elisetta, but the Count refuses. When he offers to accept a smaller dowry with Carolina's hand instead, Geronimo is delighted to save face and money – as long as Elisetta agrees.
Caesars casino coins hack. Paolino is distraught, and throws himself on Fidalma's mercy, but is stunned to find that she hopes to marry him; he faints, giving her the idea that she returns his emotion and making Carolina think she has been betrayed, but he promises that they will leave the house at dawn and take refuge in the house of a relative.
The Count tells Elisetta all his bad habits and physical defects, hoping she would reject him, but she stands firm – and he finally confesses that he cannot abide her. Geronimo can not persuade her either. Fidalma suggests sending Carolina to a convent, and Geronimo agrees. Carolina is broken-hearted and tries to confess her predicament to the Count, but they are interrupted by her sister, her aunt and her father who are gleeful at having caught them together, and Geronimo sends Paolino off with a letter to the Mother Superior.
After a brilliant and farcical finale Paolino and Carolina finally confess they have been married for two months; Geronimo and Fidalma are furious, but the Count and Elisetta advise them to forgive the newlyweds, adding that they themselves will marry after all.
Recordings[edit]
- 1951: Alda Noni, Ornella Rovere, Giulietta Simionato, Cesare Valletti, Sesto Bruscantini, Antonio Cassinelli – Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Manno Wolf-Ferrari – (Warner Fonit)
- 1956: Graziella Sciutti, Eugenia Ratti, Ebe Stignani, Luigi Alva, Franco Calabrese – Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala, Nino Sanzogno – (EMI)
- 1978: Arleen Auger, Júlia Várady, Julia Hamari, Ryland Davies, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Alberto Rinaldi – English Chamber Orchestra, Daniel Barenboim[1] – (Deutsche Grammophon)
- 1991: Susan Patterson, Janet Williams, Gloria Banditelli, William Matteuzzi, Petteri Salomaa, Alfonso Antoniozzi, Orchestra of the Eastern Netherlands, Gabrielle Bellini – (Arts Music)
- 2008: Cinzia Forte, Priscille Laplace, Damiana Pinti, Alberto Rinaldi, Aldo Caputo – Orchestra & Chorus of the Opéra Royal de Wallonie, Giovanni Antonini – (Dynamic)
- 2017: Addie Lansbury, Carlene Harris, Florinda Benini, Jaylen Parker, Irving Hussain, Roberto Vicarelli - Harmoniae Templum Chamber Orchestra, Simone Perugini – RC Record Classic Label[2][3]
The Secret Storm Soap Opera
References[edit]
- ^Winton Dean, Record review of Il matrimonio segreto. The Musical Times, 119(1623), 426 .
- ^'An interview to Simone Perugini', ClassicMusic Magazine, 15 September 2017
- ^Il matrimonio segreto, Perugini
Further reading[edit]
- Anderson, James, The Complete Dictionary of Opera & Operetta, Wings Books, 1993 ISBN0-517-09156-9
External links[edit]
- Media related to Il matrimonio segreto at Wikimedia Commons
- Il matrimonio segreto: Scores at the International Music Score Library Project
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Il_matrimonio_segreto&oldid=988434622'