Musicians and performers at the English National Opera (ENO) who have voted to strike said they were being used as “pawns” in a political game after proposed cuts led some to say they could be forced out of the profession altogether.
Union members at the ENO this week voted to take action in a dispute over planned cuts – under which 19 orchestra posts would be axed, all of the chorus, orchestra and music staff made redundant and re-employed for six months, cutting pay by 40%, and some employed on an ad hoc freelance basis only.
The staff will stop work on 1 February, on the opening night of the company’s production of The Handmaid’s Tale. If the strikes go ahead, the show is not expected to take place.
Glen Sheldon, the second violin of the orchestra and steward of the Musicians’ Union at the ENO,said many staff felt they had no choice but to strike over the organisation’s plans, which also include making Greater Manchester its new home.
He said the move had left many ENO musicians considering whether or not they would have to leave the industry entirely.
“I’m 58,” said Sheldon. “I’ve been in this business for 36 years. I’ve been at the ENO over 23 years, I’m having to look very carefully as to whether I continue in this business, and it’s not really looking like I can.”
Ronald Nairne, an ENO chorus member, said: “We went out and campaigned with management, we wrote letters to MPs, we appealed to the Arts Council, cross-parliamentary groups and the DCMS [Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport].
“We took it as far as it could go. And now they’ve decided on this business model.”
Sheldon said the musicians felt like “pawns” in a political game that had unfolded since the then culture secretary, Nadine Dorries, instructed Arts Council England to take £24m a year out of London in late 2022.
That was followed by ACE’s decision to remove all ENO’s funding and tell the 100-year-old institution it must move outside London if it wanted to be eligible for further grants. Since then its musical director, Martyn Brabbins, resigned in protest over job cuts.
Nairne said strikers also felt solidarity with others across the country staging stoppages, including junior doctors and rail workers.
“I wouldn’t want to draw any false equivalence, but people need to be able to afford to live and to do their jobs to match the rising cost of living,” he said.
“A lot of people are in difficulty now, and I think only certain tiers and certain companies and certain areas are being affected by it. The people who get to choose their pay packets seem to be OK all the time.”
Sheldon added: “We’re not talking about life and death, like a junior doctor or keeping the capital running like train drivers, [but] I absolutely feel it’s part of what’s going on.”
Nairne and Sheldon were speaking on behalf of the orchestra because all musicians have clauses in their contract prohibiting them from speaking to the press unless they have express permission.
One ENO musician who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the proposed cuts “would make it completely unviable for me to remain there … it would mean that I would lose my home – there is simply no way I could cover the shortfall”.
They added it was “incredibly galling that even at the very top of this profession in this truly world-class orchestra, it would be impossible to make ends meet … I’d actually be better off finding year-round work at the London living wage than what ENO are now offering.”
Another said: “I do not believe that those responsible for these cuts have any idea of the damage they will inflict on this company, the individuals affected, and the wider industry as a whole.”
The ENO said on Wednesday the dispute “could be best resolved around the negotiation table”.
It said that while it “respects trade union members’ right to industrial action as part of our ongoing negotiations”, it was “disappointed that it means audiences will miss out on an opportunity to experience the work and talent of the entire ENO company”.
Brabbins, who announced his resignation in October after the announcement of the cuts, said on Thursday he “fully supports” the orchestral musicians and chorus “in making what would, no doubt, have been a heartbreaking decision to go on strike”.
He added: “As a result of Arts Council England’s narrow-minded and negligent decision to push ENO out of London, these brilliant musicians face devastation to their livelihoods and untold stress to their families.
“When is an opera company not an opera company? When music is no longer at its heart.
“This is the tragic reality of where English National Opera will find itself, should it go ahead with proposed plans to make deep and sweeping cuts to musicians’ contracts.”
ENO’s previous musical differences
The vote is the first time Musicians’ Union members have chosen to strike since 1980, and ENO musicians last struck 10 years before that.
In 1970, just after the company hadmoved from Sadler’s Wells to the Coliseum in London, workers demanded working conditions that were in line with the Royal Opera House – where staff had predictable working patterns and limited night work.
As the September production of Carmen was about to begin, stage staff stopped work. The show proceeded with only a skeleton crew and – according to Susie Gilbert’s history of the ENO, Opera for Everybody – that created a fractious relationship between staff, unions and management which resulted in another strike in 1974. An Arts Council committee report into the chaos found management was inexperienced at handling “large operations” and was generally “weak”.
There have been more recent ruptures. In 2002, the ENO’s then artistic director, Nicholas Payne, resigned amid “talks of redundancies” and accusations of “artistic misjudgment”.
The following year there was another strike over redundancies, which were no longer rumours, halting a production of Berlioz’s The Trojans: the Capture of Troy, costing the ENO a reported £50,000 in box office takings.
During the dispute, choristers stood outside the Arts Council offices and sang the Chorus of Hebrew Slaves from Verdi’s Nabucco and Defend Our Homes and Children from Khovanshchina, the Russian tragedy they were rehearsing when news of the redundancies broke.
Sir Gerry Robinson, who was reorganising the Arts Council by slashing 50% of its staff at the time, reportedly told them it was “the most beautiful protest” he had ever heard.
