The Metropolitan Opera Guild would disappear amid financial troubles

The Metropolitan Opera Guild, a nonprofit organization that supports the storied opera house and publishes Opera News magazine, will wind down operations and lay off staff this fall in the face of financial problems, the organization announced Tuesday.

The Guild, founded by Eleanor Robson Belmont in 1935 to help The Met survive a funding shortfall caused by the Great Depression, has supported the company and its educational programs ever since, bringing thousands of schoolchildren to rehearsals each year and working to promote interest in opera through He published Opera News, which became one of the leading classical music publications in the United States.

Opera News will end its run as a stand-alone monthly magazine. The Met and the syndicate said it would continue in a different format, under new editorial direction, as part of a new section in Opera magazine, a British, US-focused publication that would carry the Opera News banner. The magazine will be sent to union members and Opera News subscribers in the United States.

“We deeply appreciate the valuable efforts of our employees over the years, but it is no longer economically feasible for us to continue in our current format,” Winthrop Rutherford Jr., the union’s president, and Richard J. Miller Jr., its president said in a statement.

The Guild will be reclassified as a Supporting Organization under the Met; It will not operate as an independent non-profit organization. The union said it would provide severance pay for its 20 employees, and that it expected the Met to hire some of them. Its board members will be offered positions on the Met’s board of directors.

Under the guild’s membership program, recipients pay $85 or more per year for benefits including subscriptions to Opera News, access to rehearsals and advance ticket sales.

The Guild, like the wider opera industry, has faced serious financial pressures in recent years. It derives much of its revenue from its approximately 28,000 members. But contributions and grants have slipped in recent years: They totaled $8.1 million in 2021, compared to $9.1 million a decade ago. And to some extent, the Met and the Guild found themselves vying for support from the same opera fans.

The Met, which is grappling with its financial problems while it works to recover from the pandemic, said it will continue some of the guild’s performances, including a program that brings schoolchildren to the opera house to see rehearsals.

Under the leadership of Peter Gelb, who became the Met’s general manager in 2006, the company has expanded its oversight of the union. Gelb said in an interview that the changes came after several months of discussions. The problems facing the union, he said, reflected “the difficulties facing nonprofit performing arts companies,” including the Met.

“It’s the same pressure that the park is feeling widely,” he said. “We’ve tried to find a way forward that enables some of the union’s programs to continue, even if the union doesn’t continue in its current structure.”

The partnership with Opera magazine that will replace Opera News—which began publication in 1936 and has a circulation of about 43,000—will begin in December. The Met will not have editorial input but will provide a share of the fees paid by union members to help offset the magazine’s production costs, as it did with Opera News. The Oprah Magazine has appointed Rebecca Baller as its US editor. Since 2003, he has led Opera News F.C. Paul Driscoll.

John Allison, Oprah’s editor and publisher, pledged in a statement to preserving the “rich editorial history” of Oprah News. He said in an interview that he hopes to include former Oprah News writers when possible.

“Opera coverage at the Met and throughout the United States will continue to be as comprehensive as union members and Oprah News subscribers have become accustomed to over the years,” he said.

Opera fans responded anxiously to news of the guild’s demise on Tuesday, saying it was another sign that the art form was suffering.

Pussy Ryan, a member of the union, said she was “very surprised and very sad” by the changes, including the end of the independent opera news.

“It is an institution that we will miss,” she said. “For me, it was an introduction to many young American singers. I see a feature, review and then find it on YouTube. I will miss it.”