Peaceful Ending

The conflict went right down to the final curtain, as it tends to do in opera. Just before the New Year's Eve performance of Tosca last week, the members of the Metropolitan Opera orchestra voted 72-5 to accept a new contract proposal given them only hours before. If they had voted no and struck, the result could have been disastrous for the financially plagued Met (TIME, Dec. 29). The musicians, who were paid a minimum of $385 a week, had asked for a one-year 12% pay increase; they accepted an 11 % raise spread over this season and next. The musicians also agreed to a seven-week decrease in guaranteed work from 51 weeks a year to 44, but won a Met agreement to pay hefty unemployment benefits if necessary during all "lost" weeks. The ill will between labor and management that was so prevalent during the latter days of the Rudolf Bing regime at the Met was said to be almost nonexistent this time. That may have been the greatest gain of all.

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