{"id":120148,"date":"2026-02-02T16:18:06","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T16:18:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/120148\/"},"modified":"2026-02-02T16:18:06","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T16:18:06","slug":"the-metropolitan-opera-house-turns-to-layoffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/120148\/","title":{"rendered":"The Metropolitan Opera House turns to layoffs"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Metropolitan Opera House<\/a> is home to an array of artists and artistic forms. Singers, conductors, designers and dancers alike call the opera house a living space for creatives. Despite the liveliness of the institution, creativity is not free and financial struggles have changed the once living home for art.<\/p>\n

In 2024, the Met had $511,777 in total assets<\/a>, down from its 2023 total assets of $552,398. Its net change in assets was negative $39,558 in 2024; in 2023, that number was negative $14,444.<\/p>\n

Almost every category in its consolidated balance sheets show a decline; the few categories that are more stable, or not in complete decline, are fundraising expenses and acquisition of property and equipment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese staff reductions, combined with some temporary salary reductions and other cost-cutting measures, will reduce the Met\u2019s expenses by $15m for the remaining six months of the Met\u2019s fiscal year, and by another $25m in the Met\u2019s following fiscal year,\u201d the Met told the Guardian<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Lagging financial indicators and dire budget alignments made it so it was only a matter of time before they had to turn to layoffs and pay cuts.<\/p>\n

Although artists view and treat the Met as a living community, the COVID-19 pandemic<\/a> caused major financial setbacks and the Met has yet to recover despite support.<\/p>\n

However, the most vulnerable members inside the institution will be spared from life-altering pay cuts as they reduce the salaries of executives making over $150,000 by 4% to 15%, and the 22 eliminated positions<\/a> were administrators. Tough decisions might be temporary despite the doom and gloom.<\/p>\n

A $200 million deal<\/a> made with Saudi Arabia might give the opera house the needed subsidies while training aspiring artists from another part of the world.<\/p>\n

The deal requires that for three weeks, every winter the Met\u2019s company would perform at the new Royal Diriyah Opera House set to open in 2028.<\/p>\n

Peter Gelb, general manager at the Met, has shared some optimism for the deal but recognizes money won\u2019t come quickly,<\/p>\n

\u201cI understand the Saudis have had to recalibrate their budgets because of their own economic concerns,\u201d Gelb told The New York Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been assured that it\u2019s going to go forward. But we have been waiting for some time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Metropolitan Opera House is home to an array of artists and artistic forms. Singers, conductors, designers and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120149,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-120148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}