BLIGHT AT THE
Out-of-work Met performers miss their audiences and
For the past two months of the coronavirus quarantine, Metropolitan Opera House singer Abigail Mitchell has used her small upper Manhattan apartment as a temporary studio space.
On most days, the soprano enters the bedroom — the area of her home that’s farthest from the neighbors — sits down at her keyboard, and runs through the obligatory scales before trying her vocal cords on new arias, or long songs featuring soloist parts.
But her practice sessions often feature a series of interludes. She must tend to her 10month-old son, Arthur, or switch off singing with her husband, a seasoned voice teacher who has transitioned to online lessons during the lockdown.
Mitchell, 35, a full-time Met chorus member, has embraced this new routine — but it’s a far cry from the electrifying frenzy of daylong rehearsals and nightly performances at the famed Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, which shuttered its doors in March due to the looming threat of COVID-19.
“We miss each other. I miss that rich choral, that big chorus sound. It’s not the same when you’re singing by yourself,” she said of performing alongside her colleagues — a close-knit family of 80 full-time basses, tenors, altos and sopranos and dozens of extras.
“Going from that intense, adrenaline-filled environment could have been a lot worse if I didn’t have my baby, this reason to get up and get going,” she said. “But it’s hard, and it’s scary to think how long it might be for the performing arts to come back.”
Hundreds of part-time and full-time singers, directors, dancers, musicians, stagehands and supportive staff members have been out of work for more than eight weeks because of the pandemic.
While the chorus is scheduled to resume rehearsals July 27 to prepare for the fall season, many members wonder whether that, too, will be postponed.
“I doubt that’s going to happen,” said Met chorus member Ned Hanlon, 36, of the Upper
West Side. “To stand in a group of people and sing for a group of people is exactly the kind of thing we can’t do right now.”
“Like with all [of those in] the performing arts, we were among the first to lose our jobs,” he added. “And we’re going to be some of the last people to get our jobs back.”
Gov. Cuomo issued a statewide ban March 12 on audiences of 500 people or more — meaning the show would not go on until further notice.
The decision came down just as Hanlon, a full-time bass who has been part of the Met family for six seasons, had been rehearsing with the other singers for the April 10 opening of “Simon Boccanegra,” a story of love and politics in 14th century Italy.
Chorus master Donald Palumbo interrupted their 10-minute water break to deliver the news.
“We had been performing and we were halfway through the musical when he told us to go home,” Hanlon said.
Less than two weeks later, the Met informed them that it must close for the rest of the season.
“Six months ago, I would’ve said you were crazy,” he said of the shutdown. “The Met doesn’t close — ever.”
Days after the announcement, the world-renowned opera house — the biggest performing arts organization in the United States and one of the wealthiest cultural institutions in the country — projected a staggering $60 million loss in