New York City’s Metropolitan Opera has announced a round of layoffs, pay cuts, and program reductions amid fiscal pressures born from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which significantly impacted the performing arts on a global scale. 

As reported by the New York Times, 22 layoffs have been made among the company’s 284 administrative staff, and other cuts include salary reductions from 4% to 15% for 35 executives earning more than $150,000. 

The salary cuts also affect senior figures at the organization, including Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin and General Manager Peter Gelb.

Additionally, the Met Opera is reducing next season’s productions from 18 to 17, with a further postponement of a planned staging of Mussorgsky’s 19th-century opera Khovanshchina. Before the pandemic, the Met had programmed about 25 productions per season.

Gelb told NYT that employees at the Met have been informed that their full pay would be restored by August 2027, or sooner if the company’s financial situation improves.

“These staff reductions, combined with some temporary salary reductions and other cost-cutting measures, will reduce the Met’s expenses by $15m for the remaining six months of the Met’s fiscal year, and by another $25m in the Met’s following fiscal year,” a Met Opera representative told the Guardian. 

“The cuts are necessary while the Met awaits its pending agreement with Saudi Arabia and the implementation of other revenue-generating initiatives. The Met is committed to maintaining the highest artistic standards while ensuring its present and future financial sustainability.”

This news comes following a tentative agreement made last September between the Met Opera and Saudi Arabia. The lucrative deal would see the Met perform each winter for five years at the Royal Diriyah Opera House and provide training to Saudi artists in return for Saudi subsidies.

“I understand the Saudis have had to recalibrate their budgets because of their own economic concerns,” Gelb acknowledged. “I’ve been assured that it’s going to go forward. But we have been waiting for some time.”

To further safeguard the budget for future seasons, Gelb is considering the sale of two Chagall murals valued at a total of $55 million. Commissioned in the 1960s to hang in the Met Opera’s Grand Tier, the murals, if sold, would remain in place but fitted with a donation plaque.

More considerations include leasing the Met’s 3,800-seat theater for pop artists while not in use — this June, Sting’s musical, “The Last Ship,” will be presented at the Met for nine performances. 

“We are being as entrepreneurial as possible,” Gelb said. “What is clear is that we have to come up with new business models. It’s true for all performing institutions, but the costs are so great for running an institution like the Met, that it is necessary to find new ways to fund it.”

“I have to show we can finance the Met going forward and at the same time demonstrate that we can cut the costs that we can cut without undermining our artistic results,” he added. “What we are trying to do is make sure we do not have a deficit.”