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Who pays their wages, the opera singer and what is the average wage for an opera singer? Who knows the business side of opera?
Best answer:
Answer by BeachSaint
The production company pays the singers. Only the stars are paid well. Many singers I know have several jobs to pay the rent from teaching to waitressing.
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you don’t. the only way you could would be to start your own business related to opera. i.e. a middleman/woman that profits from both ends, i.e. buys and redistributes prime seating for operas or something like that.
stay close to the business, but you won’t make money IN the business unless your name ends in “avaratti”
the production, be relly good at it
Principal performers are usually paid by performance (sometimes, for the bigger names, this “performance fee” can be as high as $ 25,000 a show).
The singers are paid through the company producing the opera. They are contracted in and are also usually provided with housing, per deim, and sometimes a weekly stipened during the rehearsal period.
Chorus members typically don’t do as well. They are usually paid hourly and even with most large companies (the Met excluded) the chorus members make enough for it to be a GREAT second job, working flexible, part-time hours, but don’t make enough to live solely off of it, and have full-time day jobs as well.
The union that governs opera performers (AGMA) does not have a standardized contract so the contracts vary from company to company……..however overtime is usually paid by fifteen minute incriments for rehearsals lasting longer then the alloted time, which makes pay and a half rack up pretty quickly.
As for opera actually turning a profit……..In the United States, it’s unheard of. A company is considered to be doing extremely well if they cover %25 of their budget from ticket sales. Most of the large companies survive as non-profit organizations depending on private donations for funding. The sad thing is most companies are constantly operating in extreme debt.
In Germany, the opera houses went from being owned by royalty to being owned by their cities. Thus, they were part of city apparatus, and the members of the company ( at least, orchestra and chorus) were treated as city employees. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the re-unification of the country, this city subvention has become increasingly smaller each year. A lot of houses in the former East have had to close or fuse with neighboring opera houses.
Several opera houses in the west, notably that in Essen, have become “private” companies, with their own budgets, managers, auditors, etc. and make a go of it. others, like the muscials house Theater des Westen in Berlin, have gone bankrupt.
Competition for jobs here has become nearly as gruesome as in the States, and there are a lot of once starry-eyed people re-training for other jobs, while singing in choruses for their hobby.
In Aachen, where I work, we are on the lower side of the wage scale. Cologne has an “A” house, and the chorus singers make about 2,000Euros a month take home. (We have our taxes,meds and pension funds skimmed off the top before we ever get our pay slips) Orchestra makes a bit more than that.
Aachen is a “B” house, so I bring home 1400 Euros. I’m at the top of the wage scale, having worked here 20+ years.
A new ( beginning) soloist makes less than I do. Seasoned professionals, if they are on a house contract for two years will make more. Guests, who come in only for one production will ask from 10 to 15 thou to cover the rehearsal time as well as 15 performances. We can’t afford to hire anybody better than that. Our city funds are at an all-time low, and we are in the position of having to make as many cut-backs as possible in order to re-pay the city some 750,000 Euros a season for the next three years.
So, now I’ve bent your ear long enough.
Best wishes and keep on singing