Musicians to Protest Texas Ballet Theater Gala Tonight
If you’re going to the Texas Ballet Theater’s season-opening gala tonight, you will probably see protesting musicians holding pickets and handing out flyers at the Majestic Theatre. The Dallas-Fort Worth Professional Musicians Association (local 27-147 of the American Federated Musicians) is protesting the decision by the TBT to cancel its contracts with the Fort Worth Symphony and the Dallas Opera Orchestra. They provided live pit orchestras for the TBT’s performances (the FWSO played at Bass Hall, the DOO for The Nutcracker at the Fair Park Music Hall).
The decision in favor of canned music was made by the ballet, TBT officials say, because of the financial constraints the company faces. The TBT has been raising $2 million to stave off bankruptcy and continue its new season.
“We’re very disappointed that they would want to do that,” Margo McCann says of the decision to protest the performance. McCann is the interim managing director of the TBT. “We’ve always used live music when we could. At the Majestic, we’ve never used a live orchestra. The only reason we’re not [using a live orchestra at other performances] is purely financial. It’s the choice between a ballet with taped music or no ballet at all.”
But letter-writer Jennifer Garner (see comments section below), a member of the Dallas Opera Orchestra, and musicians’ union president Ray Hair, have said that the taped music that the TBT will use for Rimsky-Korsakov’s Cleopatra was recorded in China — and that the TBT had been planning to replace the live orchestras with taped music months ago, before the current financial crisis struck.
McCann denies this.
“When we were planning our tour [to China], the [Shanghai] festival was going to provide the orchestra. When that changed, we were forced to have a recording made. Ben [Stevenson, artistic director of the TBT] choreographed that piece, it’s a particular arrangement of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Cleopatra. There was no recording of it available.”
“it was pure coincidence,” McCann says that when the TBT cancelled the Texas musicians’ contract to perform Cleopatra in the spring, the dance troupe had the China recording to replace them. “It was never planned that way.”
The sudden need for an additional $70,000 to pay for the TBT’s China tour precipitated the revelations in August about the TBT’s perilous financial circumstances. The tour was canceled, and the TBT went into crisis mode to raise the necessary cash and pledges to perform the gala tonight and open its new season.
In August, the TBT announced its decision to kill the $350,000 contract with the Fort Worth Symphony. But the Garvey Foundation stepped in to underwrite the symphony’s rehearsals and four performances of Mozart’s Requiem with the TBT October 17-19 at Bass Hall. The dance company still owes the FWSO $100,000, though, and the cancellation of the week-long contract for the DOO to perform The Nutcracker in December remains in effect.
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Jennifer Garner e-mailed this to KERA earlier this week, after the report had aired about TBT’s decision to go ahead with tonight’s gala:
Good Morning KERA,
I awoke at 6:30 this morning to your announcement of the efforts of the Texas Ballet Theatre to raise money for their upcoming season. As a professional violinist who has performed with TBT in past seasons, I want to comment on the current situation.
Unfortunately (perhaps you are unaware), you did not mention the fact that TBT recently decided to displace the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra and Dallas Opera Orchestra as its pit orchestras and use recorded tapes instead. They recently made a tape in China, which they plan to use for their performance of Cleopatra in the spring. TBT continues to sell season tickets to the public without acknowledging that consumers will not be getting what they have paid for.
The executive director of the Fort Worth Symphony recently found a donor to pay the musicians for the October performance. (I would imagine Ms. Koonsman is busy enough with her own job without having to perform Margo McCann’s job as well.) However, the TBT’s only strategy for the rest of the season is to outsource the jobs of local professional musicians with a tape made in China and continue fleecing the public.
The current deficit faced by TBT is the result of fiscal irresponsibility and mismanagement, including but not limited to, the financing of a gorgeous home for artistic director Ben Stevenson. Now, TBT cannot pay its bills, and wants to balance its budget on the backs of professional musicians.
Why should the community commit hundreds of thousands of dollars to an organization with a demonstrated inability to manage money? Do we want to see beautiful Bass Hall treated like a Big Box where the goods are made in China? Are our local world-class orchestras responsible for TBT’s mismanagement? Don’t counsumers who are paying for a professional ballet experience deserve to get one?
Margo McCann wants sympathy. I had sympathy until I learned that Ms. McCann and company went to China to record a tape with which to replace live musicians. The professional musicians of Dallas/Fort Worth have worked with struggling companies many times before for everyone’s mutual benefit, including our audience. However, TBT has made no attempt to work with us.
I cannot sympathize. No ballet at all is better than one that is an artistic fraud.
Thanks for listening,
Jennifer Garner
I never thought I would need to actually check this before purchasing our annual tickets for Nutcracker, which my family has done for years. However, when I heard the Winspear was doing Nutcracker without live musicians, I began to check around.
Live performers and live music are part and parcel of the experience. Financial issues or not, it is a fraud to let folks think they are coming to hear an orchestra perform for a ballet, only to find out it’s a taped performance. Worse still to think we have outsourced our symphony music to China along with everything else, and I am a free trader by nature!
I will NOT be attending Nutcracker this year and the 12 of us will go to South Pacific instead. That is, after we verify that is not a taped recording either.
A ballet without a live orchestra is not a ballet at all. I would be completely disappointed and terribly angry if I purchased tickets to a ballet and found out only after attending the performance that there was no live orchestra. That has to be some kind of fraud. I feel sorry for the dancers who are stuck in the middle here. No doubt they want to perform, and apparently are willing to do so with canned music, but they shouldn’t be! They ought to be protesting with their musician-colleagues.
Texas Ballet Theater says it is broke. But is it really? Despite owing the Fort Worth Symphony more than $100,000, the ballet company traveled to Shanghai in June 2008, a few short weeks ago, and paid $30,000 to its Chinese handlers to rehearse and record Cleopatra by the orchestra of the National Ballet of China. The Chinese musicians themselves probably received little or nothing for their services. Instead of using available cash to pay what it owed to local partners – such as our fine orchestras – the company invested in a Chinese recording that it can use repeatedly to displace the very musicians who have for decades bought an inseparable quality to the presentation of dance. The actions of the ballet company are deplorable and have cheapened the art form. The absence of a live orchestra deprives the patron of a legitimate theatrical ballet experience – one that the composer intended and that the ballet company long ago priced into the cost of admission. You’ve paid for live orchestra. You should get one. Management is hoping you will neither notice nor care.
I would never consider watching a professional ballet company without a professional live orchestra. A live orchestra is half of the ballet experience. A major part of enjoying a ballet is watching the interplay of the dancers movements with the live music. I do not pay money just to see the dancers. I feel very very very cheated! I will never buy a ticket to watch the TBT again, unless they bring back the Dallas Opera Orchestra. TBT is cheating everyone out of the entire performing arts experience. How dare they!
I would be quite furious if I were to attend a professional ballet performance and be unpleasantly surprised with canned music. A recording can never replicate the powerful swell of a professional orchestra, which adds further grace and beauty to the dancers’ performance. It cheats both the paying audience and the dancers.
I was very disappointed to hear that the Texas Ballet Theater will not have live music at their performances. Listening to real professional musicians perform while watching the ballet has always been a great joy and probably one of the main reasons why I supported the TBT in the past. Due to TBT decision to have the dancers perform to a radio (recorded music) is a disgrace to the musicians and to the dancers and I will not support TBT as long as this is going on. As far as I am concerned TBT should shut their doors until they can raise enough money to bring back the musicians.
There would seem to be a simple way to settle the charge that the TBT planned to use recorded music for months, even before its Chinese tour: Look at the contract with the FTWSO. If the TBT contracted with the FTWSO to play “Cleopatra” next spring, then it’s plain that the TBT planned to use live musicians. If the accusation is that the TBT wanted to use recorded music all along, and the contract was always a sham, then why sign such a contract in the first place — knowing that changing it or canceling it would only get them unpleasant publicity and anger from union musicians? It makes more sense that something serious had to drive the ballet to make such a decision — like a financial crisis.
As for the charge that the TBT really does have enough money: I seriously doubt, given the historic financial struggles facing dance troupes in North Texas, that a ballet company would cancel a prestigious, attention-getting tour to China (especially on the heels of the Olympics) and that its artistic director and board chairman would then offer to resign in the face of the resulting financial embarrassments — all so they could, say, cancel a week’s contract in Dallas. The accusations of bad faith seem farfetched.
On the other hand, that the TBT should have handled its finances better seems plain. I am not opposed to the union’s concerns. My points concern common sense.
This claim that the cost of a ticket to a TBT performance covers live music and that it is fraudulent to sell tickets without providing it doesn’t quite add up. Ticket sales account for 50% of the cost to operate the ballet. Which part of that 50% would the musician’s union like cut? The dancer’s salaries? (which is already much less than the average musician) The stage hands? The rental of the venue in which they perform? The rental of the sets and costumes? The rental for their studios where they rehearse? Sell a ticket to the ballet and fail to provide a dancer on stage now that is fraudulent. Are the people of DFW truly this ignorant about what it takes to maintain a professional ballet company in their community? Thankfully ballet companies do not make us pay for what we get. If that were the case only the very rich would be going to the ballet. Lavish traditional ballets, such as Sleeping Beauty and Dracula, (which this community has proven they have a taste for by showing up in droves for the performances) are expensive. TBT is facing serious challenges and its leadership is working hard to make financially responsible decisions to ensure their survival. They are not alone in temporarily replacing some of their live music with recordings. Some companies, such as Atlanta Ballet, one of the oldest and most established ballet companies in the US, has had to permanently cancel their use of live orchestra. At least the FWSO hasn’t completely abandoned the ballet. They understand that all of the arts organizations are partners in providing quality arts to the metroplex and have proven to be a true friend by extending a helping hand rather than kicking a dog when it’s down. In spite of the hardships that TBT is facing this season, the patrons who support the art of dance will be there through thick and thin and enjoy every minute of the artistry that the TBT dancers are so capable of displaying regardless of the music they are dancing to.
Maybe all the complainers should SHUT UP & PAY UP! Good grief what a bunch of whiners! They are narrow minded and selfish, in today’s economy and with disasters happening all over (not to mention right there in their own sweet Texas backyard) why would they wish the hardship of lost jobs on others by closing the doors? If they want the live music then they should help pay for it either by digging deeper in their pockets or helping to fundraise for TBT and make a difference for others in need instead of whining! Furthermore the muscians are speaking as if the ballet is their only venue, give me a break! As to the claim of fraud, it would be fraud if you sold a ticket to a symphony and had only canned music. We are talking about the ballet, last I checked there WERE dancers on that stage last week. Comments like the ones above just smack of sour grapes.
I would like to ask why, if the TBT wanted cheaper, pre-recorded music, why they did not
record the music of the Dallas or Ft.Worth Symphonies….?
A legal contract should be clear and same perception for two both sides.
My daughter is a student at Texas Ballet Theater School in Fort Worth, and has been part of the production of The Nutcracker.
When we heard about the news that there will be no live orchestra for this year’s production of The Nutcracker, we were all very sad. Then we heard the reason why we were not having the live orchestra.
Besides not having the orchestra, what frightened her the most, was the fact that the company members may not be dancing or teaching their classes anymore. (Yes, the kids at TBT really look up to the Company members and love them dearly)
My 9 year old girl, immediately asked me, how we can help to keep the orchestra and to help the company. We love our family at Texas Ballet Theater, and we will go to extents to help keep it alive.
Please do not bash TBT just because they are trying to manage their financial problems better. Instead, ask yourselves how you can keep the Arts alive in the DFW area.
We all go through some tough times, especially financially. This is a Professional Dance Company that produces classy, respectful, quality dancers, from all over the United States. They deserve nothing but the best.
Although the recorded music is not what they deserve to dance with, (Who would not want to dance with a live orchestra that they have gotten so accustomed to?)
This is why our Company members are so well respected, they do what they have to, with all their hearts because they love what they do, TBT has class act Dancers.
TBT dancers work very hard to give them us notch performances when we go to see the ballet.
We, the parents of TBT will stand behind our Company Members…and keep the Arts alive right here in this place we call home.