Toiling in the World of Music for Naught or $5

Of course, your reward is not monetary, and for filthy lucre you would turn to professional sports, but still...

There is much internet buzz about Opera Australia's use of unpaid supernumeraries:

The Call Out says that the national Opera company is seeking “students currently undertaking a performance based degree to join the Aida cast” and notes that they will get a lot out of doing that including, “You will be in the cast of Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour, an opera unlike any other opera in the world!” and, “You will work under the direction of our internationally renowned creative team and amongst a cast and crew at the top of their games.”

But that’s not all — with students being promised that they will have their name listed in the program “alongside our international cast members” and they will “get the experience of working on a production of international scale, from rehearsal room to stage.”

The deal requires that participating students will need to commit to rehearsals over a period of time and provides an “indicative” schedule and work that really totals to about two months solid full-time work. Importantly, the opera says that students will have to “Cover all their own expenses, including travel and food expenses. We unfortunately cannot provide any reimbursements or allowances to secondment positions.” [Secondment = temporary?]

The roles will play the part of supernumeraries (non-speaking, non-singing actors on stage).

This is a questionable undertaking of the national lead opera company. If the national opera, well-sponsored by Handa, wish to stage a mammoth production of an opera for the whole world to come and watch, then they should do so properly. Getting students (or anyone) to stand on a stage and perform for free is unacceptable.

Is it? The world of music — opera, chamber music, choruses, etc. — is chock full o' volunteers, mostly happy ones because if you don't get something out of it, you can stop. But I wanted to check specifically on the issue of supers getting paid (or not) here, so I asked Michael Strickland, a veteran super with San Francisco Opera, besides many other occupations and distinctions:

Unlike the two months cited in Australia, San Francisco Opera usually takes three weeks of full staging rehearsals putting an opera together, although sometimes it's more like four or five weeks, but not eight. When I started supering at the S.F. Opera in the early 1990s, they had just changed from the old-fashioned custom of handing out a $5 bill every performance to each super as a parking/transportation stipend, and were now giving us checks at the end of a run.

Before that, I don't think anyone was paid for rehearsals, but by the 1990s we were getting something like $3 a rehearsal and $5 a performance. It was still treated as an honorarium, meaning there were no taxes taken out and no Social Security numbers being requested, which was just fine with me. The compensation has crept up to something like $5 a rehearsal and $15 for a performance.

In truth, most people interested in the experience would pay to be supernumeraries. It's an extraordinary way to absorb an opera, from the beginning of rehearsals to the length of a run, with some of the best voices in the world singing inches from your ears, an orchestra playing seemingly just for you, and enough theatrical danger from all the moving parts to keep you on your toes.

I have noticed that acting students are usually unsuccessful as supernumeraries because they're not particularly dependable, they want it to be all about them (they're budding thespians!), and are usually very disappointed that they are being hidden in the background.

In my eye, the best supernumeraries are the ones you don't notice, who help create the illusion that a king is worshiped or the peasants are oppressed or horror haunts the castle because there are a lot of dead people onstage (that last one is from the Andrei Serban production of Elektra with Gwyneth Jones).

From another friend:

When I sang with the S.F. Symphony Chorus, only the professional core members were paid. And I loved it. Wouldn't have missed the experience for the world. I was a tenor in the "expanded" chorus, which meant a lot of Beethoven's Ninth, but still...