Texas Ballet Theatre Pays $30k to Prerecord Music in China

The Texas Ballet Theatre (TBT) will be performing Rimsky-Korsakov’s Cleopatra March 27-29, but because of financial restraints, they will be performing the ballet with a canned orchestra.

With the economy in shambles, and the TBT’s finances reportedly in free fall, it’s unfortunate, but not surprising, that the decision to work with prerecorded music was made. Earlier in the year, the Texas Ballet Theatre canceled it’s planned tour to China and tried to break it’s $350,000 contract with the Fort Worth Symphony in order to remain solvent in the current economic crisis.

Texas Ballet Theatre is not the first ballet company to switch to a canned orchestra to save money, but the musicians and their union (AFM Local 72-147) are incensed over the switch and plan to protest and boycott the ballet’s performances.

The problem stems from $30,000 that the ballet sent to a Chinese orchestra to have the music prerecorded.

The story is rather complicated.  The TBT’s production of Cleopatra was originally intended to be performed at the Shanghai Festival in October.  Financial problems led to the cancelation of the tour to China, but not before a $30,000 recording (perhaps for rehearsal purposes?) was made by the National Ballet of China (along with the TBT’s conductor, who had flown over for the recording).  Now that the time has come to perform the piece in the U.S., the ballet company has decided to forgo the promised hiring of local musicians and, instead, use the tape from China.

To make matters worse, the ballet company is in the hole to the Fort Worth Symphony for $100,000, and the musicians’ union is furious that TBT would send $30,000 to China for a canned pit instead of either hiring locals or paying down the debt that is already owed to them.

In the current economy, many professional orchestras have been reluctant to strike or protest – certain that public sentiment would be against them. The AFM clearly believes they have a case here, and, if anything, the Texas Ballet Theatre has found itself in a media (and possibly legal) nightmare.

The following is a statement we received from AFM Local 802 (New York City); it was based on a press release from AFM Local 72-147 (Dallas-Ft. Worth):

We don’t think Cleopatra would be amused. AFM Local 72-147 (Dallas-Ft. Worth) is protesting the use of canned music in the ballet “Cleopatra.” The Texas Ballet Theatre paid $30,000 for the National Ballet of China to record a tape of the score instead of hiring live musicians. This is at the same time that Texas Ballet Theatre still owed musicians tens of thousands of dollars for services performed last season.

The company’s canned music policy killed weeks of work that have hurt professional musicians and cheapened the art form, outsourcing not only musicians’ jobs, but culture as well. The company is selling tickets without acknowledging that with an empty orchestra pit, consumers won’t be getting what they’ve paid for.

“By using recordings, the Texas Ballet Theatre is cheating its patrons out of a legitimate ballet experience and is committing artistic fraud,” said union president Ray Hair. “We’re inviting the public to join our protest and boycott the company until musicians return to the orchestra pit.”

For more information, see www.MusiciansDFW.org and click on “Ballet Crisis” from the left-hand sidebar.