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Strike averted at Bayreuth Festival
2009-07-24
BAYREUTH, Germany (AFP) - The curtain can go up on the first night of the legendary Bayreuth Festival this week after negotiators reached a wage agreement for stage and technical staff, a union said Friday. "Following long and intensive negotiations, Verdi and the management agreed on a wage contract for employees on Thursday evening," the Verdi services sector union said in a statement. "After approval by the union's wage committee and the festival's supervisory board, the agreement was able to be signed at midday Friday." Under the terms of the deal, the festival's technical and administrative employees would be paid wages in line with the norm in the sector, the statement said. In addition, employees would be paid extra for the heavy workload required of them during the month-long festival, as well as a bonus to compensate for the short-term nature of their contracts, the union said. The curtain is set to rise on the 98th edition of the world's oldest and most prestigious summer music festival on Saturday. There had been concern that a strike by the festival's 140 largely seasonal stage and technical staff would jeopardise the glitzy opening night, attended by Germany's political and social elite. Pay on Bayreuth's legendary "Green Hill" -- including for singers, musicians and conductors -- have traditionally been well below levels paid in other leading opera houses around the world, because it was always considered an honour to work there. The "non-artistic" staff, from programme-sellers to electricians, are given their own special performances, an annual trip and a Christmas party. "You can have anything you want, just not more money," Wolfgang Wagner once famously quipped. The opening night will comprise a performance of "Tristan and Isolde" in a staging by Swiss director Christoph Marthaler.
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