Dramatic Pause
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Mike Greenfield, an attorney who’s represented the CSO musicians in most of their recent contract negotiations, described the meetings earlier this summer as “cordial and productive” but couldn’t predict what might happen this week. Attorney James D. Holzhauer, chief negotiator for management, did not return a phone call seeking comment. Compressing the time frame for negotiations is typical of management’s tactics; the previous contract was finalized only an hour before the first rehearsal was to begin, and in 1991, Daniel Barenboim’s first year as CSO music director, negotiations broke down, resulting in a strike that postponed Barenboim’s debut. This year the musicians may have an ace up their collective sleeve: on October 4 the symphony is scheduled to begin its first-ever South American tour, with performances in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, and Buenos Aires, where Barenboim was born and made his professional debut as a pianist at age seven. Management may feel compelled to cut a deal to avoid embarrassing the music director again.
Erkert’s Exit
De la Nuez says that Ballet Theater will sit out the upcoming 2000-2001 season, though it will take part in the annual Dance Chicago festival at the Athenaeum Theatre. He’s assembling a group of 15 to 20 dancers to tour the U.S. later this year and soliciting contributions from individuals, foundations, and other sources to get the company back on track. His ambitions for the revived company are as grand as ever: he wants to mount The Nutcracker in late 2001, going up against the Joffrey’s annual production at the Auditorium Theatre. “This is a big city,” says de la Nuez, “and I think there’s room in it for two versions of this ballet.”
