Singers, dancers and stage staff at Opera Colorado have signed a three-year labor contract with the American Guild of Musical Artists, sealing nearly three years of negotiations that began when the artists unionized in 2023.
The contract is a bright spot for a company that’s had to cut performances in recent years, in an industry that is struggling to keep its lights on.
The contract applies to stage managers and assistant managers, chorus singers, choreographers and performers, and is one of the first “wall-to-wall” opera unions — a union that represents employees across departments — that the AMGA has represented in many years, according to Tracy Jones, AMGA director of collective bargaining. (Opera Colorado originally opposed the bargaining unit, but the National Labor Relations Board only nixed narrators with speaking parts, since the opera hadn’t hired anyone for those positions in years.)
There is also a separate contract, or a side letter, for Opera Colorado’s artists in residence, a competitive eight-month program for emerging opera singers. Residencies, sometimes called young artist programs, help artists transition between university training and professional life, said Hallie Schmidt, Opera Colorado’s artist in residence for the 2024-25 seasons. The residencies provide networking, training and occasional stage time while the artists train their voices to sing without a microphone night after night.
“Every person is different because our instrument is our body,” Schmidt said. “You want to make sure you’re ready for singing just like an athlete would, make sure you have the tools and the technique to take on a show every night.”
The side letter guarantees these temporary performers the same protections as year-round staff, and tacks on additional provisions for the early-career artists, like flexible leave policies to travel to auditions or roles without penalty.
When Opera Colorado formed its union in 2023, they joined a surge of labor organizing after the pandemic, when public sympathy for unions was at a 57-year high according to a Gallup poll. Staff at 42 companies in Colorado petitioned to form a union that year, the second-highest number since 2014.
The industry was also struggling to recalibrate to post-COVID audience losses. Attendance in 2023 was at about 2.09 million nationwide, up about 23% from 2022, but still almost a million attendees short of 2019. The numbers have since dipped slightly to 2.04 million attendees in 2024.
But Opera Colorado has made it through hard times before — during a crippling recession in the 1980s, the company could not afford costumes, so they performed “Il Trovatore,” in black turtle necks and black pants. By the 1990s they were able to add a third show to their season, which they cut in recent years to save money.
“Last week Andrew Lloyd Webber said that Broadway needed to stabilize. The Met Opera has been in dire straits. We are not alone,” said Barbara Jamison, CEO of Opera Colorado. “We are part of a larger sector of music, theater and opera that is struggling right now. We were struggling for a long time, but COVID stopped us in our tracks.”
But Jamison sees the new contract as a hopeful signal for where the company is heading.
They shifted the artist-in-residence position to focus even more on professional development, placing limitations on noncareer related tasks. They added rest periods and meal breaks to stage staff’s contracts. And they are now contractually committed to treat chorus singers “as a crucial part of the company,” Jones, of AMGA, said, by guaranteeing Denver minimum wage and paying parking costs while they are working at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts.
“I’m excited about the continuity this will provide us, and the status it gives us with other AGMA artists,” Jamison said. “They’ll know that they’re walking into a safe place. The stage can be a crazy place, and we can work crazy hours. But I think this gives us credibility in the industry.”
For Schmidt, Opera Colorado’s artist-in-residence program was her first big break after graduating from Oklahoma City University and working a couple of summer festivals. She’s been on the move ever since. This year, she sang the one-woman opera “At the Statue of Venus” for Opera Colorado, performed with the Colorado Springs Philharmonic, and is an apprentice artist at the Central City Opera.
“I love the music, I love the challenge and the costumes, and I think there’s something so thrilling and satisfying about being able to deliver universal human emotions through music,” Schmidt said. “Once I started doing operas, I was like, this is for me. I just really fell in love with it and I’ve never looked back.”