Season Announcement Season

Well, it's around six weeks to January, meaning that season announcement season is almost upon us. Santa Fe Opera, which usually announces its year+1 season during maybe May or June of year got the word about 2021 out in October this year. Generally a couple of smaller organizations announce toward the end of the calendar year, with Seattle Opera and San Francisco Opera coming sometime in January for the year-year+1 season.

I'm certainly curious about whether the announcements will be at the usual times, what they will look like, and how much hedging there will be. If I were San Francisco Opera, I'd hold that announcement as long as I could, based on existing contracts with singers and arrangements with other companies, say, to rent sets belonging to other organizations. I'd also hedge like crazy about contingencies, such as the availability of vaccines, medical advice. Nobody knows now and few will know in late January, 2021, how many doses will be available, how many people will be vaccinated by the second weekend of September, and what audience members might be required to prove about their vaccination status. 

These are tough times to be the general director or chief executive of a musical organization, There's a lot of tension between the need to sell tickets (or raise money by other means) and the desire not to kill performers, stagehands, and the audience.