Members of the Musicians’ Union and Equity in the English National Opera have announced that they will be striking on 1 February in response to the planned cuts to the ENO workforce. Chorus members, orchestra and staff will walk out on the opening night of the company’s scheduled production of The Handmaid’s Tale, an adaptation of the dystopian Margaret Atwood novel.
The ENO plans to make all of its chorus, orchestra and music staff redundant and re-employ them for six months of the year. Some positions may be offered only as ad hoc freelance work. This comes after the decision from Arts Council England to remove the ENO from its national portfolio last year, meaning that it lost its £12.8 million annual grant. The organisation was told it would have to move outside London to qualify for any future grants. In December, the ENO announced that it would be moving to Greater Manchester in order to be eligible for future funding.
This will be the first time Musicians’ Union members have taken full strike action in 44 years.
‘This has been caused by underfunding of the proposed move to Manchester,’ says Musicians’ Union general secretary, Naomi Pohl. ‘The management have decied to cut our members down to six months of work per year and this risks a wonderful, talented and speialist orchestra dissipating. It is heartbreaking to see the impact on the individuals affected.’
The strike is not the first opposition the ENO has faced, after its music director, Martyn Brabbins, announced his resignation in October 2023 following the announcement of the cuts.