The Metropolitan Opera announced last night that it would delay its lockout of union workers by one week, while an independent financial analyst is brought in to assess the state of the Met's finances.
The current extension of union contracts was set to expire on Sunday at midnight. Last Thursday, the Met and its unions had agreed to a 72-hour extension of the original deadline, after the opera company and its two largest unions agreed to bring in a federal mediator.
So far, the Met has negotiated contract deals with only three of the 16 unions represented at the opera house. Talks with the other unions have been suspended temporarily during the period of the financial assessment, which will be conducted by Eugene Keilin.
Keilin, a founder of KPS Capital Partners, has worked in the public and private financial sectors in New York City for decades. He served as chairman of the Municipal Assistance Corporation, which was created to address New York's mid-1970s fiscal crisis.
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