Union Questions Met’s Firing of Director for Remark to Chorister

Photo

When the Metropolitan Opera was told this week that a veteran British stage director had made a sexually charged remark to a member of the chorus, it acted swiftly and fired the director, stunning the opera world. On Friday, the union representing both the chorister and the director said it believed the incident could have been resolved to the satisfaction of both sides without dismissing the director.

It all began on Jan. 26, when John Copley, 84, a distinguished opera director, addressed a member of the Met’s chorus during a rehearsal of Rossini’s “Semiramide.” Mr. Copley was accused of telling the chorister: “I’m thinking of you in my bed with your clothes off,” the Met said in a statement. The Met said that the chorus member was left feeling “extremely ill at ease due to this sexually demeaning remark,” and that he “requested to leave the evening performance of ‘Il Trovatore’ in which he was performing because he felt upset and distressed.”

After the chorus member complained to the Met’s human resources department on Monday, the company said, he and a fellow chorus member who had witnessed the encounter were interviewed. The company said that Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, then spoke with Mr. Copley, who “did not deny the incident.” It said that the chorus member “felt unable to continue working with Mr. Copley because of the hostile, sexually charged environment that had been created,” so “Mr. Copley was asked to leave the production.”

But officials at the union, the American Guild of Musical Artists, said there appeared to have been a miscommunication, and that they believed the episode could have been resolved amicably without firing Mr. Copley.

Leonard Egert, the national executive director of the union, said in an interview, “It’s our understanding that a written apology to the chorister involved and a slight modification of the rehearsal schedule would have been sufficient to resolve this.”

A Met official disputed that characterization. The official, who was granted anonymity to speak about an ongoing dispute, said that while the chorister had indicated that he would accept a written apology, he had also communicated to Met officials that he did not want to see Mr. Copley either in the underground rehearsal rooms or on its stage, and threatened to consult a lawyer if he did.

Mr. Egert said that while the chorister said he did not want to work with Mr. Copley in the rehearsal room, the union believes that he was — and still is — willing to work with Mr. Copley in stage rehearsals provided that their interactions are “limited.” But the Met official said that it would be impractical, and unworkable, to try to limit interactions between any director and performer.

William Guerri, Mr. Copley’s manager at Columbia Artists, declined to comment on the accusation.

Union officials asked to meet with Mr. Gelb to discuss the situation, and see if Mr. Copley could return.

After the Met dismissed Mr. Copley, a revered director who has worked at leading international opera houses, a heated debate erupted on social media about whether it was an overreaction.

A number of British critics — and friends and admirers of Mr. Copley’s, including singers who have worked with him — rushed to his defense, suggesting that any remark he had made must have been meant as a joke, or misunderstood.

In taking the unusual step of releasing a more detailed statement on Friday — making it clear that the remark had been directed toward the chorister, and noting the distress that the episode caused him — the Met seemed determined to put those theories to rest.

Mr. Copley’s dismissal came as the Met investigates accusations of sexual misconduct against its former music director, James Levine. The Met suspended Mr. Levine in December after The New York Times reported the on-the-record accounts of four men who said that he had sexually abused them decades ago, when they were teenagers or his students. Mr. Levine has denied the accusations. But the episode left some questioning what the Met knew about Mr. Levine’s suspected behavior, given that rumors about his private life had circulated for decades.

Faced with a complaint against Mr. Copley, though, the company acted swiftly. “The Met has strong policies in place relating to workplace behavior and puts paramount importance on the welfare of its artists and staff,” it said in the statement.

Mr. Copley, the former principal resident director at the Royal Opera House in London, has created a number of enduring productions for leading opera companies around the world. He has come to the Met to remount his 1990 production of Rossini’s “Semiramide,” which is something of a rarity. A number of his other productions have been seen at the Met, including stagings of Bellini’s “Norma” and “Il Pirata,” Handel’s “Giulio Cesare” and Donizetti’s “L’Elisir d’Amore.”