u/Black_Gay_Man

“The contracts I signed in my 40s were, dollar for dollar, often less than many of the contracts my teachers described from the 1980s. And a 1980s dollar is not a 2026 dollar. Inflation has tripled the cost of everything a singer must buy – flights, coachings, lessons, health insurance, housing in the cities where opera lives – while the fee at the top of the contract sat still and even shrank, decade after decade.

And out of that frozen fee, we pay for the privilege of working. Our own travel, in many houses. Our own housing, often for five and six weeks of rehearsal before a single performance fee is earned. Our own managers’ commissions, our own taxes in every state we sing in, our own preparation. Trade organizations have documented what singers call “very expensive money” – the reality that a soloist’s fee is gross revenue for a small, unprofitable business, not a paycheck.

I did that math every year for 16 years, hoping it would change. It never did.”