Estimated read time: 1-2 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
The Finnish National Opera once played to full houses but the company has fallen on hard times and low attendance rates may force it to lay off staff next year, media reported on Thursday.
One in four seats stood empty during performances last year and the company reported a 1.8 million euro (2.16 million dollar) loss for the full year 2005, opera spokesman Heli Rislakki told AFP.
According to Finnish media, the opera house will have to temporarily lay off 600 full-time employees, including artists, technicians and administrative staff, and could even slash some jobs permanently in a bid to break even.
The measures would probably take place in 2007 when the main stage is due to renovated.
Questioned by AFP, the opera's management said it would make no comment on the reports until after a board meeting on April 26.
"After we staged 'Tosca' and 'Turandot' (by Italian composer Giacomo Puccini), attendance started declining. Is it because of the price of tickets, or the repertoire? We don't know and we're concerned," opera director Erkki Korhonen told a Finnish television station.
The opera house, built in 1993 on the shores of Helsinki's Lake Toeoeloe, stages some 300 performances each year to about 300,000 spectators. Half of the performances are opera, a third are ballet, and the rest are classical music concerts.
gab/po/mb
AFPEntertainment-Finland-opera
AFP 061054 GMT 04 06
COPYRIGHT 2004 Agence France-Presse. All rights reserved.
