Georgian Mezzo Soprano Anita Rativerishvili was once one of the opera's most popular stars, and was famous for her powerful performances in works like Bisette's “Carmen” and Verdi's “Il Trovatore.”
However, her career suffered after she began experiencing voice issues during her 2021 pregnancy. When she returned to the Metropolitan Opera stage, company officials later said, she didn't sing to her standards. Met cancelled her upcoming engagement and she lost her job at other opera companies.
Now 40 years old, Rachvelishvili is suing both Met and Union for both her behalf, seeking more than $400,000 in compensation for her lost job. In a complaint filed in late March, she accused Met of breaching her contract, saying her union, an American guild of music artists, had failed to properly represent her.
Rachvelishvili's lawsuit alleged that Met was aware that “suffered complications from pregnancy and birth that affected the range of voice and voice.” The lawsuit described her as “disabled due to pregnancy” and accused the opera company of discriminating against her.
“I was not given the opportunity to recover and I was shocked that all contracts for the next two years were cancelled without pay soon,” she said in a statement.
The Met said it could not comment on the pending lawsuit.
Her complaints argue that Met should compensate her for a contractual agreement known as “payment or play.”
However, under the collective bargaining agreement, MET retains the ability to avoid paying singers who do not meet artistic standards. According to the contract, MET does not need to compensate singers who believe they are “voiced or physically inappropriate for performance.”
Her case is an American union of music artists representing opera singers, and “accuses her of failing to proceed to arbitration in relation to discrimination under plaintiffs' pregnancy or other applicable law.
The union declined to comment.
This case is notable in part because Rachvelishvili's attorney, Leonard D. Egert, led the union she is suing. EGERT served as the Guild's National Executive Director from 2016 to 2022 (most recently as General Counsel and General Manager of the Ballet in San Francisco and as a consultant for the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Chorale in San Francisco.
In an interview, Egert said his previous union should do more to drive Met to compensate Rachvelishvili for cancelled engagements.
“It's logical for them to do that,” he said in an interview. “But they didn't.”
Rachvelishvili, who debuted at the Met in 2011, was famous for her voice. Met's general manager, Peter Gelb once praised her as “the biggest dramatic mezzo-soprano song,” while renowned conductor Ricardo Muti called her “today the best Verdi Mezzo soprano on the planet.”
However, during her pregnancy in 2021, her voice began to suffer, becoming “scarred and strange.” She cancelled Verdi's “Don Carlo” run at the Met in the fall of 2022, but arrived there to sing the role of Amnelis in that December's “Aida.”
After her first performance, Gelb excluded her from the production. (“It was clear that she wasn't the same singer who had so beautifully conquered our stage up to that point, and at least temporarily not the same singer,” he said later.
Rachvelishvili's complaints acknowledge that she “was temporarily limited her very high voice range as a result of the birth.” But it says that she “is always ready and willing to do the contracted role she can perform” and she has since recovered in full recovery.
Her lawsuit stated that her union representative met with MET's representatives in February 2023 and that the union initially took the position that Met was in violation of the contract's “salary or play” provisions. Met initially said he had indicated he would offer to “buy” her contract. However, it said that the Met had withdrawn its offer.
The lawsuit said last year, the union told representatives of Rachvelishvili that they would “resist a breach of contract, refuse to apply for arbitration or otherwise seek a settlement.”
The union has not explained the decision.
Rachvelishvili continues to perform, although not as well as before. In November she starred in the production of Dovolac's “Lusarca,” which opened its season in Teatro San Carlo, Naples, Italy.
