Abstract
In 1901, the great Enrico Caruso was visiting his native town of Naples in the South of Italy. Talking to his father’s old friend about his professional achievements, Caruso proudly noted that he had become an international star employed by the Metropolitan Opera, La Scala and Mariinsky Theater. To his greatest shock, the response he heard was, ‘All this is very well – but seriously speaking, what do you do for living?’
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5.1 Introduction: ‘What’s Your Occupation?’
In 1901, the great Enrico Caruso was visiting his native town of Naples in the South of Italy. Talking to his father’s old friend about his professional achievements, Caruso proudly noted that he had become an international star employed by the Metropolitan Opera, La Scala and Mariinsky Theater. To his greatest shock, the response he heard was, ‘All this is very well – but seriously speaking, what do you do for living?’
‘I know you always liked singing. But how do you earn the money?’ ‘Come on, jumping from one place to another maybe interesting but not serious. Tell me better what you live on and how you are going to meet your retirement.’ With such down-to-earth questions, old school friends and even family members continue to question the ‘elite career’ choice of many established and becoming international opera singers. While conquering the top arenas of global opera, these elite migrants often remain misunderstood by their hometown communities. It is not easy for a layman to accept the integrity of being mobile (and, consequently, temporary employed) and having a reliable income—especially in relation to something that has the robust reputation of a precarious activity like singing.
By his home-towners, Caruso was thus remembered as the son of a water mechanic and the impoverished young bard whose adolescent street songs could hardly allow him to make both ends meet. The parochial community of his childhood and adolescence was for a long time unaware of employment- and lifestyle- benefits associated with the glamourous world of opera, whose infrastructure is grounded in temporary contracts and changing geographies of employment while obviously contradicting traditional masculine jobs. The globalization-ignorant local communities of ascending and shining opera stars are not the only category of layman with a confused vision of transnational artistic career. There are also many opera lovers who, while admiring divas like Anna Netrebko and Ludmila Monastyrska, deny the fact that stars of this caliber may actually hold temporary employment and fall under the category of ‘migrant worker’. For whatever reason, ordinary people often measure career success with permanent contracts and long-term residence, refusing to believe in the wellbeing of global elite migrants.
Yet in spite of all stereotypes, more and more aspiring opera singers persistently dream about this kind of ‘insecure’ career and audaciously leave their habitual places for temporary jobs scattered all around the world. One of the most fascinating features of operatic migrations and elite careers is their rootedness in mobility and temporariness—existential conditions that are not always associated with risk and uncertainty but with elite status. Globally migrating opera singers who live and work in such conditions proudly believe that they have excellent careers (Cygankvao, 2016). They are ‘in-career’, as my informants say.
This paradox points to the triangular relationship between (1) geographical mobility, (2) temporariness of employment and legal status, and (3) permanence of overall lifestyle (in terms of attachment to a specific place where migrants can build a new home). Being mobile, temporary yet permanent is the existential triangle underpinning the overall logistics of global elite migrations and transnational operatic career, which will be illuminated in this chapter.
Exploring the phenomenon of ‘being in global operatic career’, this chapter looks into the main employment conditions that frame global elite migrations as a distinct ‘migrant labor’ category. Namely, it highlights the role of theater tiers and short-term employment contracts, and the way they shape migrating singers’ employment trajectories and social status through the intersecting principles of temporariness, mobility and permanence.
This chapter is dedicated to one of the most unquestionable and taken for granted network obligations for elite migrant-artists—the temporariness of their transnational employment—and their coping strategies to manage or, at least, to adjust to this requirement. To begin with, the chapter introduces the concept of ‘temporariness management’ and offers a taxonomy of global opera houses and employment contracts for opera singers, the main network actors of my informants. By examining their employment offer packages, I further look into where in the global operatic industry my most ‘career successful’ informants are now placed and to what extent they are able to deal with their placement. I illuminate how they approach their own temporariness and convert it into a desirable mode of transnational elitist employment.
5.2 Skilled Migration and Temporariness Management—A Grey Zone
At the moment of the interview the twenty-five year-old Serafima was graduating from an Italian conservatory. I was surprised to hear how confident she already was about her career preferences and next steps:
What I want now is to be in-career – that is, to be demanded on the global opera job market. I want to be able to choose amid offers from various theaters, and I am not afraid of moving around Europe on temporary contracts. I am afraid of getting stuck somewhere beyond Europe, somewhere on the periphery, and forgotten. What I am afraid most of all is career stagnation and oblivion (Serafima from Russia, age 25).
Her case adds to the increasing number of ambitious young people who today ardently pursue the transnational career of an opera singer immediately from high school: they receive vocal education outside their countries of origin and circulate between various opera houses all over the world. They are not afraid of temporary jobs because the temporary nature of their employment and stay is becoming a norm in transnational opera circles (Harrington, 2020). While Europe, which attracts them as a powerful career magnet, has indeed become a strong leader in the international operatic industry (ibid). If we look at the pre-pandemic times, in 2017, there were 6795 opera shows in Germany; 1393 in Italy and 1163 in Austria—all engaging international cast (Gillis, 2017). Limited data on opera singers who become migrants like Serafima point to their continuous short-term contracts of varying income and length (Harrington, 2020; Shepard, 2010). These globally rotating and, in many cases, temporary employed artists make a large share of one million people among opera singers who are officially registered in the main international opera database (Operabase, 2023).
Serafima has not yet made her entry into this database because she is only making her first transnational career steps in the global opera industry. However, she is very determined to see her name there soon—‘as soon as the agent arranges a few good-looking temporary contracts’ for her all over Europe.
The idea of mobility implied in her words is a key feature of global elite migrations, as earlier argued in Chap. 2. Apart from mobility, Serafima’s statement implies another important attribute of opera singers’ transnational work—its temporary nature (or its crystallization through circles or even spirals of temporary job offers), which she seemingly takes for granted and even welcomes. Existing limited works about operatic careers stress that temporariness of employment is indeed an essential feature of global operatic migrations, an essential feature in the employment history of an ambitious transnational opera singer and especially a global opera star (Cygankvao, 2016; Harrington, 2020; Krikunenko, 2022; Shepard, 2010).
Serafima, who wants to become an internationally acclaimed and demanded singer, admits that her parents, who have sponsored her education in Italy, are not in favour of her prospective mode of living on temporary jobs. Still they trust her choice:
They are typically Soviet people, who always lived in quite predictable conditions. They find it hard to believe that opera singers have temporary jobs. They often ask me, “Is this what you really want?” If this is so, go ahead and follow your path. But don’t ask us because we just do not understand what is so pleasurable about these temporary jobs”. So I have to make this choice on my own.
In the imagination of laymen like Serafima’s parents, who are positioned away from global opera, and also in the opinion of many scholars, temporariness (or temporary employment) is often associated with the precarity of low-skill migrants while skilled migration is seen exempt from the negative impact of temporary jobs such as socio-economic marginalization or inability to make a new home (Piper, 2017; Piper & Whiter, 2018). Studies, nevertheless, show that foreign workers with elite professional skills also become subjected to temporariness and its adverse effects (Goldring, 2014; Raghuram, 2014; Weinar & Klekowski von Koppenfels, 2020). They may suffer from unfair professional recognition, unjust conditions of unexpected work or inability to psychologically deal with their temporary employment, especially on the long-term basis (ibid; Arnholtz & Lillie, 2018).
‘Long-term? I was not prepared for that. I did not expect it to become the norm of my life’, I often hear from my informants. The phenomenon of ‘permanent temporariness’ is frequently recognized in studies on both low-skill and high-skill migrants, including domestic workers (Piper, 2017), free-lance experts, transnational CEOs (Weinar & Klekowski von Koppenfels, 2020) and artists (Shepard, 2010). They may live in ‘a perpetual trap of changing places and countries’ (Weinar & Klekowski von Koppenfels, 2020: 89). This leads people like the home-towners of Enrico Caruso to question his career choice. While scholars may wish to understand how such migrants deal with temporariness, given their diverse skills, professional experiences, migration routes and career trajectories (Latham et al., 2014; Scholten & van Ostaijen, 2018; Piper, 2017).
The question of temporariness management is an important aspect of the agency-network nexus, which remains under-studied, especially in relation to skilled migrants. There is indeed very little knowledge about how such migrants perceive their own temporariness and what strategies they use to deal with it and thus to conform to the expectations of their network. Scholars only note the diversity of motives for—as well as socio-cultural conditions and forms of—temporary placements for skilled foreign workers who have employment contracts of different length, remuneration and geographical location (Latham et al., 2014; Scholten & van Ostaijen, 2018; Raghuram, 2014; Weinar & Klekowski von Koppenfels, 2020). Some convert their temporariness into permanent stay; while others find it beneficial for their careers and continue to invest in mobility (DeLange & Von Walsum, 2014; Raghuram, 2014).
By ‘temporariness management’, I mean the process of controlling one’s own temporariness in terms of (re)evaluating its meanings and (re)directing its course either toward settlement or toward the protracted condition as an agentic strategy of purposeful networking. The research of Vosko et al. (2014) shows that temporariness is structured by a variety of factors. As an objective category, it is conditioned by immigration- and employment- laws and established professional and migratory networks. At the same time, it is also a subjective category, shaped by migrants’ attitudes about what it means for his/her career and wellbeing to be a temporary foreign worker. Literatures on temporariness clearly show that its management is a complex process that has two sides: subjective rationale and specific actions (strategies). The latter are chosen on the basis on the former, while the former are re-evaluated on the basis of the latter (Piper, 2017; Piper & Whiter, 2018; Vosko et al., 2014).
Empirical studies show that skilled migrants may develop quite diverse and complex rationales on their protracted temporariness. Some perceive it as a source of insecurity, which disrupts their plans for settlement. Others see a number of bonuses in it (Weinar & Klekowski von Koppenfels, 2020) such as career growth from international experience, skill acquisition from exposure to new people and new working cultures (Favell, 2008; Raghuram, 2014). For some, it may be associated with an enjoyable lifestyle while for others it may convey a rather pragmatic acceptance of economic benefits (Latham et al., 2014; Weinar & Klekowski von Koppenfels, 2020). As Vosko et al. (2014) show, the subjective rationales of temporariness may vary from attitudes and approaches of resistance and rejection of temporariness to its reframing as a useful experience.
Objective actions on one’s own temporariness (or ways to make use of existing laws, contracts and networks) also range from attempts to convert temporariness into making a hew home at destination through pragmatic marriage, various other attempts to change legal status, irregular work and repatriation to a multitude of ‘reframing’ practices of coming to terms with temporariness (Piper, 2017; Vosko et al., 2014).
In this reference, opera singers who become global elite migrants and who seek to come in terms with temporary jobs should also embrace the idea of their continuous geographical mobility but in combination with settlement, or anchorage. In other words, while welcoming temporary jobs in various parts of the world, they should be also able to rotate geographically and to build their second home in one of their new destinations. Mobility with anchorage, which is synchronized with desired temporariness is what makes global elite migrations distinct as a labor category, especially in the global opera industry. This is what makes the professional profile of the operatic giant and even of the operatic red dwarf.
5.3 The Heart That Is Not Beating
The life stories of my interviewees Keira and Agnia start on the same optimistic note. Following similar early career trajectories and employing similar networking strategies, these two artists even belong to the same age group. Some years ago, the twenty-three year-old Agnia was graduating from a Russian conservatory with an idealistic plan to become an international opera star. Having discussed her career prospects with her cohort fellows and teachers she decided to enrol in an Italian vocal academy to continue her operatic education and to expand her professional network. She knew that financial resources for immigration and studies abroad were not yet available for her at that time:
My parents had no more money to support my further education overseas. They had already exhausted all their savings while financing my higher education at home, and had no financial means to sponsor my post-graduate education in Italy. Given this, I needed to wait for a few years before I could find a solution on my own.
As a top student of her cohort, Agnia was offered a permanent contract in a theatre at origin for secondary and third roles and started to ‘look for opportunities to make the world aware of her talent’. She herself admits that many other singers would be happy to work on a permanent contract and ‘lead a quiet life’, but she wanted something else, ‘something bigger than just an ordinary life of the mediocre musician, who lives in-between one provincial theatre and home’. Her conational Keira also graduated from a good local conservatory with colours yet without any networking support. And like Agnia, she was offered a permanent contract for ‘modest roles’ in her home country.
Not scared of the doors that were seemingly closing in front of them, these two ambitious young singers started to apply for prestigious international concourses by sending their resumes and digital records of their vocal performances to relevant organizing committees. Having submitted around twenty applications, each of these young women was invited to one of the most desired contests, with the fellowship to cover travelling and accommodation. Neither of them became a finalist of her competition. However, they both were selected for auditioning at a prestigious vocal academy in Italy. The auditioning was successful for each of them, and they both became interns to master their vocal technique in Italy.
The heavy gates to the global operatic industry started to open one after another for Keira and Agnia insofar when they were being offered a variety of job contracts across Europe. ‘It was difficult in physical terms but absolutely rewarding professionally as was I was building my own repertoire and experience’, notes Agnia. ‘And each new temporary contract was more beneficial than the previous one’, adds Keira. For ten years, they had been singing the leads on temporary contracts in two Italian theaters, one German or Swiss theatre and a theatre back home until their career trajectories took different turns.
Agnia was ‘on the biological clock’ when she discovered her pregnancy:
A few years before, I had decided to invest totally in my internationally mobile career and had even terminated my previous pregnancy, about which I always regretted. And when I found out that I was pregnant again, I decided to keep the baby. My partner was based in Russia. But it was not the issue for us to maintain the family at a distance. We were not actually planning to get married. I feared lest the constant mobility and tough working schedules should damage the fetus. At that moment, I was not thinking about myself anymore. I was more worried about the baby. The doctors asked me to be careful and to rest as much as possible. That is why, I eventually made my choice not in favour of global opera, about which I kind of regret – but not as much as about the termination of my first pregnancy.
Agnia knew that it would be extremely hard for her to sing during her pregnancy and that the singing and related auditioning might provoke a miscarriage or even damage the baby. She decided to take a pause. ‘I actually dropped from that elite career ladder, to be more exact, because there is no way back once you drop’, she says. She returned home, and after the child was born, she resumed her singing career but on ‘less competitive terms’: she took a permanent job in a Russian theatre, combining it with solo performance in a local concert hall and on local TV, sometimes participating with her theater in small musical festivals in Europe. She had eventually abandoned the singing career and, together with her colleague, opened a private music school at home. Concluding her story, she sadly confesses, ‘I still remember that unearthly feeling when my manager told me that my next temporary contract was to be with a Tier-2 theatre in Europe’. It was, in fact, one of her first and most tangible networking benefits, as she herself admits:
I knew it would be a big step toward a real career. My heart was palpitating with bliss at that moment. I remember that feeling of that heavenly palpitation. I still remember, as if it had been only yesterday, how my heart was beating with joy.
‘“The heart is not beating!” That was the verdict I heard in the emergency room’, Keira further says, ‘and I still believe there is no more ominous word to hear than “still born”. I assume it was the price I had to pay for my career’. Keira, who was at the time of her unplanned pregnancy married to an Italian entrepreneur and already had a child, decided to take the risk and to continue singing to the fullest by immediately joining the new contract scheme:
Many opera singers engage in ambitious projects while being pregnant. Take, for example, Anna Netrebko or Sonya Yoncheva. I saw many opera singers performing during their pregnancy. So I thought everything should be fine. And whatever happens, I never forget that I am an opera singer, an elite professional who has to be strong.
Each of these two stories is tragic in its own way, pointing to uneasy decisions and, consequently, new ways to think about the role that temporariness, mobility and permanence play in the life of global elite migrants. As my female informants generally admit, temporariness and mobility are often incompatible with pregnancy because these two conditions disrupt the habitual meaning of the third existential condition—the condition of permanence, which is, undoubtedly, important for motherhood. The pregnancy test became a critical event for Agnia and Keira, having dramatically changed their life course. For Agnia, it was the point of no return to the space of global elite migrations. While for Keira it was another threshold to a higher mode along their continuum, which she crossed to become an operatic giant.
5.4 All Roads Lead to Rome
Whether they have turned into opera giants, remained modest stars or fell down from the global opera sky; all my informants admit that they used to dream about becoming a superstar like the famous Erwin Schrott or Anna Netrebko. The informants wanted to live and work like these super-giants of the world opera, who had not only managed to secure gainful employment on the global level but had also established themselves on the global operatic arena as the diva/divo of the new millennium. That was the message continuously generated by mass media for the naïve imagination of conservatory students and new singers, inspiring their global migrations.
This is true that some opera singers who seek employment outside their countries of origin eventually fall under the desired and admired category of artistic ‘transnational elite’, who are educated, multi-lingual, globally mobile and transnationally employed in a variety of first- and second-tier theaters. This is illuminated by the relatively small yet expanding super-elite strata of transnationally famous opera singers like, for example, Schrott and Netrebko (Cygankvao, 2016). As noted by Shepard (2010), far not every aspiring operatic migrant will manage to join the operatic super elite. How far elite migrant-artists are positioned from the super elite depends on a variety of factors, including their management of protracted temporariness, the career task that has been successfully accomplished by Keira but not by Agnia. While Keira is now progressing to this super elite strata, Agnia has lost this path forever, as she herself believes, because she has not only interrupted her contracts but has also left the geographical zone of Europe. In this connection, Petersen (2017: 70) observes that ‘the scope of an artist’s professional success depends on his/her geographical location in the art world’, which explains the logic of artistic migrations: the artistic elite-in-the-making seek to settle in countries with a high concentration of high-quality theaters.
5.4.1 The Size and the Money: Germany, America or Europe?
All opera houses can be generally divided into three basic groups: (1) German model; (2) American model; and (3) Italian-European model, as explained by Agid and Tarondeau (2007). Of course, this division is very schematic and many theaters have developed their own specific features. However, the main features of each model are still obvious and influential of singers’ employment patterns. These three models are distinct on the basis of funding, repertory and stakeholders’ responsibility in the distribution of resources. These are the main factors of the operatic industry. Although they are intersecting in their impact upon the functioning of a theater, the factor of funding (and related patronage) is the dominant one. We shall now look into how each model works and how it may affect the employment choice. Their main features are summarized in Table 5.1 below.
Basically speaking, opera houses have three main financial sources: private sponsorship, theater’s earned income and governmental sponsorship (Agid & Tarondeau, 2007). The former two sources are frequently referred to as ‘self-financing’, implying the theater’s capacity for raising funds on its own, independent from the state (Karatun, 2017). In fact, it is always much easier to negotiate with private sponsors than with federal and regional public funds, which are normally fixed and bound to performance control (Chernozatonskaya, 2015; Khokhlov, 2015). The degree to which the opera house can be independent from governmental funding determines its status and capacity for internationalization/globalization—that is, for promoting international collaboration and hiring international singers (Agid & Tarondeau, 2007; Harrington, 2020; Shepard, 2010; Walter, 2016).
The private financing of theaters brings together individual and collective private stakeholders such as individual philanthropists and entrepreneurs, on the one hand, and various private grants and programs (Walter, 2016). The governmental sponsorship is actually the involvement of the federal, regional (provincial) or urban (municipal) government in the financing of an affiliated opera house. The ‘earned income’ scheme means that the income produced by theatrical productions in a theater will cover resources to be employed in the next productions and/or staff wages (Chernozatonskaya, 2015; Predlogoff, 2014). This, in fact, never happens to the fullest because the income from performances is never enough to cover all engaged expenses (Snowman, 2009). It is usually between 10% and 30% of the overall funding for the majority of world opera houses (Agid & Tarondeau, 2007).
On these grounds, the ‘German model’ has the reputation of the ‘public funding’ opera industry. The German state and its regional authorities invest generously in national and regional opera and, therefore, aim to support a large number of productions in many theaters nationwide or regionwide (ibid). This is one of the reasons for Germany to have the long standing reputation of an ‘opera country’ (Shepard, 2010; Snowman, 2009). Eighty percent of German theaters financing is made of public funding insofar (Agid & Tarondeau, 2007; Karatun, 2017). Thus having a robust reliable sponsor in the face of the government and, therefore, not depending on unpredictable private donors or fluctuating incomes of individual theaters, Germany boasts not only famous opera houses but primarily a large variety of small theaters with low occupancy rates but a high volume of various operatic activities, enough to sustain the employment of singers of various operatic categories. These small theaters are easily accessible for young, aspiring artists to start their careers. The question is on what terms.
In terms of repertory, German theaters stage both ‘old operas’ (including masterpieces of such iconic classic opera composers as Richard Wagner, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Giuseppe Verdi and Giacomo Puccini in their original artistic style) and innovative and/or contemporary productions (Tarondeau, 2008; Wilson, 2010). Their innovative programming results in more modernized versions of old classic operas but with thoroughly modernized plots and various theatrical experiments, as well as in works of more contemporary composers to satisfy a wider range of public tastes in the government-supported and, consequently, risk-free entrepreneurial environment (Agid & Tarondeau, 2007; Shepard, 2010). As a consequence of abundant public funding, the majority German theaters have rather closed creative industries and, consequently, closed networks, which do not widely welcome co-productions with other German theaters or with theaters from other operatic industries (Agid & Tarondeau, 2007). All German theaters offer permanent contracts for the ‘in-house staff’ in title roles—the employment policy that clashes with those in America and the rest of Europe (ibid; Harrington, 2020; Hartley, 2021; Karatun, 2017; Pierce, 2000). All this makes the German model look like a very closed and static elliptical galaxy.
In contrast, the so-called ‘US model’ is known as the ‘private sponsorship’ model, in which private funding constitutes 70–80% of all financial sources (Agid & Tarondeau, 2007). The remaining 20–30% of financing comes from federal or state -programs and theaters’ own incomes. For example, an opera house may receive 80% of sponsorship from private sources and 10% from its own income and the state program each, which is the case of Los Angeles Opera or Washington National Opera (ibid). Since the earned income is a marginal source and the private sponsorship is the dominating factor in this model, US opera houses do not invest in a large number of diverse productions to satisfy every public taste. On the contrary, they aim at a low volume of operas, which are mostly conservative and old-fashioned, to satisfy the taste of the private donors. The private donors are, in many cases, famous musicians or rich entrepreneurs with quite conservative tastes and the preference for classic music and a classic style of performance (ibid; Heilbrun, 2001). Thus these theaters more often showcase Verdi or Puccini in the traditional opera format. At the same time, the ‘American model’ leading theaters may also engage in many co-productions with smaller US theaters and European theaters of various sizes and merging their network with those (Agid & Tarondeau, 2007; Boerner & Renz, 2008; McPhee, 2017; Westphal, 2006). In the majority of cases, new networks are formed in the out wheels of the spiral American galaxy.
The rest of the western theaters fall into the ‘Italian (European) opera’ model, which, while relying on public funding (50–60%), also recognizes the role of private sources and theaters’ incomes, given their diversity in Europe (Agid & Tarondeau, 2007; Karatun, 2017). This is actually the ‘mixed model’ or operatic industry. In fact, European theaters use more private funding than their German counterparts but not as much as theaters in the USA. Vice versa, the public funding of opera in Europe is more active than in the USA but not as much as in Germany (ibid; Khokhlov, 2015). While widely using public programs of their regions and/or provinces, European opera houses primarily rely on the support from their municipalities, which explains the diversity of theaters and performance styles in Europe (Agid & Tarondeau, 2007).
Another distinct feature of European opera houses is that no source of funding is marginal and that self-financing in the face of private sponsorship and theaters’ incomes matters significantly and may contribute to 20–30% of the overall funding, depending on the city’s cultural status and on the theater’s size (Agid & Tarondeau, 2007). In general, the network of European opera houses resembles what astronomers call an ‘irregular galaxy’, a structure that is both open and orthodox in its logistics, and eventually biased to smaller networks. Thus the municipalities of smaller cities have fewer resources to invest in their theaters, which are, consequently, small in size and spectator capacity and cannot afford, therefore, a large volume of performance and innovative projects. While private donors pay more attention to more famous theaters in Europe.
That is why, alongside with the many small-size third- and fourth-level theaters, Europe has another subgroup of opera houses that come very close in its financial logistics to the USA but tend more to Germany in their artistic programming. This sub-group is comprised of the first- and second-level opera houses. Within this sub-group are around twenty first-level theaters located in largest European cities (Agid & Tarondeau, 2007). Their list includes, for example, Covent Garden in London, Opera National de Paris, Liceu in Barcelona, Opera Real in Madrid, La Scala in Milan, Zurich Opera and Vienna Staatsopera (ibid). This privileged category of first-level European theaters has a comparable financial structure, with around 50% public subsidies and 20–30% of earned income and robust private grants each (ibid; Karatun, 2017; Khokhlov, 2015). Enjoying financial autonomy, this elite category is noted for a relatively low number of performances but in large well-fitted theaters, resonating with the US model (ibid). At the same time, in their attempt to respond to the diversity of tastes of European sponsors, these elite theaters must promote most innovative programing with more new and modernized productions (like in Germany) (Agid & Tarondeau, 2007; Wilson, 2010). Thus the European model actually stands in-between its American and German counterparts and not only in terms of funding.
5.4.2 The Rank and the Contract: Tier 1, 2, 3, 4…Open the Door?
In terms of their employment preferences, my interviews show that aspiring singers do not think about their employment as much in terms of the theaters’ names like the legendary and dreamy La Scala or Covent Garden as in terms of their categories such as Tier 1 or Tier 2. In this reference, it is not easy to present a precise classification of world opera houses for two main reasons. First, there are several overlapping factors at play when determining the theater’s prestige. Second, the main factor of financing is never robust for the majority of theaters, which are susceptible to the impact of an economic crisis, including the global financial crisis of 2008–2012 (Agid & Tarondeau, 2007; Vilisov & Krolevsky, 2017) and the current (post)pandemic crisis (Isaakyan, 2020, 2021). The fragility of funding is added by the unpredictability of private donors’ preferences and behaviors (Shepard, 2010). That is why, one and the same theater may actually travel in-between the tiers while new prestigious and rich theaters such as Dubai Opera may enter the highest tier any time (Tourish, 2016).
However, it is still possible to present a tentative classification of ‘opera house’ tiers based on the intersection of such factors as budget, region, architecture/acoustics, internationalization strategy and employment offers. Although it will be a geopolitically instable hierarchy of galaxies. In this classification, theaters can be divided into four main groups: Tier 1–4, or the ‘A-D’ classification respectively (Harrington, 2020; National Geographic, 2021; ScienceDirect, 2021). The ‘Tier 1’ category consists of the above-mentioned elite theaters such as Covent Garden in London, Opera National de Paris, Liceu in Barcelona, Opera Real in Madrid, La Scala in Milan, Zurich Opera, Metropolitan Opera in New York, Washington National Opera, Los Angeles Opera and Vienna Staatsopera, among a few others. The majority of these theaters are located in Europe and a few in the USA. Over the period of 2010–2017, the self-financing of non-German theaters within the tier rose up to 60–70%, making up to 80% in Covent Garden, for example, with the private sponsoring remaining at 20–30% and the public funding at 30–40% (Karatun, 2017). However, the theaters from this tier that are based in Germany and Austria have the increased public funding up to 60–70% but the self-financing remaining at around 30%, with a very small contribution of private donors (ibid). As we can see, theaters of this tier are quite robust in their own financial capacity, differing, however, in the private-public balance of contributions they receive. This tier is mostly comprised of large-size European and some US-based opera houses, with a leading role of private funders (according to the RevOpera.com 2017 classification, cited in Karatun, 2017). With globalization, the boundaries of this tier are expanding, inclusive of a few Russian theaters such as Bolshoi and Mariinsky (ibid) or Dubai Opera (Tourish, 2016).
As the works of Harrington (2020), Hartley (2021), Shepard (2010) and Wilson (2010) show, the less ‘elitist’ yet still very renowned operatic ‘Tier 2’ is comprised of a large number of average-size theaters also within the European model. They are located in such culturally attractive European cities as Florence, Naples, Venice, Rome and Geneva, among many others. This group also includes the majority of US-based theaters in smaller but still world famous and rapidly expanding urban areas such as Minneapolis or Denver. The ‘Tier 3’ category encompasses even smaller-size theaters mostly located in Germany and Italy but also scattered globally, including the post-Soviet space. More modest in their architecture, orchestra and artistic resources, these theaters are less self-financed than their counterparts from Tiers 1 and 2, relying mostly on regional and rather crisis-sensitive municipal funding; while nevertheless offering a possibility of permanent/fixed contracts to singers. Close to them along the continuum of resource scarcity stands the least singer-desired group of ‘Tier 4’ theaters, referred to as ‘vanity theaters’ and known for limited repertory and seasonable job offers (Harrington, 2020).
Although there are no sustained data on the most recent development in the funding of global opera houses, the private funding has generally proven, in the face of global crises, to be more fragile than governmental sources, while the governments of Germany and other countries with rich operatic traditions continue to invest in their Tier-1 theaters (Karatun, 2017; Khokhlov, 2015). That is why, theaters of varied caliber that are based in Germany may primarily seem to be more attractive employment places, as noted by Shepard (2010).
The choice is, however, not so easy to make because along with the governmental funding come various forms of surveillance and contract obligations (Walter, 2016). In his manual for ‘new’ opera singers, Patrick Shepard (2010) further advises them on being careful about taking employment in Germany as it may significantly limit their professional freedom. Governmental stakeholders are, in fact, always more difficult to negotiate artistic expression and career development, whether in Germany or in any other country (Walter, 2016). They want to see the accountability and may, therefore, feel skeptical about investing in artistic modernization (Predlogoff, 2014; Vilisov & Krolevsky, 2017).
Temporary contracts for migrant-singers also differ. As Shepard (2010) explains, they include ‘fixed longer-term contracts’ (‘Fest contracts’) and ‘guest contract’. Fest contracts guarantee employment with one particular theater for a longer time of one to three years, with a possibility of secondment—but for repertoire determined by the theater and never negotiated with the artist. This may result in the obligation for the artist to sing all possible roles that may not even match her/his voice.
On the contrary, the guest contract offers employment for a short time (three-four months) but for a role negotiated with the artist. There are also ‘prolonged guest contracts’, in which the artist sings the role of her/his choice for a short period of time but repeatedly over two-four years in the same theater. Shepard (2010) warns ambitious migrant-artists against the Fest contract because the imposed repertoire and internal scheduling (including the posted work) may actually destroy the voice, the reputation and, consequently, the envisioned elite career. He stresses that the migrant-artist should seek to sing the repertoire of her/his voice division, even if the price is temporariness. A common employment pattern is based on a combination of three or four normal ‘guest’ contracts.
The majority of publicly financed German theaters offer ‘Fest’ contracts with fixed duration of roles and schedules for a rather long period of time, which will not be easy to modify (Harrington, 2020; Shepard, 2010). A similar situation can be observed in Russia, where the majority of theaters offer permanent contracts to opera singers (Khokhlov, 2015; Vilisov & Krolevsky, 2017). Opera specialists advise young singers on approaching such career traps with the utmost care: in the case of the fixed or permanent contract, it is recommended to negotiate its boundaries by limiting the workload to part-time jobs to allow for more mobility space (ibid; Shepard, 2010).
In terms of internationalization, theaters within the categories of Tiers 1 and 2 are always highly international: especially for lead and secondary roles, they widely hire international singers on temporary and sometimes even permanent part-time contracts (Harrington, 2020; Hartley, 2021; Krikunenko, 2022). While theaters in Tier 3 and especially in Tier 4 are more ‘domestic’ in their recruitment policies. They mostly hire local singers without, however, completely restricting the entrance to foreigners if those can arrange visas and other paper work on their own because such theaters lack managerial resources for this kind of support (Harrington, 2020). On a final note, one should not forget that all these tiers and contracts are structured by influential people and powerful geopolitical networks.
5.5 Global Elite Temporariness: Spaces and Meanings
As further noted by Shepard (2010), the most desirable for an elite operatic career would be a contract package containing an offer from one or two Tier 1 or/and Tier 2 theaters, although it may not be always realistic. ‘This is very far from reality,’ notes Serafima with a sad irony. Originally from St Petersburg, she used to go a lot to the Mariinsky Theater in her high school years. And every time she was approaching Maririnsky, she was seeing the face of Anna Netrebko:
She was already a legend for Mariinsky, where she had grown as a star. Her image was mesmerizing. I knew she was to sing in La Scala and Metropolitan. And I thought that I would definitely sing there too. Her example was so inspiring. That is why, to be closer to La Scala, I told my parents that I would like to enrol in the conservatory in Milan. Now I understand how childish it was.
Despite the fact that my informants’ enchantment with the world of opera started with its La Scala symbolism, they view a Tier-1 theater as a faraway, unreachable star for their career spacecraft. The aspiring singers whom I have interviewed aim, in more realistic terms, at Tier-2 theaters, while allowing the compromise of a small share of Tier-3 employment. This is what to be ‘demanded on the job market’ means, as explained below by Serafima:
I don’t really want to think about La Scala or Metropolitan now. I am not sure if this is realistic, and I do not want to waste my time on this. I just want to be demanded in global opera industry: I want to have a relatively long-term employment – of more than for one year – in three or four very good theaters in Europe, in places such as Florence, Naples or Meinheim, and in leading or secondary roles of my repertoire.
When I further asked this twenty-five year old conservatory graduate why she would like to work in three or four theaters per season rather than in one, she responded, ‘Because it is safer that way – better for my voice and for my personal freedom’. What kind of safety and freedom was she talking about? Would not this be a nuisance to choose the temporariness over the permanence of employment? Not for global elite migrants who want to be in-career, as my interviews will further illuminate.
5.5.1 Employment Packages: Heights and Wormholes
My interviews lead to see several scenarios of ‘being in-career’ for the most successful informants. These scenarios are based on the intertwining of their temporary contracts, geographical mobility and permanence (or lifestyle preferences), which will be discussed below. These configurations of temporary employment show where my informants are located along the global elite migration continuum. These scenarios are summarized in Table 5.2 below.
Scenario #1 can be understood as ‘Level A’ of global elite migration as an international labor category. According to this observed scenario, the informant is employed on lead- and secondary roles in one Tier-1 theater and two Tier-2 theaters in Europe, America or Asia on temporary contracts (with possible secondment), and also in one Tier 3 theater in the country of origin on the permanent but part-time basis. The interviews show that this level of global operatic employment is the most difficult to achieve, and only ten informants (out of the sixty) enact this scenario and have the privilege of singing in a Tier-1 theater. Their starry positioning is akin to that of a stellar giant (as explained in Chap. 4).
This scenario can be illuminated by the current employment trajectory of Stella. Over the last five years, she has been singing secondary roles in a global Tier-1 theater for two months per year on temporary seconded contracts; lead roles in two Tier-2 Italian theaters also for two or three months each on temporary seconded contracts; and lead roles in one Tier-3 theater at origin for two months on the part-time but permanent basis per annum. She thus works for five or six months in Italy, where she has her second home as she has been married to an Italian musician. ‘Italy is a small country, which is well-connected by the train system’, she notes, ‘And I can easily commute from my new home to work’.
Specific theaters within Tier-1 and Tier-2 can change each year, depending on the global opera market demands and the negotiating abilities of Stella’s agent, whom she trusts and who ‘has never yet failed [her] expectations’. While the idea of being employed, for some time, ‘close to home’ allows Stella to spend more time with her immediate family in Italy and also to regularly visit and spend some time with her parents and old friends back home, thus ‘combining work and pleasure’ and achieving some satisfying degree of work-life balance. In total, she is employed for around ten months per year, while spending two months back home and around seven or eight months near her new home in Italy. This mode of elite transnational employment provides for a high degree of home visits (temporary repatriation) and integration at destination.
Scenario #2—or ‘Level B’ of global elite migration—can be observed in the 25% of all my cases (experienced by fifteen singers), where my informants hold equal shares of Tier-2 and Tier-3 employment in their work packages. For example, the case of Zlata is illuminative of this scenario. Each year, she sings both lead- and secondary roles in two Tier-2 theaters in Italy for two or three months each, and in two Tier-3 theaters in post-Soviet republics (in opera houses located in cultural centers) for two months each (including all auditions). As the investor’s wife, Zlata has an opportunity to spend around five months per year in Italy (where she and her husband have built their second home) and also four months in the former Soviet republics where her husband has business, thus spending around eight or nine months together with her husband and also having a couple of months for home visits to see her parents. Although less than in Scenario #1, this degree of the work-and-life balance is still very tangible for Zlata, creating the feeling of ‘living a good life’. She is more modest in professional achievements than Stella but still a star—a red dwarf, as astronomers would say (see Chap. 4).
So is Gorislava, who illuminates Scenario #3. However, she appears to be more nervous about her ‘vagabond’ life than Zlata but still satisfied with her career flow. ‘I can see that I have a lot of space to grow professionally and to be eventually in-career’, she says, ‘because I am on the right track at the moment’. This ‘Level C’ of global elite migration is perceived by some informants as their ‘final trampoline toward more glamorous work’. The seventeen informants of this level combine the Tier-3 and Tier-4 employment (making more than 25% of the whole sample). Each year, Gorislava sings lead- or secondary roles in one Tier-3 theater in Italy, one Tier-3 theater in Russia, one Tier-4 theater in Italy and one Tier-4 theater in Switzerland or Germany.
She is less paid and more constringent in her freedom to choose the repertoire of her voice and to control her working schedule than my informants who are based on the two upper levels. However, she perceives this mode of employment as an important step toward Scenario #2 or even Scenario #1. ‘The most important thing for being in-career is the lead role experience in not a bad internationally-oriented theater,’ she says, ‘Then I will be able to negotiate my next steps with my agent or to start looking for better agents: they all want experience. No one wants to represent an unexperienced singer’.
Gorislava is not over-exaggerating the potential of this mode of employment. In fact, some of my informants have managed to ascend from Scenario #3 to Scenario #2. That was the case of Keira, who has by now established herself as the ‘level B’ singer, rapidly approaching the ‘level A’ mode. However, the ‘level C’ trampoline did not work equally for everyone. Thus Agnia (who chose to interrupt her employment because of the baby) has actually descended from ‘level C’ to what I would like to conceptualize as the ‘post-elite employment mode’: she has converted into the repatriated elite. Ten of my sixty informants represent this mode of transnational employment: having dropped from the global elite migrations stream, they either repatriated like Agnia or became ordinary high-skill migrants like Polina.
There is also the ‘pre-global-elite’ mode of transnational operatic employment, which can be understood as Scenario #4. This scenario has been enacted in the 20% of all cases. These twelve informants are still students in Italian conservatories, struggling to find the right agent and, consequently, the network entry at the time of making their first career steps in global opera. For example, Karp was for a few years temporarily employed in two Tier-2 Italian theaters but on episodic roles and in two Tier-4 (‘varsity’) theaters in Russia on lead roles. ‘That painful period of my life seemed to last forever’, he confesses sadly, ‘No one wanted to promote someone who with experience from episodic roles or weak theaters’. As noted by my informants and scholars of arts, episodic roles and ‘bad’ theaters may seriously damage prospective global elite trajectories because they act as career traps (Shepard, 2010; Wilson, 2010).
Yet lacking other career building tools, some unsophisticated informants still consciously chose this scenario as a wormhole toward a bigger global opera galaxy. However, intergalactic wormholes, as astronomers warn, are quite deceptive and often surrealistic as they may lead to nowhere.Footnote 1 Astronomers further explain that, in physical terms, an astronaut who is choosing a wormhole can only see the other end—the final destination: he cannot see the whole path and, therefore, cannot know how to trod it (Visser, 1996). That is why, astronomers consider wormholes to belong to the realm of science fiction, an illusion that should be avoided in real life (Schutz, 2003). That is why, some informants who illuminate this scenario have eventually dropped from the operatic career because, at a certain point, they started to see themselves as ‘stars that would never shine’, or brown dwarfs (see Chap. 4).
5.5.2 The Meaning of Elite Temporariness
Though to varying degrees of success, all informants have invested in temporariness, which is a key pillar in the privileged elite space of global opera and to which many of them now assign a very special positive meaning. Some of them have eventually reached such an elitist mode of transnational employment that can be conceptualized as ‘global elite temporariness’. This mode of temporariness has becomes more than a legal category, which is regulated by immigration and naturalization laws. It is, first of all, a category of professional elitist practice, through which the migrant can secure an elite pattern of transnational employment and claim a specific position within the global opera industry.
In professional terms, the informants’ perception of professional elitism goes beyond geographical mobility. Their professionally desired temporariness conveys a flexible mixture of two- or three-month contracts in the second-, third- and sometimes even first-layer theaters. This elite mode of transnational employment—or elite temporariness—can be conceptualized as a positively perceived mode of long-term temporariness, which has the following main features.
First of all, it is very dense: the career trajectory consists of three or four short-term contracts per year. As summarized by Stella, ‘I now have interesting contracts in prestigious theaters, more freedom to take a pause between them and also more freedom to visit home’.
Travelling home from time to time becomes an important part of my informants’ employment packages, and this is much more than just informal home visits. In all their ‘mobile elite employment’ schemes, there is such an outstanding element as long-term work in their country of origin. However, their anchorage—or current home—is not there. This is what distinguishes global elite migrants from transnational elite. And this employment in the country of origin is important (although it may not be fully remunerated) because it offers them a lead role or employment in a higher rank theatre.
That is why, the majority of my informants (forty-eight people) have a temporary contract with a theater in their country of origin. For example, Mlada has a three-year contract with a small Russian opera house for performing Amneris, the leading mezzo-soprano in Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Aida. She goes there every year for two months. Her dream is ‘to sing Amneris in a 1st-layer theater in Europe one day’. For this, she would need some experience in this role: ‘My agent tells me that I should come to such big theaters with the already performed role, and the only available option to master this role is to perform it back home.’ The other informants arrange such home-town contracts for the roles of Carmen, Violetta Valery, Don Giovanni and Figaro in order to be able to compete for the repertoire of Verdi and Mozart on the global operatic market later. This is actually the second feature of elite temporariness—the stretching synergy between the transnational/global and the local.
That is why, such temporary contracts are perceived as empowering: the informants see this mode of employment as beneficial for their wellbeing:
Having an opportunity to master significant roles in quiet, smaller places without any rush and hustle, I feel much more confident about my skill and their future application now, although my contracts are still temporary (Zara).
Such spaces for skill finesse to be achieved in ‘the conditions of cosy domesticity’ allow my informants to feel their temporary jobs as very practical, or leading to tangible outcomes. In fact, investing in such contracts, they can develop a new professional skill or enrich their professional portfolio by a rare experience such as the role of Amneris performed at origin.
This makes the fourth main feature of this mode of employment.
Its fifth feature is that it is supportive of other objectives and needs. The informants gain credentials in one temporary place for a more stabilizing position in another. This is illuminated by their trying leading roles first back home in order to enable employment in more prestigious theaters in Europe.
The sixth benefit of elite temporariness is its high degree of resiliency to obstacles and rescheduling. The informants who have reached this mode of work find themselves capable of negotiating specific employment conditions with their agents. As noted by Praskovya, ‘When I felt ill, my agent quickly found me a substitute for the whole month. And I understood how much I had progressed in my freedom’.
The seventh feature of this elite mode of temporary employment is its conveniency. It does not cause discomfort, which can be associated with the fatigue and insecurity of, for example, irregular work or pregnancy. Neither does it disrupt other plans when the artist would like to take additional work or an additional leave of absence. Both Agnia and Keira note that they were not able to take their maternity leaves because they had not yet reached the most elitist work package at that time. ‘I could most likely afford it now’, says Keira, ‘I wish I had had the same resources before’.
The narrated benefits of elite temporariness also include safety from health risks associated with inappropriate repertoire and consequent voice damage. The hygienic nature of elite temporariness is explained by Vanda:
When you make your first professional steps, you cannot yet know in advance which specific role will be the perfect match for your voice. Although we have specific voice divisions, they are not cut in stone because each person’s voice is very unique. So is each singer’s repertoire. When you are dealing with the entirely new repertoire as suggested by the theatre, you should be very careful singing it before making a long-term commitment. What is the role is not yours? What is it does not match the texture of your voice? Or what should you do if you voice suddenly starts changing after labour? When this happens, you should not be singing the un comfortable repertoire for a long time. Otherwise, you may seriously damage the quality of your voice. In such cases, temporary contracts prove to be much better for your health: if you start feeling uncomfortable about the role you are singing, you always have the opportunity to stop singing it in a short period of time. It is important to have this opportunity when you deal with tricky roles such as Violetta from Verdi’s Traviata or Donna Anna from Mozart’s Don Giovanni. They are not for every lyric soprano, as the practice often shows.
Finally, such elitist work packages prove to be very malleable in a sense that they can produce new forms of employment. For example, ten interviewed people have managed to secure a three-year contract with the second-tier theater for the annually repeated short-term production. Apart from that, such elite temporary employment schemes can be easily modified by the artist her/himself to include new, more desired and more convenient affiliations, for example, located near the first or the second home.
Their elite temporariness can be thus conceptualized as a positively perceived mode of long-term temporariness.
5.6 Temporariness Management: Permanence as a Tool of Mobility
As the interviews show, elite temporariness is important for ‘healthier work’. However, the binding element that makes the whole employment package congruent and keeps the temporary work going is mobility. In this connection, the desired unrestricted geographical mobility (which would enable the singer to move globally with ease in search of best and desired jobs) has the pre-condition of permanence, or anchorage somewhere at destination for non-EU nationals. The legalized permanence of stay in Europe is important for sustaining freewheel mobility, through which stability/permanence of global elite employment will be achieved.
5.6.1 The New-Comer’s Ad Hoc Solution
The interviews illuminate that, in order to enjoy this elite mode of employment, the singer should not be dependent on immigration law and such its categories as visas and work permits. The informants argue that, first, the ambitious singer has to enter the desired space of global elite work and then to find anchorage there—an opportunity to stay in Europe to be able to architecture one’s own mobility and work pattern. In other words, the management of temporariness is also the management of freewheel mobility: it is not only about negotiating contracts with agents but also about structuring and directing one’s own firmiter mobile movement.
In terms of entering the global opera space, my informants can be divided into two groups: those whose entrance to global opera was initiated in Italy (during their studies in an Italian conservatory or vocal academy)—and those who were based in their countries of origin when making their first professional steps toward the global opera industry.
For more than 50% of my interviewees (thirty-four people), transnational operatic career started with an Italian conservatory. The absolute majority of them (thirty interviewees) are women, who make 75% of all my female informants.
The following common scenario is observed in sixteen cases. The woman, originally from a mid-size town in Russia or Belarus, came to Italy to apply for a conservatory course. She arrived on a six-month visa, issued to academic applicants. Having failed the application to a selected conservatory, she decided to stay in the country, in order to prepare for the next year application. The interviewed women all understood that temporariness management would be costly and difficult. As recalled by Bronislava, ‘Italy has abundant resources for improving the vocal technique: there are many qualified musicians who can prepare you for the conservatory’. All these thirty women agree with the argument made by Faina that ‘savings you have from your previous job back home or from your parents’ money are not sufficient for this’. ‘From my previous job, I had savings to cover either my maintenance for one year or voice lessons’, as Mlada further explains, ‘However, not both. But I needed both of them. Where to get the money?’
The situation was normally resolved through domestic work, in which twenty-four informants were involved during their studies. Through domestic work, they explored the overall context around operatic employment options in Europe. As noted by Kupava, ‘The domestic work enabled me to look around and to earn some money for private lessons. This further allowed me to matriculate in a private voice academy’. Zoe further adds that the domestic work did not only provide for her legal stay in Italy but also resolved ‘the stressful financial and accommodation situation’.
The strategy of domestic work was used only by women. All of them admit ‘switching three or four times between the student visa and the work permit for domestic workers’, says Faina. Ten women confess having become an illegal domestic worker at least once for a few months before enrolling in a graduate course. In this particular way, it was manageable only on the short-term basis. ‘It was just a quick-fix solution’, says Snejana, ‘working only for a limited period of time.
5.6.2 The EU Citizenship Strategy: Feminization and Man’s Decision
All informants note that they needed to secure permit to stay, in order to look around. ‘I had been in Italy for almost four years’, recalls Zuhra, ‘However, there were very many fine details that I still had not grasped: how to find an agent, which theaters to deal with and which to avoid’. She admits not having explored the networking landscape of the Italian and transnational opera to the fullest and, therefore, not being able to manage her career. She also notes that ‘the previous domestic work strategy did not seem appropriate anymore because it was physically and emotionally debilitating’. The informants were looking for new tools to prolong their stay in Europe but on the conditions other than the precarious status of domestic work or foreign studentship. Zuleika adds that it was extremely difficult to do the two things at once—to extend your stay on less restricted conditions while also securing better employment contracts: ‘Good, reliable agents usually prefer not to deal with visas. They are more reluctant to arrange something serious for you if they see that you may have problems with immigration officials’. All informants agree that ‘you are able to negotiate the right configuration of short-term contracts only after your permit to stay has been set’, notes Zuhra.
In this reference, there is no specific visa regime for artists in Europe, whereas some countries offer Exceptional Talent- and Entrepreneur/Investor- schemes for liberal professions . For example, it is easy to receive permit for autonomous work or Start-up Investor visa in Italy or Denmark (ibid). However, the primary factor that makes aspiring migrant-artists ineligible for such visas is her/his limited funds due to the sporadic nature of her/his employment. This factor also obstructs application for the Blue Card, meant for skilled migrants in Europe:
I was literally penniless when I was completing my conservatory course. All my prior funds had been spent on voice lessons (Praskovya).
I did not have a few thousand euros to apply for the Blue Card or any ‘talent’ scheme (Zara).
Unable to secure the EU financial threshold, my informants had to ‘improvise with a more reliable strategy’. In this connection, a fastest route to the EU labour market for high-skill migrants is offered by the EU Family Reunification Policy Framework (Van den Broucke et al., 2016). One law within this framework is the European Citizens’ Rights Directive (ibid). This directive grants the spouses of EU-nationals the right to work in the EU and to enter non-EU western countries for short-term employment up to three months (ibid). The European Citizens’ Rights Directive is one of the most viable agentic strategies toward the status that is equivalent to ‘permit to work’ in the EU (Isaakyan & Triandafyllidou, 2021). The main accent is placed on the migrant’s marriage with a EU national (ibid; DeLuca & Ambrosini, 2019).
‘I knew that the way toward a more plastic artistic life would lie through marriage’, says Angela, one of my “naturalized-through-marriage” interviewees. When ‘other available resources had been exhausted’, she just married her a friend of her coach pianist. Another interviewed woman Klava confirms the sudden life change invoked by the marriage, ‘Everything became within easy reach’. Twenty women have become EU citizens through the marriage with an Italian man and have obtained all EU employment rights.
Another example is Galya, who comes from a wealthy Russian family. She is the child of the ‘crazy-90s’ generation, whose parents were involved in a dynamic, semi-illegal business in the 1990s and completely sponsored her operatic education in leading Russian and Italian conservatories. Neither in Russia nor in Italy had she ‘ever had to worry about the money’. Upon the completion of her extended course of studies in Italy, she was, nevertheless, facing the problem of leaving the country while not been able to find the right agent. Then a childhood friend with whom she had been in correspondence for many years and shared many intimate details of her life suggested that “the drop-dead gorgeous Galya should choose, among many available suitors, the richest guy with the money originating from an ancient dynasty”. Following her friend’s advice, Galya eventually chose the husband who became her sponsor, given the dependency of Italian and American theaters on private donations. ‘But let you not have a false impression of how it all works here: not everyone here has been as lucky as I am. It is not easy to find this kind of husband’, concludes Galya, ‘My advice is that one should explore other ways too’.
In fact, family reunification is not the only strategy of temporariness management. Twenty-six people (40%) have received the EU citizenship through jus sanguinis, or ethnic descent law, which works in a number of European countries. This strategy of converting the regulated temporariness into the open-ended mode has been mostly practiced by men. The eighteen men who have applied for naturalization on the grounds of ethnic descent make 60% of all interviewees and 90% all male informants. While there have been only eight women who have used this strategy.
For example, Alisa started to recall that she was of the Sephardic Jewish origin when she was at the conservatory. She applied for the Portuguese citizenship through the Portuguese Decree-Law 30-A/2015. This law grants nationality to Sephardic Jews whose ancestors were expelled from Portugal by the Inquisition in the fifteenth century (Global Citizen, 2021; Birthright Citizenship, 2018). The similar Spanish jus sanguinis was benefited by seven informants who had claimed their Sephardic Jewish origin. Some interviewees have received the EU Citizenship by claiming their ethnic roots on the Greek (seven people), Bulgarian (five people), German (two people), Latvian (two people) and Romanian (two people) origin.
These two main strategies of Europeanization point to the clear-cut gender divisions in the work of agency: the women choose the improvisatory strategy of marriage while the men prefer the well-planned jus sanguinis approach. This agentic division refers to the nature of planning and envisioning prospective difficulties. The female informants admit being more casual planners and more improvising agents. They confess not being used to planning in advance:
I knew that I did not have any Sephardic or Greek roots. I had no idea of how to look for them, how to arrange all those fake papers. I did not want to bother about reading all those documents (Zoe).
I was afraid of distracting myself by something like this. It was much easier for me just to look around and pick an Italian guy to marry (Zina).
These testimonies show that the women did not carefully plan their careers and temporariness. They were afraid of additional bureaucratic work and of the black-market processing of fake ethnicity papers. On the contrary, the male informants have been more pragmatic and scrupulous planners. The men had actually started to manage their temporariness and to plan for its flexibility prior to emigration.
Marriage is the power but for women mostly. Guys cannot improvise with our sexuality the way they do (Larion).
When you do not have the right ethnic roots, you must invent them and make everyone believe that you always had them. It is a lot of work to be done in advance. Many girls do not want to do such dirty work (Karp).
The man cannot afford coming to Europe unprepared because he does not have much space for improvisation (Timur).
The informants faced cultural constraints at origin for choosing a non-conventional gender strategy. The men confess having being ashamed of engaging with domestic work or marriage manipulations as incompatible with masculinity:
Prolonging my stay through domestic work? No way! (Methodius).
Man should protect himself before the situation escalates (Makar).
The men have been also more reflexive on prospective failures in the management of their elite temporariness and mobility. They have learnt not from their own mistakes but from those of women-artists who engage in domestic work in Italy:
Domestic work is the price for stupidity. So is the marriage. Besides, it does not always work (Demyan).
5.6.3 When the Network Interferes
‘The marriage will not work if your husband is not connected to music’, clarifies Nesmeyana. My female informants agree with Mlada’s statement that ‘marrying just an Italian man is not enough’. The other precondition for temporariness management, which has been recognized by all my sixty informants, is the location of the network. As Vanda notes, ‘Find “your own agent”, who would do everything for you’. ‘I have been desperately trying to attract the attention of operatic agents’, recalls Ulyana, ‘But good agents only talk to singers who have connections in the musical industry, which my husband doesn’t have’.
Sixteen informants are married to Italian men who play an important role in transnational operatic networks. Fourteen of these women are married to music brokers, who have personally introduced their wives to second- and first-level theater directors. These husbands have actually arranged the transnational employment patterns for their wives. The other two women are married to influential musicians such as orchestra conductor and pianist from Italian opera houses. These husbands have introduced their wives to the long-term friends who are elite musical agents. ‘So after I had got married, my career was predetermined’, says Nesmeyana. She married ‘the richest guy among [her] admirers’, who immediately became her sponsor. ‘My husband invests money in all opera plays in which I sing the lead, including one first-layer theater per year’. ‘But not everyone here has been as lucky as I am’, she concludes, ‘It is not easy to find this kind of husband’.
Understanding this, other sixteen women decided to marry co-national foreign entrepreneurs and make use of the other law in the EU Framework on Family Reunification—Family Reunification Directive 2003/86. This directive provides the spouses of non-EU nationals with the right to work in the EU upon arrival and also the right for the independent permit to stay after the five years of their legal residence (Van den Broucke et al., 2016). The husbands opened a business in a EU country and became the holders of the Investor Visa. The wives entered the category of third-country national’s spouse and automatically became the subject for the 2003/86 Directive.
For example, Zabava is married to a co-national ‘wealthy businessman and successful investor’, whom she has met among her admirers on a concert. After they had got married, he started investing into opera houses and productions in former Soviet republics, also co-sponsoring western productions. Through these activities, he found a good operatic agency that arranged a number of short-term contracts for his wife in co-financed shows. Zabava’s performance schedule includes three or four productions per year in such places as second- and first- layer theaters in Baltic States, Italy and another EU country. She can easily reschedule her performance and negotiate it with her agent, who has business together with her husband.
This strategy is attractive to the female informants because it offers a quick route to the EU mobility and support of the intermediary who is your family member. However, the ‘investor spouse’ route has limitations: it restricts the overall geographical mobility, and the temporariness it invokes is fragile. Thus Zlata is married to a co-national who has recently received the Investor Visa in Italy. Her mobility of the investor spouse can be called ‘flexi-regulated’. Her husband’s position brings some flexibility into the negotiation of her contracts, which have been part of their transnational family entrepreneurship. Yet she cannot ‘travel to the fullest’ because she is not a EU national and her temporary jobs are regulated by national laws. As the ‘entrepreneur wife’, she cannot work in Europe outside Italy for more than three months more often than once in half a year. Therefore, she can have only one or two contracts outside Italy and Russia.
Such European law limitations make my informants rather sceptical. Twenty-six women admit having thought about marrying a co-national businessman but eventually decided not to. This is also explained by the fear that such a man might suddenly close up his transnational business in Europe, invoking the wife’s loss of the ‘spouse’ visa. This has already happened to Faina and Snejana, and all sixteen investor-spouses report the constant fear for this prospective.
In spite of all its challenges, marriage generally remains a uniform feminine strategy for stabilizing professional status. Half of the interviewed women have been married to an Italian national. In this way, they have not only achieved the EU citizenship and but also desired mode of open-ended mobility and elite temporary employment. Sixteen of these women have been married to an Italian music broker or entrepreneur. Ten of these ‘transnational network’ marriages have led to the woman’s ‘global elite’ status. This status has been held by all women who are the foreign investor spouses unless the husband terminates his foreign business. Almost all entrepreneurial marriages have improved the wives’ scenarios of elite temporariness and, consequently, their global migration careers.
5.6.4 Law and Agency
‘For women, it is always easier!’, exclaims Makar, ‘Where would man find a Ukrainian woman who is a successful entrepreneur or a music producer!’ Despite the prevailing gender bias in the music industry and in transnational entrepreneurship, eight of my male informants have married co-national women who are successful foreign investors. Like with the other strategies, the men declare to have done ‘more proactive planning and brainy work’. All eight men admit having chosen a woman from a stronger entrepreneurial background—from an entrepreneurial dynasty—rather than ‘picking the first charming admirer’, sarcastically laughs Luchezar. As added by Sviatogor, ‘A woman in business must have the clan behind her so that her foreign business should not crack one day’.
The management of elite temporariness and mobility is another dynamic and phasal process. The main strategies that my informants use are borrowed from other galaxies of migration, namely: domestic work, marriage migration, foreign investor migration, EU citizenship and intra-EU mobility and ethnic. Each strategy has its own purpose.
For example, domestic work is an ad hoc strategy to solve a temporary problem. It is very direct, associated with a lower status, not sustainable for a long time but very viable and highly practical in terms of reaching the goal. It does not require any preparation or planning. It can be taken spontaneously by an unexperienced planner. It is easily implemented because it is based on the socio-cultural resources of co-ethnic solidarity among female informants and established informal networks within the diaspora. It actually does not overthrow the law-regulated ‘foreign student’ status by converting it into permanent stay. It sustains it and allows the agent to avoid the use of unnecessary other strategies such as spontaneous marriage or forced return. Its other benefit is that it allows to look around, save some time and prepare for another career phase. The main limitation of this strategy is that it cannot be used for a long time because it eventually becomes physically unbearable and meaningless. However, its use illuminates that my informants actually convert the traditionally precarious space of the low-skill domestic work into an elite-skill strategic device. This strategy is highly gender-biased and entirely feminine because it is associated with a scope that is offensive for the informants’ masculinity.
The role of this strategy should not be under-estimated, nevertheless: twenty-two people out of the twenty-four who practiced this strategy eventually reached the elite mode of employment because it had allowed them to look around and gauge the situation correctly.
The informants also made use of the traditional strategies of marriage migration and ethnic descent to enable their EU citizenship and geographical mobility. At a certain point, the use of these strategies was not enough to reach the desired flexibility in employment and geographical movement, and the migrants had to combine these strategies with their professional networking or the strategy of music brokerage, for example, in the form of influential marriage. The jus sanguinis and family reunification were meaningless for my informants when not combined with brokerage. The ethnic descent strategy is mostly masculine because it is based on preparatory work that may be rather challenging for a post-Soviet woman. The marriage strategy was used by women because men were not able to find resources for its implementation either at origin or at destination.
There was also the ‘investor spouse’ strategy, which was effectively used mostly by women. Its main benefit was that it allowed my informants to simultaneously overthrow their law-regulated status of a foreigner and achieve the elite mode of temporary employment through a sudden location of brokerage. It has been an effective and fast solution, yet grounded in the precariousness of unpredictable future. Its implementation was also supported by the use of the jus sanguinis: the investor spouse status allowed to locate the network while the ethnic descent enabled the permanent stay—permanence as a tool of mobility and, consequently, of elite temporary employment.
The discussion above shows that the informants’ temporariness of elite employment and their mobility of moving around the world to different desired work places are mutually reinforcing and inter-connected as two side of the same coin, whose name is the global elite labour. However, their freewheel mobility in the western hemisphere, which can be defined as the firmiter mobile mode of, is not yet a status category per se: it is mostly related to the informant’s ability to live, integrate and move within the transnational space rather than to secure an elite pattern of employment in the global opera industry. This is illuminated by the fact that some of my informants who have reached flexibility and anchorage in their temporary movements within Europe do not have global elite careers. The dynamics of their temporariness and mobility is shown in Fig. 5.1 below.
Dynamics of elite temporariness and mobility
Fifty people (80%) have achieved either flexible or flexi-regulated temporariness: thirty-two women (75% of all interviewed women) and eighteen men (99% of the interviewed men). However, only 60% of all informants have become the established or rising global artistic elite that is employed in Tier 1–3 theaters (forty-two people). Some of them reached this status bypassing the foreign student experience. While 30% started from law regulated ‘foreign student’ category and eventually managed to convert it, in both legal and career terms, into elite temporariness, and to secure employment contracts with leading theaters.
In this context, the ‘jus sanguinis investor spouse’ became a most successful strategy of career building in terms of structuring and managing one’s own one’s movement and contracts. However, apart from this elite mobility, there are other factors at play such as relations with specific powerful people. And this issue will be addressed in the next chapter.
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Isaakyan, I. (2024). At the Crossroads of Temporariness and Mobility. In: Global Elite Migrations. IMISCOE Research Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-67833-2_5
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