San Francisco Opera Reviews

Pros

Working for the opera means loving and living the opera. It's a nonprofit, so you are constrained by budget limitations, as well as limitations in career advancement and professional growth. However, the product that you work for is unbeatable. When you go to a performance and think that your hard work contributed to this amazing production of art, the pride and joy of that moment is unmeasurable. There is a certain type of worker at the Opera -- dedicated, wickedly smart, and generous. The people could have chosen to go another route and make a lot of money, but they have chosen to dedicate themselves to preserving an art form and contributing to civic culture. Overall, the employees are fantastic. Other top reasons to work at the Opera: excellent benefits package, free tickets to performances, open-door policy by high-level management.

Cons

Compensation, like any nonprofit, is low. And it being San Francisco, it seems even lower. Other downsides are lack of structure, little to no opportunities for professional growth, and lack of promotions or raises. If you want to rise in this organization, you have to be proactive and seek it out for yourself.

Advice to Senior Management

Employee retention is as important, perhaps even more important, than audience and donor retention. There should be a special program enacted to work on increasing employee retention.

Pros

-Incredibly high artistic value
-Renowned leadership in the field
-Higher pay then counterpart organizations in NYC, Chicago, Houston.

Cons

-No room for advancement in most areas.
-Company is doing little to advance the art form into the 21c.
-No raises, no perks outside of the usual benefits.
-Admin employees are the only aspect of the company not unionized.

Advice to Senior Management

-Offer more opportunities for advancement and professional development.
-Create more of a community within the administration through interaction and collaboration.

Pros

The whole mission is creating beautiful works of art, what could be more sustaining than that? We have the best singers and musicians in the world. Where else can you meet people such as John Adams and Nicola Luisotti. To be able to go to work every day and be proud of where you work and what product you make is wonderful.

Cons

Very tight budget limitations. Non-profit pay scale, we live in one of the most expensive cities in North American and get paid a mid-western level salary. However the benefits are excellent.

Advice to Senior Management

Spend more time with strategic planning. The