Much has been made of the Metropolitan Opera’s highly successful forays into electronic distribution this past year, with the debut of live high-definition simulcasts being made possible by a new agreement with the musicians’ union which scrapped the hefty upfront payments which would otherwise have been due. But Ivan Katz points out that all the new activity generated $3 million for the Met, and the company “has bet the farm on the continued cooperation of the unions, and on their reasonableness going forward… Continued union cooperation is by no means a safe bet.”