Met settlement would lift curtain by mid-November

The curtain is expected to rise in mid-November for a shortened Metropolitan Opera season in New York and on the road next spring. After days and nights of intensive negotiations requested by President Carter , opera and orchestra negotiators reached a tentative settlement, compromising the critical issue of a four-day performance week and demands by opera musicians for parity with those in symphony orchestras.

The Metropolitan Opera board and orchestra members are expected to ratify the agreement Oct. 27. The company must also negotiate contracts with 16 other unions representing 1,800 employees. No serious problems are anticipated; the musicians' contract usually sets a pattern others follow.

Union members, jobless since the Met formally canceled the 1980-81 season that was to have begun Sept. 22, are generally reported "ecstatic" over prospects of returning to work with raises totaling 35 percent and cost-of-living adjustments during the next four years.

For the Met, a four-year contract ensures labor peace through its gala 1983- 84 centennial season.

The Met, which says its telephones willbe busy this week with calls around the world, believes most contract artists will still be available so that the season's performance schedule can be maintained with few changes. The cancellation of the 1980-81 season freed many of the world's top singers of commitments to the Met.