Ashley Westwood, AJ Leitch Smith and Shaun Miller are also expected to sign new deals and Gradi confirmed that four academy scholars have been offered first-year professional deals.
Gephardt's spokesman, Erik Smith, said the minority leader decided to sign on to Roemer's measure, rather than the McCain-Lieberman plan, because it was introduced first and would have an equal number of people from each party.
Nor will the opera lobby be able to deploy against Mr Smith the charge it used so effectively against his Tory predecessors: that their reluctance to sign its cheques proved they were philistines.