Ticket holders to Thursday night’s SF Symphony season opening performance of Verdi’s Requiem were wrecked to find the performance canceled barely two hours before showtime, as the symphony’s chorus is on strike because their wages have been frozen.

Let’s say you had tickets to last night’s 7:30 pm SF Symphony 2024-25 season opening performance of Verdi’s Requiem at Davies Symphony Hall. If so, you would have been notified at 5:15 pm — a mere two hours and 15 minutes before showtime — that the show was canceled (as are Friday and Saturday night’s performances). The Symphony is already mired in controversy over the impending resignation of renowned musical director and conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen, a contentious rift likely due the symphony’s board of directors cutting costs like mad because of a looming $12.5 million deficit.

And now the controversy is hitting an even louder crescendo, as the Chronicle reports this weekend’s performances were canceled because the SF Symphony Chorus is on strike. They were picketing Davies Hall actively on Thursday evening, and they intend to continue picketing this weekend.  

(It should be noted that Salonen's selection of the Requiem was itself "constroversial," as he himself said in a Chronicle interview last week, because it's "about death and dying," adding, "In some cases, it rather colorfully describes what happens to people who are not so good throughout their lives." Could that be a dig at someone in the Symphony's management or on the board?)

The Chronicle notes that about 150 musicians, choristers, and patrons joined the picket line. The last-minute cancellation likely added to the crowd size, as patrons had already begun showing up, and many simply joined the picket line with the chorus. Though honestly, this is the loveliest sounding picket line you are ever likely to hear.

“Last year, the (Symphony) pushed for a one-year wage freeze, assuring us they’d have the necessary information to negotiate a multi-year agreement this year,” American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA) interim national executive director Allison Beck told the Chronicle. “Instead, when we began negotiations in May, they demanded an 80% wage cut for the chorus. Now, they've repackaged the same one-year freeze and are trying to sell it to us as something new.”

“We’re not falling for that again,” Beck added.

For their part, the Symphony said in their own online statement that their current deal on the table offers the choristers “more than $22,000 per year for 26 performances, 53 rehearsals, and 26 warm-up hours at a rate of $131 per hour for performances and $73 per hour for rehearsals."

So this weekend’s performances are now canceled, and ticket holders can get refunds, or exchange the tickets for another performance. But the striking choristers may have some leverage, because Wednesday night is the Symphony’s scheduled 2024-25 Opening Gala. The Chronicle describes that Gala as “the orchestra’s biggest fundraiser.”

The SF Symphony Chorus does not show as being scheduled to perform as part of Wednesday night’s bill. But if there’s no deal by then, the chorus will probably be there, outside Davies Hall picketing. And that picket line could well ruin the Gala, in terms of attendance, how much money gets raised, and creating more headaches for the SF Symphony board of directors.

Related: SF Symphony Conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen Is Parting Ways With the Orchestra, Possibly Over Finances [SFist]

Image: San Francisco Symphony Chorus via Facebook