San Francisco Opera Cancels Its Opening Weekend : Labor: Failed contract negotiations force the first cancellation in the company’s 67-year history.

San Francisco Opera executives announced Tuesday that they have canceled opening weekend performances scheduled to begin Friday, citing failed labor negotiations with its musicians. No new talks have been scheduled, and opera executives said they did not know when performances of the 23-week opera season would begin.

In a press conference on the opera house stage, General Director Lotfi Mansouri called the decision to cancel the opening performances for the first time in the company’s 67-year history “excruciatingly difficult.”

Talks between opera management and members of the opera orchestra broke down on Sunday after musicians rejected an offer that would have given them a 12% pay increase over the three-year contract term. Musicians have sought a 22.5% salary increase over three years. That would bring their pay, which is about $40,000 now, to $49,000 at the end of the three-year contract.

Opera executives insist they would be forced into closing the company to meet the union’s demand. They maintain that musicians are among the highest paid in the nation. When benefits are added to the actual salary, musicians would be making $75,000 a year by 1992.

“That is absolutely the core issue,” said Tully Friedman, past president of the opera. He maintains that the company would be forced into closing. “We are at the wall.”

Friedman also raised the possibility that the opera board will consider canceling the entire season if the dispute goes on for another two to four weeks.

“We’re hopeful we can still save the season, but we need a management that will negotiate,” said Joanne Eisler, a clarinetist for the San Francisco Opera for the past 10 years and the chairwoman of the negotiating committee for Local 6 of the American Federation of Musicians.

Hoping to end the deadlock, musicians called on San Francisco Mayor Art Agnos to mediate the dispute. So far, however, he has not entered the fray.

The 69-member orchestra’s contract expired on Aug. 19, and opera management locked out the musicians preventing them from rehearsing at the opera house. They have, however, been rehearsing elsewhere.

Union leader Eisler said talks broke down on Sunday after management suggested that musicians take a $3,200 pay cut to compensate for work they have missed during the dispute.

Eisler estimated that San Francisco opera musicians’ pay is $20 an hour below pay for other musicians in comparable orchestras.