San Francisco Opera's Economic Situation

Since 1981 when the San Francisco Opera and Symphony orchestras split, the tenured Musicians of the San Francisco Opera Orchestra have been employed on a seasonal basis, guaranteed around half a year of work and vacation by the Opera. For the last 20 years, they have been guaranteed 24 weeks of work, full-year family health benefits, 4 weeks of vacation and a number of additional fees.

For those 24 weeks, a base section Musician receives $118k of compensation. Additional seniority pay takes effect in the third year of service. Musicians in titled chairs receive higher wages, up to double the minimum compensation rate.

The 24-week guarantee significantly exceeds the volume of work we can economically provide. It has done so for many years now.

Many Musicians perform elsewhere and/or teach during the rest of the year.

The Orchestra is employed on a weekly basis, and their weekly base salary of $3,888 is one of the highest in the industry. The San Francisco Opera Orchestra’s weekly salary is higher than, for example, the New York Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony, the Metropolitan Opera, and the Lyric Opera of Chicago, not to mention most others in the country.

We are very proud of our Orchestra and believe they should be very well compensated for the work that they do. Our suggested framework aims to keep their wage rate high. What we cannot continue, however, is the amount of pay for hours and weeks neither worked nor required.  

This season, we anticipate not being able to utilize 33% of the Orchestra's guaranteed hours.

San Francisco Opera cannot utilize all the hours obligated to the Orchestra. This gap has been increasing as the amount of programming has changed.  

Last season, we did not need and could not economically use 25% of the hours obligated to the Orchestra. For next season, the figure will be 33%. That equates to about $1.9M–$2.5M of unutilized wages per season.

With a $15M structural deficit, we simply cannot continue that level of expenditure. We cannot keep guaranteeing a level of work based on the needs of decades ago, a level of work that is not coming back.

Our proposed framework to the Orchestra seeks to reduce, not eliminate the unutilized hours. 

San Francisco Opera is offering a five-year contract with increases in wage rates, and a gradual diminution of weekly obligation, such that season wages don't go down.

San Francisco Opera’s latest framework presented to the Orchestra realizes long-term structural change over the course of a five-year contract, better aligning the Orchestra’s time with realistic needs, while alleviating the impact on Musicians by phasing in change. This is in addition to full-year family health benefits, 4 weeks of vacation and a number of additional fees. We have crafted a framework to ensure that wage rates increase over the contract, ensuring that a Musician’s total seasonal pay does not decline over the course of the contract, even though their work obligations will be reduced.  

This suggested framework still leaves the Opera paying for hours beyond the needs of the season, and we look forward to continued conversations about the creative utilization of those hours with our Musicians, recognizing that added programming adds net cost to the Company.

We believe that this is a fair and reasonable contract at a time when change is absolutely necessary.   

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