Vancouver symphony's opener gets reprieve from civic strike

(CBC) - The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra will start its new season Saturday night as planned after a ruling that striking civic workers cannot picket at the stage door to the concert hall.

But concertgoers may have to cross a picket line at the audience entrance in order to see the performance.

The opening show, featuring violinist Sarah Chang, was in doubt because of a prolonged strike that has closed Vancouver's municipally-owned theatres, including the Orpheum, where the VSO plays.

On Wednesday, the B.C. Labour Relations Board granted an interim order preventing picketing at the Orpheum's stage door.

That means orchestra members and stage crew can enter the Orpheum without crossing a picket line.

The musicians, members of the American Federation of Musicians, are expected to agree to play if they do not have to cross a line.

"We've been very fortunate," VSO conductor Bramwell Tovey told CBC News.

"We're looking forward to presenting this great season opener with this great violinist."

Chang, a Korean-American who has played with orchestras and chamber groups around the world, will play Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor in concerts Saturday and Monday.

The orchestra will also present Rachmaninoff's Symphony No. 2 to open its season.

VSO spokesman Alan Gove said the orchestra respects the right of striking workers to picket the main audience entrance of the Orpheum, so ticket-holders may have to allow extra time to enter the hall.

In any case, the picket reprieve for the stage door will be temporary.

Vancouver's civic workers, represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees, are expected to grant picket relief for this weekend only.

Many other performing-arts groups in Vancouver have faced cancellation of their events at city-run venues, and the rest of the VSO season is also threatened.

"This could actually ruin the VSO if it went on for any period of time," Tovey said.

"It would be a very short journey from the great success the orchestra is enjoying at the moment with a burgeoning, blossoming endowment, with tremendous public support at the box office and from all levels of government. The orchestra's really thriving - doing very well indeed - but this strike could ruin the VSO within a matter of months."

The orchestra will play a program of baroque and classical music Oct. 12 and 13 at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts, which is not affected by the strike.

But one of the highlights of the VSO season, a concert of Elgar's music featuring Canadian tenor Ben Heppner, who hasn't sung with the orchestra for many years, is scheduled for the Orpheum for Oct. 20 and Oct. 22.

The VSO also plans to play all nine of Beethoven's symphonies in its 2007-8 season, if it goes ahead as planned.

That will depend on progress in Vancouver's 10-week-old civic strike.