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They are among the highest-paid performers at Carnegie Hall, even though they do not play a note: they are the stagehands of Local 1, whose average total compensation of more than $400,000 a year is more than some of the hall’s top executives earn. Little happens on Carnegie’s stages without them.

Now, with scant notice, Carnegie seems to have decided to take a stand against the powerful union, refusing in contract talks to let the stagehands extend their sway to an educational wing to be opened next year above the hall.

The stagehands struck back on Wednesday, calling the first strike in the history of Carnegie Hall and forcing the cancellation of a star-studded opening-night gala on Wednesday that was to have featured the Philadelphia Orchestra and the violinist Joshua Bell playing before a crowd of well-heeled patrons.

The strike not only silenced America’s flagship concert hall on what was to have been one of its biggest nights of the year, but also capped an extraordinary week that underscored the perils facing classical music in America in the 21st century.

Another of the city’s cultural mainstays, New York City Opera, announced its plans to dissolve and file for bankruptcy this week, bringing 70 years of operatic history to an end.

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In the Midwest, labor strife cost the Minnesota Orchestra its beloved music director, Osmo Vanska, who resigned as a lockout of musicians entered a second year.

And the canceled Carnegie concert was supposed to be another milestone in the comeback of the Philadelphia Orchestra, which emerged from bankruptcy last year and is generating excitement with its dynamic young conductor, Yannick Nézet-Séguin. (With Carnegie canceled, the orchestra decided to play a free concert at Verizon Hall in its hometown.)

Clive Gillinson, Carnegie Hall’s executive and artistic director, said in a statement that he regretted the inconvenience to concertgoers and musicians alike.

“We are disappointed that, despite the fact that the stagehands have one of the most lucrative contracts in the industry, they are now seeking to expand their jurisdiction beyond the concert hall and into the new education wing in ways that would compromise Carnegie Hall’s education mission,” Mr. Gillinson said. “There is no precedent for this anywhere in New York City.”

James J. Claffey Jr., president of the union, Local 1 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, said that negotiations had been going on for over a year, and that the union wanted its members to work in Carnegie’s new spaces just as they do in its historic hall. “Carnegie Hall Corporation has spent or will spend $230 million on its ongoing studio tower renovation, but they have chosen not to appropriately employ our members as we are similarly employed throughout the rest of Carnegie Hall,” he said in a statement.

At issue is the education wing being built as part of the renovation of Carnegie Hall. It is to have 24 music rooms for practicing, teaching and holding events for children. The stagehands — who do everything from moving pianos to unloading instruments from trucks to configuring the stage for performances — want these new rooms to fall under their purview. Management, which says the new rooms are educational in nature, not theatrical, says that the work there can be accomplished by the members of other unions that cost less. Accepting Local 1’s demand, Carnegie said in a statement, would “divert significant funds away from the hall’s music education programs and into stagehand fees.”

Last year’s opening-night gala raised nearly $2.7 million for Carnegie. This year’s had been set to begin with a cocktail reception at $1,000 a person, followed by a concert featuring music by Ravel, Saint-Saëns and Tchaikovsky, and to end with dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria, with tickets starting at $1,500 a person.

With the concert canceled, the dinner was moved to 6 p.m. Several dozen union members showed up outside the hotel to pass out leaflets as patrons in black tie and ball gowns arrived. “Carnegie Hall UNFAIR,” read the leaflets. “Carnegie Hall’s reputation as one of the finest performance, music and fine arts venues in the world is largely due to the efforts of the professional stagehands that we represent,” they said.

Sanford I. Weill, the chairman of the board at Carnegie Hall, said on Wednesday night at the Waldorf that no other educational facilities in the city used members of the stagehands’ union, and that using them in Carnegie’s new educational spaces would divert money from the core mission.

“What’s happened speaks for itself,” he said. “This is our most important day for Carnegie Hall, our biggest fund-raising day, and it’s the first time in 122 years that we don’t have a performance on opening night.”

Local 1 is one of the city’s oldest and most powerful labor groups. A strike by the union shut down most of Broadway for 19 days in 2007.

Carnegie employs five full-time stagehands, and hires others part time as needed. Its regular stagehands, who work long days and many nights and weekends, earn much of their money in overtime. Carnegie’s 2011 tax return showed that the stagehands were among the organization’s highest-paid employees: they worked an average of 60 hours a week, the return said, and earned between $280,000 and $357,000 — with all getting at least an additional $90,000 in other compensation and benefits. All earned more than Carnegie’s finance director.

The strike was called after contract talks broke down Tuesday night. Mr. Claffey, the union’s president, left a message on his answering machine at the local’s offices at 12:45 a.m. Wednesday: “As of right now, the strike is on,” he said.

The members arrived at Carnegie at 8 a.m. As Mr. Claffey stood outside the hall, surrounded by pickets who had brought a large inflatable rat to make their point, he noted that the union had been working without a contract for a year. “We’ve never had a job action here since the hall opened in 1891,” he said, as strikers chanted “Contract now” and “No stagehands — no show.”

The spectacle of the strike surprised people passing on West 57th Street. David Bernard, music director of the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony, which is set to play at Carnegie on Oct. 27, said that he was on his way to the hall to see if his group’s posters were up yet, and to pick up some tickets, when he saw the rat. “I could barely get in there because of the picket line,” he said. The box office was closed.

Carnegie said that the opening-night concert would not be rescheduled. A live radio broadcast that WQXR had planned was replaced with a repeat of a broadcast from last year. Carnegie said that it would keep its remaining concerts on its schedule in hopes that the strike could be resolved. After the strike was called, negotiations resumed.

Asked if the hall would reopen soon, Mr. Gillinson, Carnegie Hall’s executive director, said at the Waldorf, “With negotiations, you never know.” But he added that he planned to stick to his principles. “One thing we cannot do is compromise,” he said.

Allan Kozinn contributed reporting.