ARTS CENTER TIES TO BE PURSUED : OPERA PACIFIC NAMES GENERAL DIRECTOR

David DiChiera, general director of the Michigan Opera Theatre of Detroit, has been named general director of Opera Pacific, the Costa Mesa-based organization that seeks to produce opera and musical theater at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, the Times learned Sunday.

DiChiera, 49, said he will remain general director of the Detroit company, which he founded in 1970, as well as running the Orange County organization effective immediately. He said he will spend up to 25 weeks this year in Orange County.

“We not only want to play the (Orange County) Center, but also to possibly do collaborative productions in Los Angeles and other areas,” DiChiera said in an interview Sunday in Costa Mesa, adding that he has talked with Peter Hemmings, executive director of the Los Angeles Music Center Opera Assn., and officials at the San Diego Opera about exploring such joint ventures.

“But I must emphasize that such possible collaborations, and any other projects we have in mind, will always be to do what’s best to meet the cultural needs and enhance the local (cultural) development of the Orange County community. That’s what I’m here for,” he said.

Opera Pacific’s board chairman, Niles Gates, praised DiChiera as an arts administrator of “outstanding national and international reputation.” DiChiera, who is also artistic director of the Dayton (Ohio) Opera Assn., said he may take on the Opera Pacific post full time “once the (new) programs are fully operational.”

Opera Pacific, which now has a $250,000 budget, has presented or staged relatively modest opera and musical productions and concerts since its founding as the Lyric Opera Assn. of Orange County in 1962.

According to DiChiera, Opera Pacific has not yet entered into contract talks with the Orange County Performing Arts Center for the Center’s opening 1986-87 season. (The Center’s 3,000-seat multipurpose theater, now being constructed in Costa Mesa, is to open in the fall of 1986.) “That (meeting with Center officials) is very high on my list, and I expect we will be talking soon, especially after they pick their new (executive) director,” said DiChiera.

(The Center is shortly expected to announce the hiring of a new executive director to succeed Len Bedsow.)

The Center is currently concentrating on bookings with nationally known touring companies, rather than with local performing groups, and is negotiating for a possible 1987 run of the New York City Opera Company. But Center officials have said that Opera Pacific is among the local groups being seriously considered for formal ties with the Center in 1986-87.

DiChiera, whose productions for the Michigan Opera Theatre have ranged from “Aida” and “The Magic Flute” to “Porgy and Bess” and “Sweeney Todd,” said he expected “no production conflict” with the New York City Opera, should that company perform at the Orange County Center.

“We (Opera Pacific) want to be ready to perform there (at the Orange County Center) in 1987, but we believe there is room for a true diversity in opera, whether at this Center or in Los Angeles or elsewhere,” said DiChiera, a past president of Opera America, a national service organization based in Washington. “We know the trend, that the numbers of (opera) companies have increased greatly nationwide, the audiences are growing and showing a tremendous reception, but that the costliness of opera and the needs for far greater (private) underwriting are the enormous problems.”

DiChiera said Opera Pacific will need a a budget of at least $3 million by 1987 if it is to pursue a “full-scaled program” in producing opera and musical theater and engaging in educational and “audience-development” programs. DiChiera acknowledged that his role is “to rebuild this (Opera Pacific) organization almost from scratch.”

“We are very optimistic that the support is here. This past year we’ve (Opera Pacific) raised $140,000, which we consider a very good and encouraging start,” he said. But he said “one problem that needs to be faced” is the support that might go toward big-name touring companies, such as the New York City Opera, rather than to “developing high-quality but locally based productions.”