JAZZED UP IN LONG BEACH

Long Beach Opera General Director Michael Milenski summed up his approach to repertory for the company’s 1985-86 season succinctly: “You have to look for stylistic diversity.”

This is a major understatement.

Repertory will move from Mozart’s early “Abduction From the Seraglio” (four performances in December), to Verdi’s “Don Carlo” (twice in February), to Ernst Krenek’s 60-year-old jazz-flavored “Johnny Strikes Up” (four performances in the spring).

Milenski admitted that the Krenek may be an offbeat choice--but it is not an off-putting one. “I think it will have an appeal for today’s hip operagoers,” he said. “True, it is dated, but it’s also timed, to an extent, to our period. It’s in the ‘Guinness Book of Records’ as the first opera to use a car onstage.

“And, in light of all the recent interest in (Gershwin’s) ‘Porgy and Bess’--thanks to the Met production--a lot of people might be curious about Krenek’s use of jazz rhythms that predate ‘Porgy’ by eight years.” Milenski also pointed out the appropriateness of the work in light of the composer’s 85th birthday.

Curiously, however, the opera is not likely to be presented as part of the company’s annual visit to Palm Springs--Krenek’s current living space. “We’ll be presenting a reduced version of ‘Don Carlo’ there,” Milenski explained, “though, if there is interest, we might present ‘Johnny’ at the library.” The composer himself will not be involved in preparing the production, Milenski said.

The February “Don Carlo” performances at the Long Beach Convention Center will mark the company’s delayed local premiere of David Alden’s staging, introduced at San Jose in January, 1984. This is the only production of the three in which principal casting has been announced. Welsh tenor Dennis O’Neill will make his local debut in the title role, with Jerome Hines as the Grand Inquisitor. Repeating their roles from San Jose are: Cesare Siepi (King Phillip), Katherine Ciesinski (Elisabetta) and Richard Stillwell (Duke of Posa). George Cleve will once again conduct. A new wrinkle has been added--supratitles (“Don Carlo” is the only Long Beach Opera production not sung in English).

“Abduction,” Milenski confessed, was programmed partly to coincide with the current wave of interest in Mozart. But, he quickly added, “it was really chosen because it is a good opera for the (small-sized) Center Theater--that, and nothing more.” Director Christopher Alden and conductor Nicholas McGegan, two principals in the controversial Long Beach “Coronation of Poppea” from last season, will once again team up. While “Abduction” will have “an edge,” Milenski cautioned that the production will “not be an update. It is a period piece, after all.” But so was “Poppea.”

And what of travel plans? Will the company venture to Pasadena or UCLA as it did last season? Milenski expressed doubts.

“The operatic scene was different in Los Angeles a year ago. There was hardly any activity to speak of. But things are beginning to take shape,” a reference to the Music Center Opera Assn.’s announced intention to import and create productions on a regular basis. “We don’t see the need in bringing our shows up to fill the void,” Milenski said. Is this known as ducking the competition? “We don’t view it as competing,” he insisted. “If we received a show of interest for one of our productions, we would do it up there.”

A boastful company newsletter that described Long Beach Opera as “just south of L.A., but not that far from La Scala” quoted a budget increase of 30% from 1983 to ’84. But what of ‘84-’85?. Milenski admitted that the budget for this year is the same as for 1984--$800,000--plus “a small (yet-to-be-determined) deficit from last season.” Nonetheless, he noted, “We are still developing.”

Commenting on the early stirrings of home-grown operatic activity in Los Angeles, Milenski expressed cautious optimism: “The scene up there will make our audiences grow . . . I hope.”

SHADES OF “FANTASIA”: Guess who is the choreographer here: “The entire stage surface is transformed into a pool of ankle-deep water while the dancers perform in the company of a hippopotamus.” Of course--Pina Bausch, who had covered the Pasadena Civic Auditorium stage with dirt, grass and leaves during the Olympic Arts Festival last summer. Bausch will introduce her “Arien” in October as part of the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s “Mind, Motion and Emotion” series. No mention is made in the brochure of the musical accompaniment, but it’s unlikely that it will be “Dance of the Hours.” And from the photo, it appears that the hippo will not be dressed in tutu and toe shoes.