OPERA MAVERICK AT MUSIC CENTER

Despite elaborate campaign pretenses, opera has never played a very important part in the fortunes of our vaunted Music Center.

In the bad old days, the powers-that-were thought Los Angeles neither wanted nor needed more than a couple of weeks a year of glamorous, costly San Francisco Opera repertory, warmed over lightly. Then another circle of civic leaders decided we should survive on three or four weeks a year of not-so-glamorous fare courtesy of the New York City Opera.

Then came a bizarre interim regime that decreed nothing was better than something. Now, after 20 years of false promises, fitful starts and shameful stops, the Music Center has finally hired--from Great Britain, of course--its first full-time, resident operatic chieftain.

Peter Hemmings’ calling-card effort, a series of performances of “The Beggar’s Opera” by a St. Louis company at the ill-suited Embassy Theatre, was, to put it kindly, a miscalculation. Some of his future plans look a bit odd, too.

A British-oriented “Salome” in 1987, for instance, is likely to enlist Sir Charles Mackerras on the podium (he isn’t exactly cherished worldwide as a Strauss specialist), Sir Peter Hall as stage director (he comes not-so-fresh from a disastrous “Ring” in Bayreuth), and Lady Hall--a.k.a. Maria Ewing--as the necrophiliac virgin of the title (she is a captivating lyric mezzo, but Strauss happened to write this opera for a dramatic tigress with the voice of an Isolde).

Later this month, Hemmings promises, at last, to announce some of his professional intentions. At that time, he may at least confirm the widespread rumor involving a homemade “Wozzeck” in 1986, to be staged in conjunction with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

The impatient, long-deprived opera-maniacs among us, however, will be able to get some idea of his standards during the week beginning Sept. 9. That is when Hemmings and the Music Center Opera Assn. will introduce to Los Angeles the Deutsche Oper--that is, the German Opera--of West Berlin.

The visit was rather hastily planned. The Berliners must continue to carry out business as usual at home while a segment of their company comes here. The Deutsche Oper will send us solo singers, conductors, sets, costumes, a skeletal stage staff and production schemes for three operas. Los Angeles will provide the chorus, the orchestra, a lot of money and, it is hoped, an audience willing to fill the 3,200-seat Pavilion for 10 performances, with tickets ranging from $15 to $100.

Under the circumstances, logic might have preferred some really echt Wagner or Strauss or Beethoven. But such importations apparently proved either unimportant to the local sponsors or unfeasible.

For the gala opening bill, our German benefactors will delve in ultra-conventional Italian verismo . The anachronistic vehicle is to be an Italian “Tosca” enlisting the Polish soprano Teresa Zylis-Gara, the Spanish tenor Placido Domingo and the Swedish baritone Ingvar Wixell.

This will be followed by Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s macabre exercise in decaying romanticism, anno 1920, “Die Tote Stadt.” The virtually all-American cast will be led by a former Los Angeles soprano, Karan Armstrong.

Then come five performances of Mozart’s “Le Nozze di Figaro,” ironically featuring two singers who performed the same roles during the last, ill-fated New York City Opera season here. Hemmings added three extra “Figaros” to the agenda when he abandoned his original plan to present a trio of Prussian operetta concerts.

He blithely jumps on the Hollywood-ballyhoo bandwagon, incidentally, in his brochure blurb: “We were recently reminded by the Oscar-winning ‘Amadeus’ how enormous was Mozart’s power and influence.”

The wisdom of the repertory and casting choices remains open to question, as does the expenditure involved. But the mini-season of Berlin Opera must be significant for at least one major reason. It introduces to Los Angeles one of the most controversial, most inventive and most sought-after stage directors in Europe today: Goetz Friedrich.

Friedrich calls himself “a stupid idealist.” He may not be an easy man to have around a company.

He makes heavy demands regarding scenic values, rehearsal time and casting policies. He belongs to a stubborn postwar school that takes opera seriously as modern theater. He feels no need to follow any tradition blindly. He often likes to expose--or, perhaps, to impose--controversial sociological, political and psychological elements in his productions.

In most opera companies, he might cause problems for the beleaguered general director. In West Berlin, however, he causes no problems at all. After all, he is the beleaguered general director, and has been since 1981.

The road to operatic power in West Berlin began a few miles, and a wall, away. Born in Naumburg on Aug. 4, 1930, Friedrich studied in Weimar before joining the staff of the Komische Oper in East Berlin. It was here that he became a disciple, protege, assistant and colleague of Walter Felsenstein.

Felsenstein was something of a legend, a fanatic believer in the validity of opera as musical theater, a realist who sometimes rehearsed a production for a year and then postponed the premiere because he deemed the preparations inadequate, a fierce champion of ensemble priorities, an uncompromising perfectionist who hated star indulgences and abhored concerts in costume.

Friedrich won Felsenstein’s favor as early as 1959, when the sorcerer’s apprentice was granted the privilege of preparing a revival of “La Boheme.” Not content with a hand-me-down production, Friedrich managed to inveigle new sets, new costumes and permission to instate his own German translation. By the time he defected to the West--with quiet premeditation during a visit to Sweden in 1973--he had attracted international attention at the little house in East Berlin with such disparate challenges as “Jenufa,” “Cosi fan Tutte,” “Aida,” “Tosca” and a German “Porgy and Bess” with a racially integrated cast.

While still an East Berliner, he staged a most provocative “Tannhaeuser” in Bayreuth, a “Tannhaeuser” that, according to Paul Sheren in the New Grove Dictionary, “offended traditionalists by concluding with a clenched-fist salute from a chorus costumed as modern workers.” The gesture was deleted after the first performance and from the memorable television film shown here on PBS.

Wagner’s minstrel knight functioned, in Friedrich’s eyes, as an aesthete imprisoned by his own art, as a loner eventually rejected by the upper classes because he dares question traditional orders. In retrospect, the interpretation seems reasonable. At the time, it caused considerable gnashing of teeth.

Such gnashing has never bothered Friedrich. “Anything is permitted,” he says, “as long as the music isn’t hurt and as long as the staging isn’t boring.”

“In the Bayreuth ‘Tannhaeuser,’ I tried above all else to humanize the characters. I wanted to make them simple people, not knights or symbols or saints. I concerned myself with historical backgrounds--German directors love to do that--and I analyzed the inherent conflicts.

“Searching for underlying concepts requires certain decisions. Philosophically, I find myself falling back on the lessons of three great teachers: Marx, Freud and Christ.

“At the end of ‘Tannhaeuser,’ I merely wanted the masses to hail the Landgrave. But the unison gesture seemed too prosaic, not powerful enough. Later, at the suggestion of Wagner’s grandson Wolfgang, I decided to revert to an earlier plan: to make the chorus invisible. That seemed more universal, more abstract, even lofty.

“I didn’t make the change because I cared about the people who booed me on opening night. I didn’t think I was making, or erasing, a profound political statement. I just thought I was taking an appropriate step toward musical and dramatic truth.”

At least one reliable reference book calls Friedrich “a declared Marxist.” The label now makes him uncomfortable. In fact, he rejects it.

He mulls over its implications while sipping very strong breakfast coffee in the local apartment he shares with his wife and favored prima donna, Karan Armstrong.

“It is true,” he says in excellent English sometimes peppered with lazy German. “I did stage a ‘Ring’ in London that was predicated on a Marxist perspective of the mythology. But I wasn’t the first to see the ‘Ring’ that way. Shaw did it long before me. The problem, if it is that, relates to the fact that I came from East Germany. People always want that to be significant.

“I stayed in the East as long as I did because of Felsenstein. I was there for him. He was good to me. He gave me a full contract as regisseur after the opening of my ‘Boheme.’ East Berlin was like an island for all of us, and it was an island that nurtured two giants, Felsenstein and Brecht.

“Of course, Felsenstein and I had our differences. I think I trusted the music alone more than he did. When Susanna sings ‘Deh vieni non tardar’ in the last act of ‘Figaro,’ I let her stand still. It is a magical moment. Mozart took care of that. Felsenstein felt motion was necessary. He had an eternal quest for motivation.

“At the Komische Oper, I did the big operas Felsenstein couldn’t do. The more I did them, the more I knew I had to go my own way. Then came my Schiksalsjahr , the fateful year of 1972.

“I was 42, an honored prize-winner in the East, a professor. Wonderful invitations began to arrive, from Holland, Bayreuth and Stockholm. I had reached a turning point. It was time to move on. Felsenstein felt I betrayed him by leaving. That hurt me, but I had no choice.”

Friedrich is best known in America for his television operas: “Salome” with Teresa Stratas and “Elektra” with Leonie Rysanek in the title role, as well as the aforementioned “Tannhaeuser.” Still to be shown here--and he says he doesn’t understand the delay--are a Bayreuth “Lohengrin,” a studio “Falstaff” conducted by Georg Solti with Gabriel Bacquier as the fat knight, and a memento of the Berlin “Tote Stadt.” Houston is the only U.S. city that actually has seen one of his productions, a “Wozzeck” in 1982.

“I really don’t know why I have done so little here,” he claims. “Goeran Gentele had some plans for me at the Met. He died before anything was final. Otherwise, there have been no offers. None. I can only guess that the reasons are political.

“Now, with my Berlin commitments, as administrator and director, it would be difficult to be away for six weeks at a time. My calendar is defined by governmental contract, and I am booked through 1992. Maybe that is just as well. I’m not too happy any more in the role of a crazy traveling director.”

At this juncture, it isn’t even certain that Friedrich can be happy as a crazy traveling impresario. He admits that Los Angeles may not see typical Berlin productions under characteristic conditions.

“We are sister cities, Los Angeles and West Berlin. It would be wonderful if a collaboration could go on beyond September. I like the idea of helping to build a cultural bridge. I like the idea of sharing forces. Still, the future is uncertain. For the moment we must regard the visit as a one-shot deal.”

And how much will the one-shot deal cost?

“I don’t know. I really don’t know. I’m even happy not to know.”

There are dangers in transplanting a production from one environment to another, substituting new orchestral and choral forces for the familiar ones, playing in a house that really wasn’t designed for opera in general or for these operas in particular.

“The conductors are scared,” Friedrich confirms. “But they will have 5 to 10 orchestra rehearsals here. We are optimistic.”

The Berlin Intendant does not pretend that “Tosca,” “Die Tote Stadt” and “Figaro” represent ideal examples of his repertory. “There was a lot of discussion,” he explains, “and we had to make some compromises. We couldn’t bring operas that made tremendous demands on the orchestra. That is why we didn’t dare try Wagner or Strauss. We couldn’t bring operas that needed a lot of heavy sets. We had to choose operas that would fit well into the house here, and that would be adaptable to the backstage limitations. Still, we wanted to show our profile.

“We chose ‘Tosca’ because it is a basic staple in any international house. It is one of our real repertory operas, and Domingo has done it with us as recently as June.”

The Berlin “Tosca,” staged by Boleslaw Barlog in 1969, was to have been conducted by Jesus Lopez-Cobos, Generalmusikdirektor of the Deutsche Oper. He has been replaced, however, by Silvio Varviso.

“Lopez-Cobos can’t come at all,” Friedrich apologizes. “We wanted him at least for the first two performances, but the schedule is impossible. He has to be in Berlin to rehearse ‘Goetterdaemmerung,’ ” which opens Oct. 6.

“We chose ‘Die Tote Stadt’ because we wanted to bring at least one 20th-Century opera. That is part of our tradition. At first, we considered ‘Die Soldaten’ by Bernd-Alois Zimmermann. It simply would be too cumbersome. Then ‘Die Tote Stadt’ seemed a good choice. It is a fascinating document, the last really popular opera of the century, and, perhaps, the first serious musical. It marks an end and a beginning. Also, because of Korngold’s activities in American film, it gives us a nice Hollywood connection.”

Karan Armstrong, not incidentally, portrays the glamorous, spectral heroine who gets to sing the opera’s one hit, “Mariettas Lied.” According to some observers, she also plays something of an offstage Trilby to Friedrich’s Svengali.

“ ‘Figaro,’ ” Friedrich continues, “was chosen simply because it is basic for any German opera house, part of our heritage. I kneel before Mozart. Several years ago, I did a very Spartan ‘Figaro’ for Hamburg. The Berlin version, which was new in 1978, is a bit more conventional, more a Staatsoper interpretation.”

“Die Tote Stadt” will be adorned here with surtitles, line-by-line translations projected atop the proscenium arch. Friedrich surveys the prospect with some trepidation.

“When I spent a year in Sweden,” he recalls, “I saw a lot of movies. I didn’t understand the words, but I soon realized that what is behind the words is what is important. I am a bit nervous about an audience reading the text and, in the process, being distracted from what is happening on the stage.

“I appreciate the idea, of course. It is an educational tool. If the singers are doing more than making sounds, however, much of the essential meaning is projected anyway. I want people to read sounds, not just words.”

Friedrich doesn’t like the idea of beautiful tones emitted for their own sake any more than he likes the idea of the words per se dominating the musico-dramatic experience. When he is told of Beverly Sills’ plan to use English titles this season at the New York City Opera for a new American opera sung in English, he is incredulous. He lowers his eyes, mutters something unintelligible, shakes his head.

He also worries, to some extent, about the size of American opera houses in general, ours in particular. The Deutsche Oper seats 1,885; the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion seats 3,200.

“I know there are good economic reasons for this,” he says, “but opera houses here are too big. A house that seats 2,000 is about the right size. It is what our singers are used to. Much can be lost beyond that. It is difficult to have to project to the farthest wall.”

He doesn’t worry too much, on the other hand, about finances. The Deutsche Oper functions with an annual budget of DM 67 million--about $24.18 million. The company is expected to take in DM 17 million at the box office--about $6.48 million. Governmental subsidy makes up the difference.

“Tickets in Berlin cost from DM 15 ($5.40) to DM 120 ($43.30). That is cheaper than Hamburg or Munich,” Friedrich says, “though our subsidies are the same.”

Friedrich, the intrepid director-administrator, sees no conflict in wearing two operatic hats.

“It is good,” he exclaims. “Yes, yes, yes. I have been in this business nearly 30 years. The moment comes when one needs control.

“I went through periods when I had to stand by and make do while other, more prominent, directors got better working conditions than I did. My progress as a director was always marked with pain and sorrow. This business can be wonderful and it can be cruel.

“Long ago, I made a decision. I knew conditions did not have to be so difficult. Before I died, I wanted to know I could somehow make them better. This has been a great adventure.

“Of course, I have to spend a lot of time sitting behind my desk, but I have made a remarkable discovery. I like sitting behind my desk.

The operatic maverick from Berlin looks happy.