OPERA PACIFIC OFFICIAL LISTS PRODUCTION PLANS

Opera Pacific, the Costa Mesa-based organization seeking to produce opera and musicals at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, has announced that it will present three productions--including a new “La Boheme” directed by Gian Carlo Menotti--in early 1987 at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. Center officials, however, have said that it is too early to confirm engagements for the Center, scheduled to open in 1986.

Thomas Kendrick, Orange County Center executive director, said through a spokesman Wednesday: “We have no comment at this time. Contract negotiations are still in process.”

David DiChiera, Opera Pacific’s general director, acknowledged that “nothing has been signed” and “contracts have still to be completed” but added that he has a “verbal commitment” from the Center to present Puccini’s “La Boheme” in the spring of 1987 as part of the 1986-87 opening season at the Center’s 3,000-seat theater.

“Everything is in concrete,” DiChiera said, “and I’m going ahead, putting it all together.”

DiChiera said the Opera Pacific production of “La Boheme,” with Jerry Hadley as Rodolfo, is being mounted specifically for the Orange County engagement at an estimated cost of $400,000. No further performances are planned.

Menotti, 74, who has composed such operas as “The Consul,” “The Medium,” “The Saint of Bleecker Street” and “Amahl and the Night Visitors,” is also known for having established the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy, in 1958 (a Spoleto Festival U.S.A. was founded by Menotti in Charleston, S.C., in 1977).

Dates of the two other 1987 Opera Pacific presentations--one an opera, the other a musical--are not ready to be announced, said DiChiera. The second opera is expected to be a venture with several other opera companies, including the Michigan Opera Theatre (DiChiera also serves as general director of that Detroit-based organization, which he founded in 1970).

Also under consideration for early 1987, said DiChiera, is a possible fourth Opera Pacific offering: an opera designed as a “young people’s” presentation.

DiChiera said Opera Pacific’s 1986-87 budget will be about $3 million, primarily for the presentations at the Orange County Center.