IRVINE SYMPHONY TO PERFORM ‘IMPRESARIO’

Budget problems in the arts are nothing new. In 1786, Mozart wrote a diverting one-act comic opera, “Der Schauspieldirektor” (“The Impresario”), about an opera manager who had to mount a production but had no money.

Although the overture to “The Impresario” survives as a frequent concert item, the work itself is rarely performed today.

Fortunately, Mozart’s incomparable music can at least be salvaged through concert versions such as the one conductor Peter Odegard and the Irvine Symphony will offer at 8 p.m. Saturday at the South Coast Community Church in Irvine.

It will be sung in English by sopranos Laurie Magee and Diana Tash and tenor Alvin Brightbill. Irvine composer John Gerhold will appear in the speaking role of the impresario. (Technically, the work is a singspiel because its dialogue is spoken.)

(Also on the program: the Overture to Rossini’s “Tancredi,” Vivaldi’s Concerto in C for two flutes and Gerhold’s “Seasons.”)

“The (Mozart) work is a comic opera about the trouble an impresario has in getting singers who will work cheaply and sing well,” Odegard said.

“That’s where the ‘patron’ comes in. He’s an amateur who loves to sing and who has two ladies.

“We never make it quite clear what relationship he has with the singers, but it doesn’t take much imagination to figure it out.”

The patron advises the impresario--who is portraying Mozart in Odegard’s version--to save money by using “older, over-the-hill singers who will be glad to work cheaply, provided that they can say they’re giving farewell performances.

“He also suggests using younger singers because they will be glad to work cheaply in order to get the experience,” Odegard said.

It just so happens that the patron’s two ladies fit the bill perfectly.

“And, of course, he will sing because he has the money.

“At this point, the impresario resigns, saying, ‘Well, obviously you have it all under control: Anyone who can manage two sopranos as well as you’ve done is a better man than I.’ And he walks off.”

The patron is left to pick up the pieces as the work ends.

“Talk about fluff,” Odegard said. “But it has its bitterness and unhappiness. The older singer also is over the hill, not only as a singer but also as a mistress.

“I can’t say we’ve played that up that much, but it’s there. I would say that it’s a comedy for adults.”

Musically, the opera includes two extensive arias, one for each soprano; a trio for the two women and the patron, and a sparkling finale. The impresario never sings.

“Mozart wrote the work a few months before he wrote ‘Marriage of Figaro,’ ” Odegard said.

“So it’s mature Mozart. He takes the characters seriously, and the arias are serious arias with all the wonderful musical characterization that Mozart brought to bear on ‘Figaro’ and ‘Cosi fan tutte.’

“It takes really good singers to sing it.”

In Odegard’s production, the principals will make entrances and exits, but by and large there will be little stage action because, Odegard said, “there isn’t anything that happens in the opera anyway.

“We’re doing enough dialogue to make a little play out of it, and we will make a slight gesture toward costuming: Our impresario and financier will be in modern three-piece business suits.”

Odegard’s original plans included following “The Impresario” with Rimsky-Korsakov’s rarely performed one-act opera “Mozart and Salieri,” based on Pushkin’s play. Odegard had used Mozart as the impresario in the comic opera partly to provide a transition between the two works.

“I made Mozart the impresario because at the end, when he resigns, he says he’s going off to have dinner with Mr. Salieri--and, of course, it’s at dinner (in Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera) that Salieri poisons him.

“We figured that (the play, later the movie) ‘Amadeus’ would still be in people’s minds.

“But, frankly, there isn’t a decent English version of ‘Mozart and Salieri.’ I didn’t want to do it in Russian or in another language, and although I did find someone who could do a musical translation, that person couldn’t guarantee it in time.”

Despite the change in plans, he kept Mozart as a figure in the opera.

Oddly enough, the premiere performance of Mozart’s “Impresario” in 1786 was part of a “double feature” that included an opera by Salieri, “Prima la musica e poi le parole” (“First the Words, Then the Music”), which also was a lampoon on the opera business.

It must have been quite an evening.

“The Salieri opera is supposed to be very funny, but I’ve never seen it. It might be an interesting thing to resurrect,” Odegard concluded.

“Mozart didn’t think highly of him, but Salieri wasn’t such a bad composer.”