ROYCE HALL TESTING ITS TONE MUSCLE

Pebbles Wadsworth is running around these days like the chief party planner of a royal wedding. With good reason.

When her culture palace, Royce Hall, plays host to Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic on Friday and Saturday, the director of the UCLA Center for the Performing Arts will have realized her most expensive deal in the big-time concert presentation business.

“We have always brought our audiences top-of-the-line attractions,” she says. “But now we see a new obligation in our goal to serve the public. It’s clear that we must add breadth to our offerings by including the major-league orchestras.

“If Royce Hall is truly going to be the Music Center of the Westside, as I am convinced it will, then people must expect to find a New York Philharmonic on our stage.”

Wadsworth finds happy approval for her ambition among artist managements, naturally, since Los Angeles has become second in importance only to New York as a tour point on the musical map.

UCLA’s expansion of the performing-arts program began with the $12-million face lift and acoustical redesign that the Romanesque-style Royce Hall underwent three years ago. Since then she has been waging an endowment campaign and courting patrons zealously for the support of her upgraded subscription series.

But it’s not easy to crack the orchestra game, she says. Competing with the other two established presenters--Ernest Fleischmann at the Music Center Pavilion and Wayne Shilkret at Ambassador Auditorium--Wadsworth is only beginning to gain clout and credibility with the touring managements that arbitrate contracts.

There are rivalries between presenters to contend with, prestige-mongering of the orchestras themselves and behind-the-door fee negotiations, she says.

“We broke the exclusivity pattern of the orchestra network with (Riccardo) Muti and the Philadelphians,” says Wadsworth about their appearance at Royce Hall in June. “And now CAMI (Columbia Artists Management), which also represents the New York Philharmonic, is taking a chance on us again. David Foster (a CAMI vice president) trusted me, loved our hall and believed the rave reviews of its new acoustics.”

Crucially, the impresaria also was able to meet the fee--divulging that the Philadelphia Orchestra’s single concert set Royce Hall back by “more than $50,000” and that Bernstein’s two dates cost “upwards of $150,000.”

She explains the situation as a two-way street traveled by both the touring orchestra and its presenter--something like visiting royalty in search of the appropriate quarters.

And that’s what makes the Music Center Pavilion, home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the most prestigious platform, according to Foster. “It is the acknowledged hall of record,” he says.

“But ironically, the Pavilion becomes the most heavily booked locale and one not easily available during tour dates. (Hollywood) Bowl also, as summer domain of the Philharmonic, would be our first choice out of collegial deference. In the various orchestras’ interests, we have to find acceptable platform alternatives.”

Foster explains that executive director Fleischmann was the first client he called on regarding the Bernstein & Co. tour. When they couldn’t reach agreement over Bowl dates, he called on Wadsworth.

“It took lots of hard thinking to decide if the investment would be wise,” she says, acknowledging a loss is expected, even by doubling ticket prices ($60 for the top ticket). “But this is something we have to do to achieve our goals. The more important Royce Hall becomes, the greater our ability to gain public support.”

Douglas Sheldon, another CAMI vice president, sees presenters in the position of merchants who subscribe to the system of “loss leaders,” those highly desirable items that cost more than they bring in but bolster the overall subscription sales.

“No one makes money on a high-priced touring orchestra, least of all the orchestra--with two notable exceptions, the Berlin and Vienna philharmonics. But the prestige factor is so significant that any serious contender in the concert presentation business must be able to deliver a Philadelphia or a Concertgebouw.”

However, Wadsworth feels that her battles have as much to do with competitive strategies as dollars.

“Since Los Angeles is more a string of provinces than a single city,” she says, “it has a definite need for decentralization. There are enough audiences to tap without Pasadena presenters having to worry about those in Westwood or downtown. The lockup is unnecessary. But the ego factor is so prominent that we find a subtle exclusivity system operating.”

Foster concedes that sometimes exclusivity becomes a bargaining tool--a presenter might up the ante if the orchestra or artist agrees to sign on for subsequent appearances only at that hall. But he says “it’s never written in stone.” As to fees, “I just state them and then the presenters either faint or . . . . “

Mostly, the issue of competition has less to do with bargaining and meeting fees than calendar coordination, says Fleischmann. “Ninety-five percent of the decisions about who goes where depend on whether touring dates work.”

Yet, both the Westwood and downtown culture chiefs complain that their Pasadena colleague, bankrolled by the Worldwide Church of God, resorts to outbidding, thus inflating the market.

Fleischmann states that “Ambassador could afford $1 million for Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic to play four concerts and to underwrite its U.S. tour. Who else falls into that bracket? And who else can sweeten the pie by offering to make a free video of a live performance?”

But Wayne Shilkret, director of the Pasadena-based cultural foundation, vehemently denies these charges, saying: “Fleischmann is just mad that he can’t negotiate down as easily as he did before Ambassador arrived on the scene (in 1974). Remember, he practically had this city to himself before.”

And Sheldon backs him up.

“At one time,” says the CAMI executive, “Ambassador was willing to spend more money. Today, it is equally competitive with the others, equally difficult to sell to and just as ready to negotiate.”

Wadsworth shakes her head knowingly to all these sometimes contradictory statements: “Regardless of the competitive bickering about who pays what for whom, we all agree that another local contender in the touring orchestra sweepstakes makes for a healthy situation. Monopolies are a thing of the past.”