QUEEN OF CONCERT HALLS ENDS LONG REIGN

The Philadelphia, Concertgebouw, Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles and Royal Philharmonic were among the top orchestras that played there.

Outstanding soloists who performed on its stage in their youthful prime included a 22-year-old guitarist named Christopher Parkening, a 29-year-old mezzo-soprano named Teresa Berganza and a 34-year-old superstar soprano named Leontyne Price.

For 40 years, the Santa Ana High School Auditorium has been the premier concert hall in Orange County, and throughout that time it universally garnered top critical reviews for its acoustical splendors.

“It was absolutely the best hall between San Diego and Los Angeles and everybody knew it,” Times music writer Daniel Cariaga reminisced recently.

“True, there wasn’t enough backstage and on-stage space and not enough dressing room space. But acoustically it was marvelous.”

Now, with Monday’s opening of the Orange County Center for the Performing Arts, the reign of Santa Ana High School is over.

It’s the end of an era.

“We all look back with nostalgia because the high school provided a great deal of enjoyment for a lot of people over many years,” said Erich Vollmer, executive director of the Orange County Philharmonic Society, which booked concerts there for eight years.

“People endured stuffy air, cramped seats and general unattractive amenities because it was a chance to hear the great music that was presented there, because the sound was quite wonderful and because of the immediacy that comes from a 1,500-seat house.

“If the 3,000-seat Performing Arts Center is able to achieve the kind of acoustics that we were treated to at Santa Ana, they will have scored a major triumph,” Vollmer said.

Santa Ana High School Auditorium was completed in 1935 after the high school previously on the site had to be torn down because of damage suffered during the Long Beach earthquake of 1933.

The new building--a WPA (Works Progress Administration) project--served the double purpose of housing both Santa Ana High School and Santa Ana Junior College. The cost of construction was $1 million.

“You can imagine what it would cost now,” said Fred Sutton, stage manager at Santa Ana High for the past six years.

Over the years, there has been little tinkering with the original building. The large windows that were first installed were covered over with decorative panels in a small remodeling in the 1974-75 season, just before the Los Angeles Philharmonic began offering its concerts there. Padded seats were put in only in the late ‘50s. The carpeting currently there was donated by the Orange County Philharmonic Society. There was only tile before, Sutton said.

Although the Santa Ana City Council last November considered proposals for a $4-million renovation of the auditorium, “there are no plans to renovate the hall now,” Sutton said.

“There were some discussions, but they never came to fruition. But we will probably build a new parking lot in the next two years.”

The organization that used the site the longest was the Santa Ana Community Concerts Assn.--the first in the Orange County area--which booked artists there during its almost 40-year-long history, according to Hazel Bassett, 96, one of the association’s founders.

John Alexander’s Pacific Chorale moved into the auditorium in 1974.

“We were thrilled to find it because up until then we had not been able to find an acoustically adequate hall,” Alexander said. “We loved the acoustics because they made the human voice sound at its best.”

As Alexander’s 140-member organization grew, however (in its early days, the chorale used small student orchestras for accompaniment), it began to experience space problems.

“Just trying to get the soloists and conductor on the stage for the Verdi Requiem or the Mahler Second was a problem. You almost fell off and the audience saw that. That was our greatest problem there.”

In 1980, Keith Clark and the Pacific Orchestra moved in after outgrowing Plummer Auditorium in Fullerton and the Good Time Theatre at Knott’s Berry Farm.

Clark experienced a similar cycle of ecstasy and frustration, he said:

“We went from one of the world’s great amusement parks to one of the world’s great concert halls.

“But the stage accommodations were almost comical when we were doing big choral and orchestral works. Having us all squeezed onto the stage was kind of humorous.

“Altogether, we must have done 50 concerts there, and all of our recordings were done there.”

Although Santa Ana “looks, feels and smells like a high school auditorium,” Clark said that “it sounds like a great European hall.

“And as far as audience comfort is concerned, anyone who has ever been to Boston or to the Vienna Musikverein) would welcome the comforts of Santa Ana. These, too, have little, narrow seats and are just as unair-conditioned. The amenities are lacking, but you’re there for the music.”

The move to the new Center has raised considerably the costs of presenting concerts for the Alexander and Clark organizations.

“We’re budgeting $11,000 for one concert at the Center,” said Rita Majors, business manager of the Pacific Chorale. “And I’m beginning to think that that figure, which does not include front house personnel, stagehands (which are the major expense) and security, is too small.

“Our rent is 10% of our gross. That’s why our ticket prices--and everyone else’s--have taken such a huge jump. But ticket prices cover only about 30% of our costs of production.”

Clark agreed: “We’re increasing our potential audience roughly by a size of two, going from 1,800 seats to 3,000 seats, but we’re increasing our costs by a factor of 10 to 15.

“I’m not sure what the total costs will be,” he said.

Santa Ana High School Auditorium, on the other hand, was never meant to make money, stage manager Sutton said.

“We basically operated it as a public service, more than anything else. The idea was to provide public facilities for nonprofit use on only an at-cost basis.”

According to Sutton, nonprofit organizations such as the Pacific Symphony or the Philharmonic Society were charged $125 for four hours’ use of the hall. (This fee did not include costs for security, stagehands or in-house personnel.)

“Last year we made approximately $30,000, which maybe covers 75% to 80% of salaries and operating costs,” Sutton said.

“If we generate $2,000 in 1986-87, we will be lucky. There’s been almost a total falloff in bookings.”

Sutton said efforts are being made to fill the gap by attracting new local groups to the auditorium. One of these organizations is the Laguna Beach-based Mozart Camerata) founded by conductor Ami Porat.

Porat’s 20-member group, founded in 1980 and reorganized in 1985, will present two concerts each at Newport Harbor High School and Santa Ana High.

“There was a consensus from a large number of our audience who said they would rather come to a concert more centrally located rather than in Laguna Beach,” Porat said.

“The hope is that we will attract a little larger audience because of Santa Ana’s more central location. Oddly enough, the high school is not located in ideal surroundings. But it’s an acoustic gem.”