RADIO-TV REVIEW : LIVE! FROM THE ARTS CENTER

For those unfortunates among us lacking either the requisite black tie or the ready cash (or connections) for direct participation in Monday night’s gala opening of Orange County’s Performing Arts Center, there were at least the consolations of television and radio.

For three hours, KUSC-FM (91.5) broadcast the complete performance, bookended by taped interviews with several of the Center’s principal players and a rather pretentious recounting of Orange County cultural history--though whether an airport counts as a cultural landmark is another matter.

And KOCE-TV (Channel 50), the local PBS affiliate, chose to dive headfirst into the heady post-concert glitz: bow-by-bow accounts of the glamorous fashions and even more glamorous people; various outpourings of emotion by all in attendance (or so it seemed) and even a few choicely spaced mini-documentaries on the Center’s creation. All this, friends, in a scant 90 minutes.

It made for a long four hours (KUSC’s coverage overlapped KOCE’s by half an hour)--sometimes silly, sometimes illuminating, sometimes moving, but long nonetheless.

KUSC hewed close to the solid, stolid American Public Radio standard: the quiet authority of Gail Eichenthal during the intermission, the playfulness of UCLA professor/confessor Robert Winter, the exhaustive completeness of the presentation. The good stereo sound of the live remote only whetted the appetites of we shallow-pocketed listeners for the experience of the real thing--the allegedly superb acoustics of Segerstrom Hall, the delights of which were trumpeted to distraction by KOCE’s feeling-happy crew.

This troika--KOCE hosts Stephanie Edwards, Jim Cooper and Meredith MacRae--elevated the sports commentator’s trusted query (“What are you feeling right now , Gonzo?”) into a passionate refrain, invoking its magic time and again . . . even on tired, somewhat cranky children who no doubt were feeling only that it was past time for bed. And please get that microphone outta my face. . . . While it was, er, nice to hear for the 34th time what this special night meant to somebody, it was truly nice to get glimpses of the Center’s construction as a going thing, and to look into the contributions of the “little people” whose hands made the complex rise from the ground. One especially warming segment found project producer Gene Bell’s roving camera engaging the catering truck driver during his morning rounds, and it was from moments like these that KOCE’s special rose above the bubble-headed.

It is quite a shame, however, that with $1 million floating around Segerstrom Hall and the chic coutures on display like so many butterflies, that a decent sum wasn’t scraped up for a complete video documentation of the event, from the national anthem (sung in a surprise stint by Leontyne Price) to the final cork a-poppin’ of the post-concert bash.

Now that would have made us (poor souls) really feel how special the night was, rather than having to be told again, and again, and again, and. . . .

In terms of news coverage of the splashy gala, the national networks paid little to no attention. No mention of the opening was or will be made on the evening or morning news programs of CBS, NBC or ABC, according to New York spokespersons. Perhaps it was the ban on vidcams into the party tents (no one wanted any $5,000 gowns befouled by wires or trampled by frantic cameramen) that scared the networks away.

The local affiliates were more attracted, no-camera rules or not. KNBC had Orange County bureau chief Bob Navarro--resplendent in incongruous black tie--updating us from the scene at 4, 5 and 6 p.m., commenting mostly on the glitzy and eliciting earth-shaking banalities from such stalwarts as the Center’s executive director, Thomas R. Kendrick, and conductor Zubin Mehta. A quasi-review of the concert itself followed at 11.

KCBS countered with the irrepressible Ruth Ashton Taylor, who contributed two pre-recorded pieces to the station’s evening news shows, and entertainment reporter/critic/pundit Digby Diehl provided the painful live coverage at 11.

Both stations plan further coverage during specialty news shows over the weekend. One can only wonder what news angle could possibly have been left unplundered.