Commentary : A New (York) Look at Arts Center

Ever since the Orange County Performing Arts Center opened last September, there has been an ongoing debate about local audiences applauding between symphonic movements, what people are wearing to the Center, whether cultural groups are catering to the economically well-heeled few rather than the public at large, and exactly where the music fits into the whole picture.

Having recently returned from my first visit to the cultural capital of the country--New York City--this Los Angeles-born, Orange County-raised music lover discovered one crucial element still missing from our new $70-million performing arts palace: cheese danish.

Sure, we’ve finally heard the strains of Wagner and Beethoven at the hands of Sir Georg Solti and the mighty Chicago Symphony. At last we’ve seen some of the legendary works of George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins during last fall’s visit by the New York City Ballet. The Center has even provided a taste of Orange County Future--even if it hasn’t always been of gourmet quality--in performances by the Pacific Symphony, Opera Pacific, the Master Chorale of Orange County and the Pacific Chorale.

But my visit to New York left me convinced that the county’s oft-trumpeted cultural “coming of age” will never be complete until the day that danish is available at the Center.

That’s what I found, along with coffee, orange juice and cocktails, among the refreshments available at the New York State Theater for a weekend matinee performance by New York City Ballet.

At the Orange County Performing Arts Center, we get champagne (sparkling wine, actually), white wine, 7-Up and mineral water--nothing as indelible as coffee or Coke or as substantial as pastries to soil the carpets if spilled.

Of course, the choices in New York didn’t stop at the food and drink counter. Instead of the ballet I could have walked across the square at Lincoln Center to the Metropolitan Opera House to see Mozart’s “La Clemenza de Tito,” or another 50 yards to Avery Fisher Hall to hear the New York Philharmonic.

Better yet, an hour before the curtain went up, you could still walk up to the ticket window and for as little as $5 buy seats to see what some say is the world’s greatest ballet company.

In fact, I did return to Lincoln Center that evening to hear the Phil perform two works by Krzysztof Penderecki under the baton of the composer, as well as Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 14--a far cry from the accessible but decidedly safe diet of Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Bernstein we’ve been fed so far in Orange County. Avery Fisher Hall, while not sold out, was about 90% filled for this challenging program.

Yet with all the criticisms aimed at clap-happy Orange County audiences, it’s worth pointing out that New Yorkers aren’t always models of concert etiquette. Some members of the Philharmonic audience could rightly have been chastised here for jumping from their seats and rushing for the exits even before the final chord of the Shostakovich symphony had stopped reverberating.

But what struck me most about the New York audiences was their matter-of-fact attitude toward the performances. No searchlights. No marching bands. No parade of limousines.

Why? Simply stated, New Yorkers are used to their cultural endeavors from a history with the performing arts that stretches back more than 100 years. Culture is not a badge of sophistication to be flashed, it’s as much a part of daily life as hailing a cab.

In Orange County, men haul out tuxedos and women throw on furs in an exhibition of opulence to prove that this one-time rural community is now as urbane and cosmopolitan as any of the world’s great cities.

In New York, women wear furs because it’s cold. Others attending City Ballet and the Philharmonic wore Army surplus parkas, running shoes, sweaters, sports coats and blue jeans along with a smattering of designer dresses and Brooks Brothers suits. But it was a wide range of the citizenry taking in these events, not just the social movers and shakers.

Function, not fashion, was clearly the motivational force guiding most people’s attire in New York, where with all the things to go and do, often the emphasis is on the “go” rather than the “do.” Lest we forget in the Camelot climes of sunny Southern California, real winters force East Coast populations indoors in search of warmth.

Here, culture must also compete with the beach, parks, boating, softball, golf, Disneyland and any number of activities that would result in frostbite in New York at this time of year. In our defense, Orange County’s experiential naivete is a reasonable explanation for those concert-goers who haven’t learned that a symphony’s movements are structurally connected by silences that are as important as sounds, not to be obliterated by indiscriminate applause. And it’s only natural that the very dearth of first-rate cultural offerings in the past should make anything we get now seem like a special occasion.

But there was more than a sense of celebration betrayed in one socialite’s observation at the Center’s opening that “We are the show.” When the spectators become the spectacle, art gets lost.

In the rush to proclaim Orange County’s cultural arrival, we should remember that sophistication is bred, not declared. But while we’re waiting, danish anyone?