Classical Music : Litton’s S.D. Debut Is More Like Old Home Week

Though conductor Andrew Litton came to town this week to make his debut with the San Diego Symphony, when he walked into his first Symphony Hall rehearsal, it was almost like old home week.

“I didn’t realize how many of (the players) I knew. When I was a baby (he was 23) I conducted ‘La Perichole’ with the San Diego Opera, and I recognized a lot of the players from the opera orchestra,” he said. “It was great to walk in and see so many of the same faces.”

Actually, Litton’s San Diego connection had begun two years prior to “La Perichole.” As an aspiring conducting student, he participated in the local opera company’s Young American Opera Conductors Program, a two-month course held in conjunction with the now defunct San Diego Verdi Festival. In that summer class of 1980, Litton was the pick of the litter, winning the opportunity to conduct the festival’s final performance of Verdi’s little-known opera “Giovanna d’Arco.”

In 1982, however, his intentions to pursue opera conducting were sidetracked when he took a post in Washington as the National Symphony’s Exxon/Arts Endowment assistant conductor. Opera had been Litton’s obsession since childhood.

“My godfather was the principal timpanist in the Metropolitan (Opera) Orchestra,” Litton explained, “and he dragged me into the pit at the Met, where I watched night after night some of the greatest singers of our time. That lasted until 1975, when the administration put an end to extraneous visitors in the pit.”

On March 9, 1989, Litton will make his Metropolitan Opera conducting debut, leading Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin.”

“If I die March 10, 1989, I’ll die happy,” he said.

While waiting for his operatic hopes to materialize, Litton has not spent his time daydreaming. For the last two seasons he has been charming the socks off audiences in southwestern England, where he recently was named principal conductor and artistic adviser to the Bournemouth Symphony. His appointment celebrated two firsts: It was Litton’s first symphony directorate and Bournemouth’s first American conductor in that orchestra’s 95-year history.

Prior to Litton’s arrival in San Diego, there were rumors that he was a possible candidate for the San Diego Symphony’s vacant post of music director. When asked whether he were interested, Litton offered a qualified demurral.

“It could be thrilling, but there’d have to be lots of discussion about what would be expected of me. I’m very monogamous, and I have a commitment with another orchestra.”

Litton said he is a great fan of San Diego--he brought his wife, principal harpist with the National Symphony, with him to see the city for the first time.

His skill as a morale-builder would make him particularly well-suited to leading the San Diego Symphony.

“The Bournemouth Orchestra had been going through a bit of a morale problem. The orchestra had had a very bad management--does that sound familiar?” he interjected. “And the musicians were pretty much shafted on various fronts. Musical levels started to dip.”

Part of Litton’s remedy, after a new administration was in place, was to lead the Bournemouth Orchestra in a critically acclaimed performance at London’s Royal Festival Hall.

“After the success at Festival Hall, everyone’s smiles were back. One of the fun things I like to do is build up morale, give pep talks like a football rally,” Litton added.

San Diego Symphony artistic administrator Edmundo Diaz Del Campo did not, however, see Litton as a prime contender in the music director search.

“I had lunch with him today and asked him to consider the possibility of joining us. He is very busy with his own orchestra,” Diaz Del Campo said. He indicated that Israel Chamber Orchestra conductor Yoav Talmi, who will conduct four subscription concerts here next season, is the most serious candidate at this point.

Tonight’s Symphony Hall concert will include Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto, K. 622, and Overture to “The Marriage of Figaro,” K. 492, and Mahler’s Fourth Symphony.