At the Joffrey: Departures and Returns

When the Joffrey Ballet returns to its Los Angeles home at the Music Center for nine performances of “The Nutcracker” Friday through Dec. 31, the company’s roster of dancers will be altered from what it was at its last visit in May.

Since the death in March of company founder Robert Joffrey, and the subsequent naming of co-founder Gerald Arpino as artistic director, four prominent members of the 1987-88 company have left the troupe: Dawn Caccamo, Charlene Gehm, Mark Goldweber and Philip Jerry.

“They all left with our blessings,” Arpino said from the company’s New York offices.

“After all, our dancers are our family, and people in a family never really go away, because they usually return--though in other aspects.”

Caccamo, who has joined Houston Ballet, was not available for comment. Gehm, saying she is “in a period of transition,” has joined the New York company of “Phantom of the Opera.” In her spare time, Gehm said last week, she pursues a number of other show-business interests.

Jerry and Goldweber, one in Manhattan, the other in Oregon, also spoke to The Times.

From his New York City home, Jerry, who danced with the Joffrey company for 13 seasons, said his leaving this year came because “it was time to switch over--from dancing to choreography, which I’ve been doing more and more in recent seasons.

“The problem was, when you’re a member of a successful company like the Joffrey, there is no time to pursue your next set of priorities,” Jerry said. “You’re always working. And a choreographer has to be available--to travel, to spend long periods of time on his next project, to make plans. When I was dancing, I couldn’t be available in those ways.

“I danced my last performance with Joffrey in San Francisco in July. Since then, I’ve been back once, to replace someone who got ill, in the New York season. But I was a free-lancer for those two performances.”

Jerry says his departure had nothing to do with the changing administration at his former dance home, “but I did feel that when Mr. Joffrey died, that was for me a signpost to my future. The decision had been made, long before he even got sick. This was like getting an approval to go ahead.”

On the phone from Portland, Ore., where he became ballet master of the Portland-based Pacific Ballet Theatre in September, Goldweber spoke about his new life.

“When I was very young--and I started ballet at the age of 10, and was exposed to professional life very early--I decided I would stop dancing at 30. When I got to my 30th birthday last April, and after 13 years in the Joffrey company, I was ready to move on. When the offer to work in Portland came, I knew it was time.” Another Joffrey Ballet alumnus, James Canfield, is artistic director of the Oregon troupe.

Goldweber, who is dancing in Pacific Ballet Theatre’s “Nutcracker” as well as serving as ballet master, says that so far, he’s been too busy to miss New York.

“Someone reminded me the other day that successful people are supposed to change direction every 10 years. I had been in the company since the age of 17 and I loved it. But it’s a tough life--the Joffrey performs all the big ballets, but it’s still a small company, and that’s very hard on all the dancers.

“I knew I wanted to stop, as they say, while I could still walk. So now, I feel that the new role (of teacher) is definitely the right one, at this point in my life. After 20 years in this career, I think I have a lot to pass on to the next generation.”

Of the four new Joffrey Ballet dancers this fall, one is a returnee. Edward Morgan danced in the company from 1981-85, then returned to his hometown of San Antonio, Texas, to teach. Glen Harris, formerly with Australian Ballet and the Zurich Ballet in Switzerland, joined the Joffrey troupe in August. Lissette Salgado and Adam Slute are former members of Joffrey II who also moved into the main company in August of this year.

AND THE CASTS: The opening-night cast for the Joffrey “Nutcracker” lists Alexander Grant (Drosselmeyer), Glenn Edgerton (Nutcracker Prince), Mary Barton (Clara), Edward Stierle (Snow Prince), Douglas Martin (Snow King), Leslie Carothers (Snow Queen) and Tina Le Blanc (Sugar Plum Fairy). With two exceptions, this same cast will dance the evening performance of Dec. 26, the matinee of Dec. 28 and the evening of Dec. 29. The exceptions are Tom Mossbrucker as the Nutcracker Prince and Jodie Gates as the Sugar Plum Fairy on the evening of Dec. 26.

Scheduled to dance the evenings of Dec. 27 and 28, and at the matinees, Dec. 30 and 31, are Carl Corry (Snow Prince), Deborah Dawn (Snow Queen) and Jodie Gates (Sugar Plum Fairy.

LOOKING FORWARD TO A BICENTENNIAL: All 11 of the organizations affiliated with Lincoln Center in New York City--among them the Metropolitan Opera, the New York Philharmonic, New York City Ballet and the Juilliard School--will participate in the 19-month observance of the bicentennial of the death of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, in January, 1991 through August, 1992.

What the constituent companies of Lincoln Center promise in those 19 months are performances of all of Mozart’s compositions--369 orchestral works, 21 operas, 227 songs, 30 concert works for piano and 97 chamber pieces, among other items to be played--plus related films, plays, exhibitions, lectures and symposia. Musicological adviser to the project is Neal Zaslaw, a professor at Cornell University and a member of the graduate faculty at the Juilliard School.

OPERA TICKETS: A letter received recently from Calendar reader Gary Augert complained that he was unable to obtain either an exchange or a refund on tickets to the Los Angeles Music Center Opera production of “Wozzeck” when he found himself unable to attend. The disgruntled Augert concluded: “If the new opera company is trying to enlist new people and build their attendance, they certainly are going about it all wrong.”

Speaking for Music Center Opera, John Howlett replied to our inquiry regarding ticket policy:

“All our ads say, and all our tickets are imprinted, ‘No refunds and no exchanges.’

“This applies to non-subscription tickets. However, we retain for our season subscribers the privilege of ticket exchange within the run of an opera, though no exchanges between operas are possible. This is also the policy of Ticketmaster, the major agency handling our tickets.”

PEOPLE: Brian Dickie, general administrator of the Glyndebourne Festival Opera in England, has been named general director of Canadian Opera, effective Jan. 1. Dickie will replace Lotfi Mansouri, who has assumed the directorship of San Francisco Opera. . . . Bruce Marks, artistic director of Boston Ballet, has signed a five-year contract, extending his tenure with the company until 1993. . . . Two of the 12 candidates in the Fifth Biennial National Piano Fellowships Auditions of the Beethoven Foundation are from Southern California: Thomas Otten, 28, currently studying with John Perry at USC, and Stephen Prutsman, 28, currently studying with Leon Fleischer (one of the audition jurors) at the Peabody Conservatory. . . . Eduardo Mata has been named principal guest conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony.