Choral-Hungry in O.C. to Get Weekend Feast

After a summer of choral famine, it’s feast time this weekend.

The two Orange County groups--Master Chorale of Orange County and Pacific Chorale--open their seasons on Friday and Sunday, respectively.

And if that were not enough for the choral-hungry, the Los Angeles Master Chorale begins its season at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles on Saturday.

Maybe it’s all too much, and the back-to-back bookings will tap out the local audience.

William Hall, artistic director of the Master Chorale, doesn’t think so.

“It’s sort of healthy for Southern California,” Hall said in a recent interview.

“We’re not doing (the programs) on the same night. That would be a disaster. But it would give the aficionados a chance to hear three fine chorales doing totally different literature. It would be a fun way to compare.”

But John Alexander, artistic director of the Pacific Chorale, is more wary.

“I think it’s a problem,” Alexander said. “I think it’s unfair and unfortunate to the audiences and to the organizations. We get many, many complaints because people want to see both.”

Alexander cites the limited number of dates that the Center makes available to Orange County groups. “It’s the unfortunate way that the Center is booking. We’re living with it in the same way we did last year. (But) I hope we can resolve the issue in the future, where we aren’t booked right on top of each other.”

“It could be a comparison shopping,” Alexander conceded. “If people want to reserve their weekend for choral music, this would make a strong choral weekend.”

Both chorales are fighting for subscriptions, and both say things are going well in that regard.

According to Hall, the Master Chorale had about 800 subscribers at the end of last week. Officials of the Pacific said it had 952 on Monday. But both chorales expect--hope for--a mad rush at the gate.

Hall thinks that his program--which includes the Los Angeles-based Lewitzky Dance Company for Stravinsky’s “Symphony of Psalms”--will draw the dance crowd, especially because this will be the first opportunity to see modern dance (as opposed to ballet) in Segerstrom Hall.

Alexander is relying strictly on the musical appeal of Beethoven’s “Missa Solemnis.”

The Lewitzky-Hall connection goes back to 1984 when Lewitzky choreographed “Nos Duraturi” to Stravinsky’s “Symphony of Psalms” for the opening of the Olympic Arts Festival in Los Angeles. Lewitzky had asked Hall and his Los Angeles-based William Hall Chorale--subsequently merged with the Master Chorale--to join her in that performance.

Describing her work, Lewitzky said: “It is a work about war and about the lastingness of people in the face of disaster. It’s nonliteral. There are no story lines developed, but there are, I hope, emotions developed in place of that. . . .

“It’s amazing that in a society so confronted by disasters--the man-made ones, let alone the natural one--. . . in the face of that, most people are good and kind and supportive. I find that a very small miracle.”

Hall said Lewitzky’s work “truly is a paean of peace. It works rather brilliantly.”

To accommodate the 12 dancers, the Pacific Symphony and the Master Chorale will be seated toward the back of the stage.

Hall will conduct with his back to the dancers. But he doesn’t expect this to be a problem.

“I just have to know the transition between the first and second, and the second and third movements,” he said. “She has movement where there isn’t any music.”

What concerns him, however, is that the singers might get too wrapped up watching the dancers to watch him.

Completing the Master Chorale program will be Orff’s “Carmina Burana.” Isn’t that an odd pairing?

“Not really,” Hall said. “In my mind it’s a perfect continuation. The rhythms of Stravinsky set the great mood, along with the dancers, for the rhythms of the Orff.”

For Pacific’s John Alexander, Beethoven’s “Missa Solemnis” is a work of “extraordinary complexity and one of the most difficult pieces in choral literature.”

Nonetheless, he says, “There is a whole community of people who come back to hear it, no matter where it is performed.”

Some of the difficulties of the piece, such as the extremely high vocal parts, have been ascribed to the composer’s deafness.

“I don’t agree,” Alexander said. “He wanted to stretch people and the idea to the limit. When Beethoven describes ‘omnipotence,’ he describes it on high A’s for the sopranos and tenors that last for bars and bars on end. It’s wretchedly difficult to sing, but it gives a sense of omnipotence. . . .

“In dealing with the concept of eternal life at the end of the ‘Credo,’ Beethoven writes the longest fugue in the history of music. He sets that fugue in several different tempi, with several different motifs and melodic ideas, to describe eternal life.”

One of the other controversies arose from Beethoven’s use of martial sounds of trumpets and drums in the “Agnus Dei.”

“People ask, how can the choir shout, ‘ Pacem , Pacem ‘ (Peace, Peace) in the middle of the ‘Agnus Dei’? But he includes that whole militaristic scene, where trumpets and timpani come through, as a concept of war, and within that framework, he demands peace from war.

“After it’s over, the chorus comes in with final ‘Dona Nobis Pacem’ . . . which is Beethoven saying, we will survive war and have peace.”

John Alexander will conduct the Pacific Chorale and Pacific Symphony in Beethoven’s “Missa Solemnis” at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday at the Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa. Tickets: $12.50 to $35. Information: (714) 542-1790.

William Hall will conduct the Master Chorale of Orange County in Stravinsky’s “Symphony of Psalms,” with the Lewitzky Dance Company, and Orff’s “Carmina Burana” at 8 p.m. on Friday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, in Costa Mesa. Tickets: $12.50 to $35. Information: (714) 556-6262. CAMERATA MAKING GAINS: Ami Porat, founding director of the Mozart Camerata, says subscriptions are up significantly this year, 650 so far, compared to 257 last year. Porat cites the move to St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church of Newport Beach from Santa Ana High School last year and a mass mailing among reasons for the increase. The Camerata’s season will open on Nov. 11, with a program of J.C. Bach and Mozart. Information: (714) 634-8276.