Music/ Dance in the Eighties : A Decade in Distress

It’s that time again. Time to join the long and scraggly parade of milestone-watchers.

Time to look back in anguish. Time to make profound retrospective evaluations. Time to put the awful ‘80s in permanent perspective.

Tempus fugit . Forget it.

A decade is an arbitrary measurement. No significant chapter in the history of music and dance will close Dec. 31. The universe is not likely to look particularly different Jan. 1, when bleary eyes greet the virginal days of 1990.

Art, for better or worse, functions as a continuum. Obviously, it is possible to find certain developments of interest in the last 10-year chunk of that continuum. The problem is, we may be too close to gauge the ultimate importance of those developments.

But, if you insist. . . .

The ‘80s saw the rise of minimalism--oh-so-modern music that drones loudly, exalting repetition for its own simplistic sake and demanding little from the listener beyond stamina, stony patience and, perhaps, stoned patience. Cheerful willingness to be sonically clobbered helps in any case.

With a little help from John Adams, a quasi-minimalist Nixon went to China, where he undertook fundamental Harmonielehre . Philip Glass, master of the Xeroxed arpeggio, made a with-it nation learn to pronounce words like Akhnaten and Koyaanisqatsi . The masses loved the dubious challenge.

The ‘80s witnessed the specter of governmental interference in the arts. This, after all, was the unsettling era of Jesse Helms.

Only a few superstars dominated the ‘80s. For those who respond primarily to puff-machines, opera meant a tenorissimo in excelsis--Luciano Pavarotti at best, Placido Domingo at second-best. Ballet meant Baryshnikov.

Though old and infirm, Herbert von Karajan dominated media-oriented Mitteleuropa until his death this year. In this instance, death may not have been the ultimate cadence. Leonard Bernstein still behaved on occasion like a naughty boy, even though he assumed the lofty position of a grand old man.

The overachievers got their usual cover stories. They also got their millions.

The ‘80s saw the rise of digital technology. The Vinyl Age revolved to a close. For many, sound became more important than music. The big black disc became quaintly obsolete. The compact-mirrored Frisbee with the hole in the middle took its place.

Obituary notices caused special pain in the ‘80s. We lost Artur Rubinstein and Vladimir Horowitz, George Balanchine and Alvin Ailey, Herbert von Karajan and Kurt Herbert Adler, Eugene Ormandy and Karl Bohm, Zinka Milanov and Jan Peerce, Jacqueline du Pre and Jascha Heifetz, Robert Joffrey and Frederick Ashton, Erik Bruhn and Anton Dolin, Hilde Guden and Irmgard Seefried, Roger Sessions and Samuel Barber, Glenn Gould and Pierre Fournier, Lawrence Morton and Dorothy Huttenback, Irving Kolodin and Winthrop Sargeant. The list goes on.

In the ‘80s, the world in general, and the world of the arts in particular, began to be decimated by AIDS. The losses defy understanding. So does our halting, tentative, cowardly response to the disaster.

The ‘80s saw the rise of perestroika . American audiences finally discovered the poignant, progressive output of two secret weapons long hidden in Moscow: Alfred Schnittke and Sofia Gubaidulina. Soviet musicians suddenly were free to visit the States, and even the second-rate ones were welcomed with open cash registers.

More significant, perhaps, certain defectors were invited back to the motherland. The Kirov Ballet finally discovered Balanchine. At career twilight, Natalia Makarova and Rudolf Nureyev danced one last time on the stage that had been their training ground. Ashkenazy went home again, the former traitor now a conquering hero.

As this goes to press, Mstislav Rostropovich plans to bring his National Symphony of Washington to Moscow and Leningrad. Leonard Bernstein is conducting the Beethoven Ninth in East Berlin. Walls come tumbling down.

Los Angeles found the ‘80s a decade of flux. Some fluxes turned out to be more flaccid than others.

The Philharmonic, ever maturing, bade a sad farewell to Carlo Maria Giulini, who had proved that great music-making doesn’t have to be flashy. Andre Previn, his successor as chief conductor of the Philharmonic, performed a rather specialized repertory with clarity, poise and informed competence. He didn’t generate enough excitement, however, to ensure survival when the management--personified by the all-powerful, egocentric Ernest Fleischmann--found the youthful energies of Esa-Pekka Salonen more compelling.

After more false starts, more ineffective imports and more empty promises than anyone cares to recall, Los Angeles finally entered the lyrical big-leagues when the Music Center engaged Peter Hemmings to oversee its costly operatic fortunes. The results have not invariably dazzled, but the repertory proved daring, the stress on modern stagecraft encouraging and the casting interesting.

Placido Domingo, engaged as quasi-permanent adviser, tended to sing better than he conducted. No matter. He lent undeniable glamour to the endeavor. If this city likes anything, it is glamour.

Opera patrons could gripe about an idiotic mock-Kabuki “Macbeth,” a gimmicky “Cenerentola,” a too post postmodern “Wozzeck” or a dull, dull, dull “Butterfly.” Nevertheless, they could forgive such indiscretions when confronted with an exquisitely earthy “Cosi fan tutte,” a picturesque and adventurous “Tristan” designed by David Hockney, a provocative “Fiery Angel” or, most memorable, a “Salome” sensitively staged by Sir Peter Hall as a showcase for the hypnotic Maria Ewing, who silenced all doubts in the title role.

This, not incidentally, was the decade of the infernal supertitle. In the ‘80s, audiences learned to read before they listened, to focus on the little screen rather than on the stage, and to laugh at lines that seemed funny--even if the lines in question weren’t funny or hadn’t been sung yet. Everyone liked the distracting textual crutches projected above the proscenium--everyone, that is, except a few malcontent critics and the singers who had to fight for the viewers’ attention.

Southern California used to be an operatic wasteland. No more. In the ‘80s, a reasonably mobile aficionado could complement the big shows at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion with intimate experiments in Long Beach, with solid middle-brow offerings in San Diego and, thanks to the latest manifestation of the arts-edifice complex, with pretentious pioneer efforts in Costa Mesa.

Costa Mesa?

Yes, Costa Mesa.

A decade ago, Orange County loomed small on our cultural horizon. This, the outside world believed, was just the balmy, palmy land of the lima bean and the shopping mall. This was just the land of Disney and the John Birch Society. No more.

Now the arts loom fairly large, on the imposing premises of Segerstrom Hall. This plush, 3,000-seat, $73.3-million all-purpose theater serves as the first installment in what promises to become a multifaceted Performing Arts Center. It has housed the Chicago Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, Leontyne Price, the Kirov Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, even the New York City Ballet. It also has housed some less worthy tenants from afar, not to mention a number of ambitious if somewhat shaky Orange County institutions.

Despite resounding, rebounding, sometimes actually warranted, volleys of self-congratulation, Orange County still faces a certain identity crisis. No one seems quite sure if the Center is supposed to be just a fancy booking house for famous names that pass by, or a nurturing, stimulating home for local companies.

At the moment, the Center tries to be both. It succeeds better in the former capacity than in the latter.

In the ‘80s, Los Angeles did well with, and by, visiting ballet companies. Resident dance organizations--one must use the adjective advisedly--didn’t always fare so well.

The Joffrey Ballet became officially bicoastal, amid much hope and hoopla. But, for all its variety, the repertory began to lose some of its appeal with frequent repetition.

Audiences applauded the historic exhumations (e.g., an Ashton bill, a Diaghilev triptych and Nijinsky’s “Sacre de printemps”), not to mention many of the innovative efforts (e.g., works of Jiri Kylian, Mark Morris and William Forsythe). The public invariably liked Gerald Arpino’s sure-fire kitsch extravaganzas, no matter how much critics might demur. At the same time, many balletomanes at the Music Center yearned for the stellar staples that had come here courtesy of American Ballet Theatre in the yesterdecade.

In the good old days, Los Angeles could take a Carla Fracci-Erik Bruhn “Giselle” or a Natalia Makarova-Anthony Dowell “Swan Lake” almost for granted. Now, with Mikhail Baryshnikov in charge, ABT evolved into a less starry company, a younger company, an even more eclectic company.

There were highlights and lowlights. Both looked dim in the vast, ugly, anti-atmospheric spaces of Shrine Auditorium.

The ‘80s saw the rise and fall of Gelsey Kirkland, a brilliant ballerina haunted by personal demons and betrayed by a system that shunned her individuality. The ‘80s saw the rise and self-destruction of Patrick Bissell, a danseur whose enormous potential was thwarted by fast living in troubled times.

Transitions. . . .

It was in the ‘80s that the Los Angeles Master Chorale unceremoniously dumped its testy, sometimes trying, often genial founder, Roger Wagner. It was in the ‘80s that the Pacific Symphony unceremoniously dumped its testy, often trying, sometimes imposing founder, Keith Clark.

The changes instituted by John Currie, Wagner’s successor, benefited neither morale nor chorale. The changes in the Orange County orchestra, though clumsily choreographed, might prove beneficial in the future.

It was in the 1980s that commercial radio in Los Angeles all but abandoned classical music. The cause: a perfect combination of mismanagement and corporate greed.

Modern music--whatever that means--was rather well served in the Green Umbrella programs at the Japan America Theatre. The futuristic cause was not so well served by the dutiful Monday Evening Concerts, a venerable series that may have outlived its usefulness.

The ‘80s introduced festivals--ambitious, generally uneven festivals that did more for theater than for music or dance. The Olympic Arts Festival could boast the debuts of the marvelously infuriating Pina Bausch of Wuppertal and the splendid Royal Opera of Covent Garden. Although the sprawling sequel known as the L.A. Arts Festival tried hard to look trendy, it often did so without abiding conviction.

Both orgies confirmed a crucial, long-lingering suspicion. Our fair city does harbor a large and potentially curious audience for music and dance. Los Angeles really might be willing to take a few chances, under the right circumstances.

Perhaps next year. Perhaps in the nervous ‘90s. . . .