Orange County 1980s : County Leapt Into Spotlight With Performing Arts Center

It was a dramatic decade for music and dance in Orange County.

Consider: In 1980, Keith Clark was conducting his Pacific Symphony at the half-century-old Plummer Auditorium in Fullerton. . . . In 1986, he was leading the orchestra in the spanking new $73.3-million Orange County Performing Arts Center.

The opening of the Center on Sept. 29, 1986, overshadowed virtually all other music and dance events in the county. The Center put Orange County on the cultural map nationally and internationally, thanks to appearances by the New York City Ballet, the Leningrad-based Kirov Ballet, the Paris Opera Ballet . . . not to mention winning its place on the kitsch map thanks to Elvis imitators.

Despite all the glitter and flash that the Center brought, it’s easy to forget that there had been, of course, cultural life in Orange County BC (Before Center).

In the early years of the decade, the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove was vying for a spot on the concert circuit, if on more modest lines than the likewise church-based Ambassador Auditorium in Pasadena.

Pianist-comedian Victor Borge opened a fledgling series at the cathedral in November, 1981, walking onto the stage area, looking up and exclaiming, “Holy smoke!” Roger Wagner led his famed Chorale in Handel’s “Messiah” there in December.

But within a year, the cathedral ran into problems with the State Board of Equalization, which stripped the facility of its tax-exempt status for a year and levied a fine for the offering of cultural--i.e., non-religious--events.

In response, the church called off its announced 1982-83 series, denounced the ruling and eventually let its offerings dwindle to the occasional organ recital.

After experimenting with several other locations through the county, music groups settled on the Santa Ana High School auditorium for their concerts. The auditorium, built in 1933 as a Works Progress Administration project, offered uncomfortable seating and lacked luxury amenities, but was universally praised for its excellent acoustics.

The Philadelphia, Concertgebouw, Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles and Royal philharmonic orchestras were among the musicians that the ever-vigilant Orange County Philharmonic Society brought to the facility.

In 1985, tenor Luciano Pavarotti stopped at the high school for a few hours to rehearse for a concert in San Diego. Pavarotti didn’t actually sing for Orange County audiences until Opera Pacific brought him to the Center for a fund-raising appearance in January, 1988.

Local groups such as the Pacific Symphony, Pacific Chorale and Master Chorale of Orange County built their reputations and followings at Santa Ana High School. But it was quickly abandoned by the groups for the more prestigious Center after that facility opened.

Seeking to emulate the success of its predecessors, Ami Porat’s Mozart Camerata, organized in 1985, and Jeff von der Schmidt’s Southwest Chamber Music Society, formed in 1988, tried to woo new audiences by holding concerts at the high school.

But people were wary of the area and stayed away. Neither group was happy with the audience-building results. This season, Porat moved his concerts to St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach and Von der Schmidt moved his to the Newport Harbor Art Museum. They both report greater success there.

Other local groups were less fortunate. The Newport Chamber Orchestra, formed in 1984 by Steven Wight, folded a year later because of lack of financial support.

Donn Laurence Mills tried to get his Capistrano Valley Symphony off the ground in 1985, but could not find a suitable concert space or an audience in South County and has since been offering pops concerts at a hotel in Dana Point.

In 1987, the Irvine Symphony lost its free office space in Irvine and ended its 10th season $25,000 in debt. Conductor Roger Hickman reported that fund-raising events were closing the gap, but the orchestra to date has not resumed offering subscription concerts.

That year, young South Coast Ballet also was swallowed in a merger with Ballet Repertory (formerly Capistrano Ballet) and Emerson Dance Theatre. Jim Jones, South Coast Ballet’s artistic director, eventually abandoned choreography for a career in business because, he said, he could not earn a living at it in Orange County.

In 1987, Pacific Symphony assistant conductor Edmundo Diaz del Campo resigned bitterly amid accusations of broken promises and morale problems. Additionally, that October, Maurice Allard, music director of the Master Chorale of Orange County, abruptly resigned, citing a dispute with the board over control of the organization’s pop music group, the Californians.

But 1988 was the convulsive year, with changeovers in administration--some bitter, some not--and financial troubles:

* Most acrimonious was Pacific Symphony’s dismissal of founding music director Clark in February. Key Clark supporters subsequently resigned from the board and the bylaws were rewritten to strip the music director of any voice on the board.

* Conductor Larry Granger and the South Coast Symphony faced an accumulated deficit of about $30,000 and began canceling or postponing concerts.

* William Hall was appointed new director of the Master Chorale in March. Merger talks between his chorale and John Alexander’s Pacific Chorale stretched over 10 months, but finally collapsed because of an impasse over who would direct the new organization.

* Molly Lynch took over as artistic director of Ballet Pacifica, replacing founding director Lila Zali, who stepped down after 27 years.

* Bobbie Minkin, once mayor of Laguna Beach, became the first executive director of the Laguna Beach Chamber Music Society.

* Lucas Richman made his debut as assistant conductor of the Pacific Symphony in October.

* The moribund Orange County Arts Alliance, formed in 1974, voted to dissolve itself at the end of December.

Throughout the decade, the universities and colleges played crucial roles.

Chapman College in Orange flourished for a time as a center for new and experimental music. William Kraft began a two-year appointment as professor of composition in 1984. An Orange County Composers Circle was formed there in 1986. New music piano specialist Alan Feinberg and the adventurous chamber ensemble Speculum Musicae also performed there in 1987. The college hosted the Nova (new music) Concerts in 1988. There has been little heard from the college since, however.

UC Irvine brought in a host of notable dancers and choreographers to talk with students, teach master classes or perform. These included choreographer Antony Tudor; former New York City Ballet principal Edward Villella; Mikhail Lavrovsky, former Bolshoi principal and son of famed choreographer Leonid Lavrovsky; Robert Joffrey; former Bolshoi principal Alexander Godunov; Bolshoi principal Andris Liepa; Isabella Fokine, granddaughter of the famous choreographer; tap master Gregory Hines, and Royal Danish principal Alexander Kolpin. Five-time Tony nominee Donald McKayle was recently appointed a professor in the dance department.

UCI also sponsored the appearance of the sensational National Dance Company of Senegal and the Society of Dance History Scholar’s conference on modern dance pioneer Isadora Duncan, both in 1987.

Linda Sohl-Donnell and her LTD/Unlimited Dance company, which underwent several name changes, has kept tap alive at Orange Coast College.

Meanwhile, many county organizations continued to offer concerts: The Corona del Mar Baroque Festival completed its ninth season last summer; the Fullerton Friends of Music is in its 31st season; the Laguna Beach Chamber Music Society is in its 30th; the North Orange County Community Concert Assn. is in its 44th; Micah Levy’s Orange County Chamber Orchestra is in its seventh, and the Orange County Philharmonic Society is in its 36th.

Promising recent developments:

* UC Irvine fine arts dean Robert Hickok formed his Irvine Camerata in June.

* Garden Grove Opera, formed in July, announced two performances of Rossini’s “Semiramide” for February.

* California Theatre Ballet, formed this year by James Penrod and Donald Bradburn with high hopes and little money, announced that Alexander Kolpin would be a permanent guest artist.

* The St. Joseph Ballet moved into new, classy quarters in November.

* South Coast Symphony is out of debt, while the Pacific Symphony is faced with the happily perplexing task of choosing from among a number of fine candidates for the music director’s position.

No single event of the new decade is likely to recapture the dramatic impact of the opening of the Orange County Performing Arts Center. But the new decade should offer many opportunities for the local groups to come of age.