Stars Lending a Hand for AIDS Benefit in Pasadena

“I got ambitious,” says impresario Alan Sievewright, a Scotsman who has been presenting opera and concerts in England for two decades, and will produce a gala benefit for the AIDS Hospice Foundation March 11 in Pasadena Civic Auditorium.

Sievewright refers to the beginning of the second half of the ballet and opera program scheduled at the benefit. It will be nothing less than the opening of Act II of Wagner’s “Die Walkure,” with Rita Hunter as Brunnhilde and Louis Lebherz as Wotan. Scenery will be designed just for this event by David Hockney.

“Every part of this gala will be staged and costumed,” Sievewright promises. At the top of the show, for instance, the impresario says: “We will have Egyptian effects” for Martina Arroyo’s singing of “Ritorna, vincitor,” from “Aida.”.

And at the end of the first half, Hungarian soprano Sylvia Sass will be assisted by “16 actors, an executioner, plus Herod and Herodias,” for the closing scene of Richard Strauss’ “Salome.”

“I have always been able to lean on the stars,” he commented in a phone interview. “But the logistics of putting on a benefit in Los Angeles are more complicated.” He noted that the performers on March 11 will come from Denmark, Greece, Spain, Canada and England, among other places.

They include:

* Artistic director/dancer Peter Schaufuss and six dancers from his English National Ballet (formerly London Festival Ballet), who will dance in both halves of the program; in the second-half finale, Schaufuss, with a partner to be announced, will dance the Pas de Deux from “Don Quixote.”

* Spanish soprano Victoria de los Angeles, who will sing two arias from “Carmen.”

* English soprano Elizabeth Connell, who will sing the Letter Scene from Verdi’s “Macbeth.”

* Canadian baritone Gino Quilico, who will sing the Largo al Factotum from Rossini’s ‘Barbiere di Siviglia.”

* Greek tenor Mario Frangoulis--the 24-year-old protege of Carlo Bergonzi--in his U.S. debut, who will sing an aria from “Andrea Chenier.”

Actress Jane Seymour, with Sievewright, will host the program.

The impresario says he is not producing this gala evening all by himself. Among others he credits are Los Angeles Music Center Opera, which, he says, “has been most helpful. (General manager) Peter Hemmings is an old friend, from the days when I hired the London Symphony Orchestra for my opera concerts, when Peter was their manager.”

BOWL HIGHLIGHTS: The Hollywood Bowl Summer Festival 90 begins July 2 with the first of 39 performances by the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The subscription season starts July 10 when American pianist Andre Watts performs Tchaikovsky’s Concerto No. 1.

Projected highlights of the summer include appearances by conductor David Zinman and soprano Kathleen Battle in a program of Viennese music Aug. 3 and 4. Philharmonic Principal Guest Conductor Simon Rattle will conduct two programs of masterworks: Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 (“Resurrection”) and the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto Aug. 14, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 and Stravinsky’s “Sacre du Printemps” Aug. 16. Three concerts by the visiting Seattle Symphony, led by its music director, Gerard Schwarz, will take place Aug. 23-25.