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CLASSICAL MUSIC : Powerful Voice Will Make Itself Known at Concert

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Tenor Gary Lakes is rightly mistaken for a football player. The 6-foot-4, 300-pound opera star started out playing defensive tackle as a high school student in Irvine, Tex., just outside Dallas. When he was sidelined by a serious injury, Lakes decided to take up a safer pursuit and joined the Dallas Civic Opera Chorus.

“I fell in love with opera--the chorus was my first experience with opera--but I also loved football and was good at it,” Lakes said.

In retrospect, opera buffs are particularly thankful for Lakes’ misfortune on the football field. In the past few years, he has emerged as the leading young heldentenor, a category of powerful Wagnerian singer that is in chronic short supply. Lakes will make his local debut this evening at Civic Theatre in San Diego Opera’s Richard Wagner Concert. In addition to singing solo arias from “Rienzi” and “Lohengrin,” Lakes will join soprano Johanna Meier and bass John Macurdy in the complete first act of “Die Walkure.”

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Singing the role of Siegmund in “Die Walkure” in 1985 was pivotal in Lakes’ career.

“When I did Siegmund in Paris with (conductor) Daniel Barenboim and (soprano) Jessye Norman, it was my first big European exposure. When I sang that program, I knew I was in the big leagues.”

Last year, Lakes sang the role to critical acclaim in a new production at the Metropolitan Opera, and he has recorded it for Deutsche Grammophon under the baton of Met conductor James Levine.

This June, he will be San Francisco Opera’s Siegmund in that company’s eagerly awaited complete “Ring” cycle. Much as he is attracted to the Wagnerian repertory--and the demand for singers who can handle these hefty roles is unrelenting--Lakes is careful not to limit his singing to Wagner.

“I keep some of my French roles in repertory because singing them keeps a beautiful sound in the voice,” he explained. One of Lakes’ early roles was Don Jose in “Carmen,” and he recently sang Samson at the Met in Saint-Saens’ “Samson et Dalila.”

If Lakes is happily ensconced at the Met, Bayreuth, that citadel and shrine of Wagnerian performance, has yet to hear his stentorian tones.

“I was supposed to sing there two years ago,” he said. “But negotiations broke down over their rehearsing demands. They wanted some three months of preparation for a single opera. I say you ought to be able to rehearse and stage an opera in three weeks; any longer than that and I get bored with the whole thing.”

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Lakes is adamant, however, that he will not push himself into roles for which his voice is not ready.

“At age 39, I only want to sing the Wagner roles that are good for me. For the bigger roles--Tristan, Siegfried and Parsifal--I’ll wait for six or seven years. Verdi’s ‘Otello’ is the same kettle of fish. It’s one of the last things I’ll tackle, because if I attempt it too soon, I know I’ll damage my voice.”

Trombone power. In addition to the “money” notes, all you need to be a successful heldentenor is the stamina to remain standing for the greater portion of ponderous four-hour operas. Heather Buchman has learned that becoming a virtuoso trombone player, however, takes more than chops and fortitude. First you have to elbow out the precocious pianists and violinists, who think they own center stage by divine right, and then persuade classical-music lovers that the trombone deserves a fair hearing as a solo instrument.

“I always wanted to play the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto on trombone,” Buchman said wistfully.

Actually, the symphony’s first-chair trombone will have her chance to win over the skeptics in a legitimate solo when she performs Henri Tomasi’s Trombone Concerto with the San Diego Symphony this weekend. Although the personable 24-year-old was not originally scheduled to perform on this season’s subscription series, when guest conductor Leopold Hager canceled his March 23-25 performances, Buchman was waiting in the wings with several possibilities.

“After I came back from the Munich competition last fall, I told (symphony Executive Director) Wes Brustad that I would like to play a concerto if there were any unexpected changes in symphony programming,” she said.

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Buchman was one of the three trombone finalists in the 1989 Munich International Music Competition, and the driven performer is not one to be self-effacing.

Although the concerto by Tomasi, a lesser-known 20th-Century French composer, is rarely programmed, Buchman has played it twice before, once with the New York Philharmonic and also with the Bavarian Radio Orchestra in the final rounds of the Munich competition.

“Tomasi’s Trombone Concerto, which he wrote in 1956, reminds me of Ravel,” Buchman said. “In fact, a section of the first movement sounds uncannily like ‘La Valse’ in its broad gestures and musical irony.”

The envelope, please. After last month’s extensive string section auditions, the San Diego Symphony has announced eight new positions.

Acting principal bass Oscar Meza, who has played with the orchestra for 10 years, has been promoted to the permanent first-chair position. The new principal cello is Xin-Hua Ma, a master’s candidate at USC who graduated from the Shanghai Conservatory. She will join the orchestra in late spring.

Other players signing on maestro Yoav Talmi’s team include associate principal bass Matthew Zory from the Phoenix Symphony, violist Lachlan McBane from the New Jersey Symphony, violinist Navroj Mehta (a graduate student in conducting at San Diego State University), former concertmaster of the Beijing Central Philharmonic Suli Xue, and violinists Herman Constantino and Deidre Ward.

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The revolving door continues, however. San Diego’s first-year principal violist Yun-Jie Liu has won and accepted a position with Washington’s National Symphony. Auditions for San Diego’s principal viola and principal horn will he held May 7, when Talmi is back in the city.

Price is right: Calvin Price, the San Diego Symphony’s principal trumpet who left last summer to take the No. 2 trumpet position with the Philadelphia Orchestra, has had a change of heart. He will return to his former chair with the local orchestra just before the close of the summer season. When the San Diego Symphony learned that Price was not entirely happy with Philadelphia--the significantly larger salary and longer season notwithstanding--the administration gladly extended his leave of absence while he reconsidered.

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