Opera Pacific Weighs Accepting NEA’s Grant

Opera Pacific has received an $18,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Artsfor the company’s 1990-91 season, but given the controversy surrounding an anti-obscenity clause recently attached to NEA grant acceptance forms, company officials are considering whether to accept the money.

The NEA is requiring all groups that receive grants to sign a form acknowledging that they will not produce works that could be judged obscene and that do not meet undefined standards of artistic excellence. Some artists and organizations have refused to accept NEA grants recently because of the anti-obscenity clause. The Newport Harbor Art Museum’s board voted last week to strike the clause before signing the form.

“Obscenity, which obviously is in the mind of the beholder, can be construed to apply to almost anything,” Opera Pacific general director David DiChiera said Tuesday from Detroit. DiChiera is also general director of Michigan Opera Theater.

“Certainly, opera, an art form that combines all the other arts, has many possibilities of doing things either visually or in dance or dramatically that might be construed from a narrow point of view as perhaps not passing the quote ‘litmus test.’ ”

DiChiera said the Opera Pacific board has not taken a formal position on the NEA’s anti-obscenity pledge.

DiChiera said through a spokeswoman that he would comment on the grant today, after studying the language of the acceptance form.

Earlier Tuesday, however, DiChiera had said: “My feeling is that this grant, given to us under the endowment guidelines (of) the past years, is one we should accept, but at the same time we should do everything possible to make sure that in the future there is not any restrictive language tied to endowment support.”

Congress is considering reauthorizing the NEA for five years. Some congressional representatives have proposed bills with language restricting the content of works that would be eligible for NEA grants; others, including Orange County’s Dana Rohrabacher, have proposed eliminating all federal money for the arts.

This is the second NEA grant awarded to the Costa Mesa-based company. In 1989, Opera Pacific received a $15,000 grant to support hiring artistic,administrative and production personnel.

The new grant will be used to hire a music director for community outreach programs, underwrite school performances and increase wages for apprentice artists.