CLASSICAL MUSIC : Soviero’s Replacement Is a Bonus for S.D. Opera Fans

With the desertion of soprano Diana Soviero from San Diego Opera’s upcoming “La Traviata” production, local audiences will have the opportunity to hear soprano Christine Weidinger. The opera’s general director, Ian Campbell, engaged Weidinger to replace Soviero, the headstrong diva who broke her local contract for a chance to sing at the Paris Opera.

If this news upset some San Diego Opera subscribers, the choice of Weidinger should ease their distress.

A regular singer with the Los Angeles Music Center Opera, Weidinger made a stunning impression in the company’s 1989 production of Rossini’s “Tancredi.” Although the production was tailor-made for mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne, who sang the title role, and featured the budding coloratura tenor Chris Merritt, Weidinger’s brilliant singing outshone that of the vaunted superstars. Later this month, Weidinger returns to the Music Center Opera stage to sing Elettra in Mozart’s “Idomeneo.”

A native of Phoenix, Weidinger won the Metropolitan Opera auditions in 1972 and made her Met debut the following season as Musetta in Puccini’s “La Boheme.” The able soprano did graduate work at California State University at Northridge, but like many American singers, Weidinger nurtured her career abroad. She has sung in most of the German-speaking opera houses from the Deutsche Oper Berlin to Hamburg Opera, Frankfurt Opera and the Vienna State Opera. In Italy she has sung bel canto roles and has performed a fair sampling of Verdi roles on the French opera stage.

Vocally, Soviero has always been a welcome addition to the San Diego Opera stage, although her mercurial temperament offstage has been no secret. Her current cavalier behavior seems doubly culpable, however. If diva Soviero thought she was doing San Diego a favor by agreeing to sing the title role in this season’s “La Traviata” production, she asked the local company for a favor in return. Soviero’s management specifically requested that Bernard Uzan, Soviero’s husband, be contracted as stage director for the production. Campbell granted this request, and Uzan is still slated to make his directorial debut here next year in “La Traviata.”

As opera buffs know, the meaning of traviata is “wayward woman.” Perhaps Soviero has taken the character of one of her signature roles a bit too seriously.

Going it alone. Though many performing musicians eagerly seek the shelter and security of a university teaching position, pianist Nicolas Reveles is bucking the trend. After spending more than a decade on the faculty of the University of San Diego, Reveles has resigned his post--tenure and all--to assume the unfettered role of a free-lance musician. Sunday at 7 p.m. in San Diego’s First United Methodist Church, Reveles will play a solo recital of Beethoven, Schubert and Ravel. Performance is a musical activity he intends to increase in his post-pedagogical phase.

In parallel fashion, Reveles has taken a general leave of absence from his responsibilities as a priest in the San Diego diocese. The 42-year-old musician stated that throughout his career he has enjoyed a creative tension between his musical calling and his priestly vocation.

“But for last few years it has been a negative one, and these two aspects of my life have been at loggerheads. Although my priestly obligations on the university campus have been minimal, on weekends I was always on call to say Mass wherever I was needed throughout the diocese.”

Part of Reveles’ mid-life gear-shifting was motivated by the need to devote himself to the regimen of keyboard practice required by a serious performer and to complete composition projects that remained in limbo for lack of time. In addition to his teaching load at USD and his administrative duties for the music department, he ran the school’s liturgical music program as an educational arm of the San Diego diocese.

Beneath the surface of these pragmatic concerns, however, Reveles admitted his disenchantment with the Catholic church’s overall lack of appreciation for whole artistic endeavor.

“In the 20th Century, I think the church has really blown it in terms of the arts. For many centuries the church was at the forefront of promoting the arts. I think the understanding that the church has of the arts is very limited.”

In addition to musical performance, Reveles will continue scoring and composing for the stage. For the Old Globe’s production last season of C.P. Taylor’s “And a Nightingale Sang,” Reveles did the musical arrangements and recorded the piano music “played” by one of the actors. Since the Old Globe and USD have cooperated for the last three years in the university’s M.F.A. drama curriculum, Reveles has worked on a number of scores for these student productions, has taught scoring to the student composers and has coached the actors in singing. Even though he has resigned from USD, he will continue to work with the drama program as an adjunct professor, the academic responsibility that brought him the most satisfaction when he taught for the music department.

Reveles’ recitals after Sunday’s Linder Hall performance at First United Methodist include a program of Christmas music for piano at St. Brigid’s Church in Pacific Beach in December and an all-Mozart recital in February at San Diego Public Library.

pichar

Culture in East County. The 12-piece ensemble Symphony Brass will inaugurate the fall classical concert series Monday with an 8:30 p.m. concert at El Cajon’s East County Performing Arts Center. Conductor Ethan Dulsky will lead his brass buddies in a basically Baroque program that ranges from Benedetto Marcello to J. S. Bach. The concert series promises to bring a range of world music from Kawambe African Drum and Dance Ensemble, Oct. 1, to South Indian violinist Vjayam Ramaswanny, Oct. 15. The series is one of the most economical in the area--nine concerts for a mere $60--and is also offered in conjunction with music appreciation courses at San Diego State University and Grossmont College.