Mozart Takes Center Stage in Bicentennial Programs

When it comes to exploiting the Mozart bicentennial year, local music organizations are not missing a beat. A production of Mozart’s sophisticated opera buffa “Cosi Fan Tutte” with soprano Carol Vaness and baritone Hakan Hagegard will open San Diego Opera’s 1991 season Jan. 19 at Civic Theatre. Maestro David Atherton’s Mainly Mozart festival promises a smorgasbord of Mozart offerings in June. Although the festival’s programming will not be revealed until next week, it is no secret that Mainly Mozart is trading its outdoor venue in Balboa Park for a quieter and more musically favorable downtown theater.

Over at Copley Symphony Hall, the San Diego Symphony will inaugurate its yearlong Mozart celebration Jan. 10 with a performance of Mozart’s “Great” Mass in C Minor, K. 417, with the San Diego Master Chorale. During 1991, the symphony will play 14 programs that include Mozart’s music. A four-day Mozart marathon Dec. 5-8 will culminate the orchestra’s Mozart celebration with two performances of the “Requiem” and a screening of the popular 1984 film “Amadeus” with Tom Hulce and F. Murray Abrams.

For every 1991 symphony concert that includes a Mozart work, music director Yoav Talmi has planned a 20-minute prelude concert of Mozart’s chamber music performed by members of the orchestra and other San Diego musicians. Each prelude concert begins 45 minutes before the main program and is included in the regular ticket price. The first Mozart prelude concert will feature the G Minor Piano Quartet, K. 478, performed by pianist Edith Orloff, cellist Mary Oda Szanto, and violinists Edward Stein and John Stubbs.

Michael Palmer, guest conductor for the three performances of next week’s C Minor Mass, is not worried that audiences might overdose on Mozart in 1991.

“Of course, it depends on how good the performances are,” Palmer said. “His output is so remarkable that it’s impossible to get too much Mozart.”

Palmer, music director of the New Haven Symphony, was drafted last fall when a heart ailment caused San Diego Symphony principal guest conductor Robert Shaw to bow out of his commitment to conduct the C Minor Mass. A protege of Shaw when Shaw was music director of the Atlanta Symphony, Palmer worked 10 years as Shaw’s assistant and then associate conductor.

Because of the difficulties of performing the C Minor Mass and the fact that Mozart never completed setting the entire Mass text to music, the work is not frequently performed. Palmer noted that he conducted it four years ago, when he was still music director of the Wichita Symphony. According to Palmer, this large-scale, incomplete sacred work reveals an important facet of the composer’s character.

“With the notable exception of ‘The Magic Flute,’ this Mass reveals how serious, mystical and deeply devout Mozart was inside,” Palmer said. “He was not one to display his religious interests on the surface. From the music, it is clear that he was inspired by the Mass text and was struggling to bring back into the Mass some of the vitality and brilliance of the earlier Baroque tradition.”

Most of Mozart’s churchly compositions were written in his youth, when he was still in the service of the Salzburg archbishop Colloredo. The severe musical restrictions the archbishop placed on sacred music and his hostile relationship with the young composer elicited from Mozart dutiful but less than inspired compositions.

“I find the musical language of the C Minor Mass quite different from his earlier sacred music. It makes me wonder what Mozart would have done if he had lived to write more church music. He was headed in an interesting direction.”

Turmoil at USIU. The fate of the International Orchestra at United States International University was still uncertain as of Friday afternoon. When university president Kenneth McKlennan announced last week that USIU had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, the orchestra was among the university activities threatened with cancellation in order to save money. A week ago, most of USIU’s sports programs were terminated by the university trustees to conserve resources.

Since the death last fall of Zoltan Rosznyai, International Orchestra founder and music director, the orchestra has been without its conductor and most persuasive advocate. Since USIU has to rent outside facilities for its performances--this year’s series have been held at La Jolla’s Sherwood Auditorium, the Poway Center for the Performing Arts, and San Diego’s College Avenue Baptist Church--eliminating the 10 remaining orchestra concerts would constitute a substantial savings. Attendance at the orchestra’s concerts over the last few seasons has been modest at best. University spokeswoman Anne Slavicek said Friday that McKlennan still had not made a final decision about the orchestra’s future.

Slavicek did confirm that USIU’s International Chamber Players will perform as scheduled Tuesday at 7 p.m. in Green Hall on the university campus.

Opera previews. San Diego Opera’s free lunch-hour alfresco concerts in front of the Civic Theatre resume Wednesday at noon. Ann Campbell will introduce five singers from the company’s educational outreach department. They will present a potpourri of opera arias and selections from popular operettas. On Thursday at 5 p.m. in the Civic Theatre’s Beverly Sills Salon, the company’s associate conductor Karen Keltner will lecture on the musical and dramatic aspects of “Cosi Fan Tutte.”

Opera passions. Composer Carlisle Floyd, whose opera “The Passion of Jonathan Wade” will be produced here in April, is featured in an article in the current issue of Opera News magazine. In it Floyd discusses the development and revisions of his grand Civil War opera, which opens at Houston Grand Opera Jan. 18. The Houston company commissioned Floyd to revise the 1962 opera, which had been staged only once, its inaugural New York City Opera production. Greater Miami Opera will present the extensively revised “The Passion of Jonathan Wade” in March, followed by San Diego Opera’s April run. Seattle Opera will stage the opera in November, 1992.

Floyd will direct each production, although the casts will not be the same in each city. The opera’s set, designed by Gunther Schneider-Siemssen, was constructed by the San Diego Opera Scenic Shop.