Music Center Opera Announces New Season : Opera: Plans include eight works, ranging from new productions of standards like ‘Madama Butterfly’ to the world premiere of ‘Kullervo,’ based on a Finnish myth.

A world premiere and three new productions highlight Music Center Opera’s sixth season, as announced by the company Tuesday. Unlike previous seasons, the eight operas will be spread relatively evenly over a September to June period.

“It gives the illusion of permanence,” company general director Peter Hemmings joked at the press conference. “It keeps the audience involved in what we are doing throughout the year, and it is much better for the company.”

Permanence does not seem to be a problem now for Music Center Opera, fiscally beset in its early years. Hemmings reported that the 1989-90 season ended with a modest surplus, and that the company no longer has any bank loans outstanding. The budget for the 1991-92 season is $15.5 million.

“Madama Butterfly,” in a new production directed by Ian Judge and designed by John Gunter and Liz da Costa--the production team responsible for the MCO “Tosca”--opens the season. Company artistic consultant Placido Domingo was scheduled to conduct, but instead will limit himself to singing Pinkerton--opposite Maria Ewing as her first Butterfly--for only the opening night gala. In explanation, Hemmings said only that a natural part of announcing prospective plans is then announcing alterations.

“We changed it, and that’s just the way it goes,” he said. The prepared release cited heavy commitments in Domingo’s performance schedule prior to the “Butterfly” opening that made the shift necessary. Domingo will sing in “Carmen,” in a production that opens this summer at Covent Garden and goes on to Barcelona after its appearance here.

The other new productions are “Les Troyens” and “Hansel and Gretel” as co-produced by the Canadian Opera Company and New York City Opera. “Les Troyens” was originally to be a co-production with the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, but the Teatro Communale in Florence has been closed to remove asbestos, and it will not reopen in time to share the production.

“Les Troyens” is now funded in part by the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation--MCO presented Gordon Getty’s concert opera “Plump Jack” in March, 1988--and Richard Seaver, one of two new Angels in the company fund-raising program of million-dollar donors.

In February, the company celebrates the 75th anniversary of Finnish independence with the world premiere of “Kullervo,” an opera by Aulis Sallinen on a Finnish myth. The production is by the Finnish National Opera and features baritone Jorma Hynninen, the company artistic director, in the title role.

If the company is doing well now, Hemmings is concerned about the future, given current situations. “Both the war and the recession make it very difficult to assess what kind of a season we will have in 1992-93,” he said.

Hemmings also announced a 1992-93 season, albeit in highly tentative terms. It will feature repertory chosen from “The Death of Klinghoffer,” “The Makropoulos Affair,” “Die Zauberflote,” “Tosca” (a revival of the MCO production), “Samson et Dalila,” “Die Frau ohne Schatten,” “Aida,” “Rigoletto” and “Die Meistersinger,” although how many of these pieces will make the final schedule will not be determined for a year.

The “Rosenkavalier” originally planned for next season--replaced by a “Barbiere di Siviglia” borrowed from the Lyric Opera of Chicago--will be given in the summer of 1994.

The other repertory for 1991-92 includes a “Don Giovanni” designed by Jonathan Miller and Robert Israel, with Thomas Allen in the title role, and “Albert Herring” in the Peter Hall production, which LA Opera has purchased from the Glyndebourne Festival.