Finances Force Light Opera to Cancel Season

The fledgling Valley Civic Light Opera company has stuttered to another false start, this time canceling its summer season just days before the first show was scheduled to open.

David Hock, the opera company’s executive producer, said he was forced to close down and issue refunds because the company, having sold only 15% of the tickets to its three scheduled performances, faced a financial crisis.

“There was no way I was going to start VCLO that far behind, or hoping and praying that I would sell 1,000 tickets the week before each show,” Hock said. “The smart thing was to stop this before it got out of hand.”

The performances were going to be staged in an unlikely venue--a specially equipped ballroom at the Universal City Hilton. The first show was to be “Man of La Mancha” starring Dean Butler, who most recently starred in the syndicated series “The New Gidget.” The rest of the season was to consist of two show-tune concerts: “Gypsy,” starring Lainie Kazan, and “Mame,” starring Helen Reddy.

“It’s unfortunate they had to cancel because it was something that would have been really nice,” said Sheila Wills, a Hilton official.

In 1990, the Valley Civic Light Opera similarly announced a debut season that never came off. The cancellation of this second attempt cost Hock $10,000 in advertising and fees paid to the lead actors.

Hock wonders if his company was hurt by a police investigation of another recent Equity theater venture in the Valley, the North Hollywood Renaissance Theatre. That group advertised that its shows would feature several television actors. The actors, however, had not been signed.

“If you see an article with the headline ‘Valley Theater Under Police Investigation’ and the next day you see an advertisement for Valley Civic Light Opera, you don’t know it’s a different group if you didn’t read the article,” Hock said. “It’s guilt by association. I don’t know how much of that happened.”

Despite his company’s missteps, Hock said he remains determined to go on with the show. He’s going to spend the next couple of months trying to figure out how to better advertise and promote ticket sales. The false starts, he believes, won’t stop him from mounting another attempt to found an opera company in the Valley.

“The general public’s memory tends to be short,” he said, “which is good in this case.”