Camerata’s Problems Mount : Court Actions Mark Latest Chapter in Drama of O.C. Group, Founder

The Mozart Camerata and its founder, Ami Porat, were embroiled in two more motions filed Wednesday in Orange County Superior Court as the orchestra continued to be involved in issues of domestic discord and artistic competence.

For a small chamber group operating on a financial shoestring, the Camerata has generated--along with some well-received music--a good deal of controversy in the past three years. Wednesday’s court actions signal the latest chapter in a tangled tale of love, litigation and a musical mutiny that has as much in common with soap opera as it has with grand opera.

Disputes have involved individual musicians, the musicians union, board presidents, creditors, and women with whom Porat has been involved. Among the results have been three lawsuits, including actions filed Wednesday.

Porat, 44, established the Camerata, one of two chamber ensembles in the county, in 1980. The group, composed of between 28 and 44 free-lance musicians, depending on the program, has played in various school auditoriums and most recently in St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach and the Irvine Barclay Theatre. Its budget for fiscal year 1989, the last year for which verified figures are available, was just under $150,000.

In many ways, the Mozart Camerata is literally a one-man band. Most of its outstanding debts--$23,000 at last report--are owed to Porat, in the form of deferred compensation. Porat, invariably referred to as “Maestro Porat” in Camerata literature, received $5,150 for conducting the Camerata in 1989, according to Internal Revenue Service documents. In addition to his conducting duties, the Romanian-born, Israeli-educated Porat was recently hired as a classical programming director for a local division of Sony Corp. for a service used on about a dozen airlines.

The orchestra’s recent years have been eventful:

* In 1988, the Camerata was ordered by a court to repay $7,300, which Porat had borrowed from the then-Camerata president, a woman with whom Porat said in court papers he “had an intimate personal relationship.” Porat said the Camerata needed the money in order to pay its musicians.

* The Camerata has had three other presidents in the last three years, one of whom left in a public dispute with Porat.

* Eight Camerata musicians said they no longer would play with the orchestra, and 17 members complained to the musicians union about Porat’s leadership and late payments.

* Porat responded by suing two of the eight musicians and a former fiancee for slander, charging that they had injured his reputation and the operation of the orchestra.

* Porat last year was sued by the former fiancee, who alleged that he physically assaulted her. He has responded that the woman attacked him first and that he reacted reasonably in self-defense.

Like most arts organizations, the Camerata does not earn enough to support itself. It works out of a donated Irvine office cubicle and has no full-time paid employees.

Annual expenditures for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1990, the most recent year for which figures are available, were about $150,000, according to documents filed with the IRS. The same report indicates that the Camerata had a deficit of $8,239 for that year--an improvement from the previous fiscal year, when the deficit was $58,456, according to the documents. Earlier this year, though, Porat said that the Camerata’s donations the first six months of 1991 were down 25%, making this “the most difficult year of any I can remember.”

Over the years, the Camerata has featured guest solo performances by Canadian violinist Corey Cerovsek, Bulgarian pianist Nicolai Popov, Israeli violinist Sergiu Schwartz, cellist Nathan Rosen, Los Angeles Philharmonic’s concertmaster Sidney Weiss, violinist Yukiko Kamei, mezzo-soprano Kimball Wheeler and renowned double-bassist Gary Karr. The number of concerts has grown from one in 1985 to six in 1990, with the average number of musicians performing rising from 17 in 1985 to 37 in 1991.

The orchestra’s performances have been generally well reviewed, and subscribers have grown from 40 in 1985 to 1,056 in 1990. Indeed, Camerata attorney Harvey E. Berman said earlier this week that “the ultimate test of leadership is the final quality of the work product. . . . The litigation is unrelated to the question of the quality of the product.”

Still, the Camerata has had a rocky organizational and financial history in recent years, apart from the current litigation:

* Rent payments for 1988 concerts at the Santa Ana High School auditorium, totaling about $3,000, still have not been paid. Berman acknowledged that the Camerata owes the money, saying the matter is “in negotiation.”

* In October, a benefit buffet luncheon and fashion show at the swank Center Club in Costa Mesa, sponsored by Neiman Marcus of Newport Beach, was reported to have raised $30,000 in new pledges for the Camerata. However, nine months later, the club bill, owed by the Camerata, is also “in negotiation,” according to Berman. Center Club officials declined comment.

* The Camerata’s finances were at the root of a lawsuit filed on May 27, 1988. Then-Camerata president Laura Rabin Bailey of Irvine sued Porat and the orchestra for failing to repay a loan of $7,300 used to pay the musicians.

Porat responded in court that the loan should not be repaid because the statute of limitations had run out; that it was based on an unenforceable oral contract between Bailey and Porat, and because the Camerata was unable to repay the $7,300 in a lump sun “without financial ruin.”

Porat’s brief states that he and Bailey, “who had had an intimate personal relationship, began to grow apart. Because Bailey sought ‘closure’ on her relationship with Mr. Porat and the Mozart Camerata, she demanded repayment of the loan.” Porat said that Bailey “has been unwilling to accept reasonable installment payments.”

Bailey said this week that she and Porat had been dating since May of 1984, before she got involved in the Camerata, but said that their personal relationship had no connection with her wanting the loan repaid.

(In an unusual twist, Porat this week denied having had “an intimate personal relationship” with Bailey, despite the use of that term in court papers filed by his own attorney. Porat said he did not know why his lawyer had used the term in the papers.)

On Dec. 7, 1988, Commissioner Ronald S. Steelman of the South Orange County Municipal Court ruled that the Camerata (but not Porat personally) had to repay the $7,300 in installments of $250 a month, plus court costs but excluding legal fees. Bailey said in an interview that the monthly loan payments have been made promptly.

About a year after that court ruling, Porat was involved in a physical altercation with another woman who was then his fiancee. The dispute is now the subject of legal actions by both parties and has become enmeshed with yet another controversy involving Porat’s musical leadership.

Although the incident allegedly took place Dec. 21, 1989, the woman, Karen D. Shenker, a systems engineer, did not file a report with the Orange County sheriff’s substation in Laguna Niguel until Oct. 3, 1990--almost 10 months later. Shenker, in an interview, said that she called the sheriff on the night of the alleged incident, again the following day, and a third time, but that officers did not respond. Deputies say they have no record of those calls. In any case, no criminal action has been taken by authorities.

According to the sheriff’s report, Shenker said she was in the passenger seat of a car that Porat was driving on Interstate 5 at El Toro Road when Porat became “verbally abusive” to Shenker, causing her to grab Porat’s hair. “This enraged Porat, so he hit the left side of her face with a fist,” according to Shenker’s account to police. “The strike caused Shenker’s head to snap sideways and hit the closed window.”

On Oct. 26, 1990, three weeks after filing the police report and on the opening day of the 1990-91 Camerata season, Shenker sued Porat for assault and battery. In her suit, Shenker said Porat “struck her about the face, head, neck and back area with the intent to cause her grievous bodily harm.” She asked for unspecified damages for hospital and medical expenses and wage loss.

Shenker has incurred $18,200 in medical bills, according to her attorney, Thomas H. Cadden, beginning the morning after the alleged incident when she saw her chiropractor. Subsequent related treatment, she said, included root canals for five teeth; examination at a New York hospital for head and neck pains, bruises and contusions; spine and lower back therapy, and counseling.

On Feb. 5, 1991, Porat responded in a brief that Shenker’s charges were “vague, ambiguous and unintelligible” and that he acted in self-defense. Wednesday, Porat filed another brief, saying that Shenker had “willfully initiated an attack on Porat, striking him about the head and face and grabbing the steering wheel from him, all while he was driving” on the freeway. Porat, the motion states, “feared that bodily harm would ensue to himself, Shenker and others, therefore he used reasonable force under the circumstances to avoid injuries and to cause Shenker to desist.”

The dispute took on an additional dimension on June 7 when Porat filed a cross complaint against Shenker charging her with interference with the orchestra and slander. Shenker, according to Porat, called the conductor “not a competent musician” in a conversation with James D. Baker III, a former Camerata president. Shenker further told Baker that “there was internal dissatisfaction with Porat that had been building for years (and that) the Mozart Camerata needed a different conductor,” according to the suit.

In court documents filed Wednesday, Shenker denied that she made any such remarks.

Porat’s brief also charged that Shenker referred to a Jan. 23 Times Orange County Edition article in which former Camerata members criticized Porat’s artistic leadership.

The musicians and Frank Amoss, president of the Orange County Musicians Assn., Local 7, were reported in the article to have said that orchestra members had not been paid on time. The article further reported that eight musicians who had played for the Camerata said they would no longer do so.

Porat’s suit also asserts that Shenker told other people, listed in the suit, that “Ami Porat was incompetent, non-musical, abusive and no longer capable of providing musical leadership, all with the intent to harm (Porat) financially.”

Porat charged that Shenker’s remarks were defamatory and that she made them “with malice in that she was (Porat’s) former fiancee who had a personal vendetta, ill will and hatred for (him) because the relationship had ended.”

Porat, who is also a bassist, already had filed a slander suit against two former Camerata members quoted in the Times article. Endre Granat, who had been the Camerata’s concertmaster, and Alex Horvath were accused by Porat of slander, interference and conspiracy. In his actions against Shenker, Porat alleged that she “fraternized with Alex Horvath.”

Shenker’s response admits that she has “been friends” with Horvath but says she is “unsure what (Porat) means by the term ‘fraternized.’ ” She said Tuesday that she and Horvath have dated in the past but are not now dating.

Horvath, co-principal second violinist with the Pacific Symphony and a Camerata member since 1988, made the following assertions, according to Porat’s suit:

“The Mozart Camerata board should initiate a search for a new music director and replace (Porat); that there was dissatisfaction with Porat and it had been building for years; that the Mozart Camerata broke down and had to start over because of Porat; that it was embarrassing to play for (Porat); that the caliber of the players in the Mozart Camerata exceed the caliber of (Porat); that the board of the Mozart Camerata should hire a different conductor, other than (Porat); that Porat has no artistic abilities, Porat is an inadequate artistic leader and that the orchestra is mired in incompetency because of Porat.”

Granat, concertmaster at the Pacific Symphony and frequent concertmaster for Opera Pacific, made the following remarks, according to the suit:

“That (Granat) had resigned from the Mozart Camerata because the situation was untenable musically; that Porat was not musical; that Porat was less than experienced as a conductor; that Porat was an inadequate artistic leader.”

Porat charges in the suit that the two men engaged in a conspiracy, making the remarks “with malice, oppression and fraud.”

Horvath and Granat have not yet responded to the suit, and both declined comment.

In any case, Porat has maintained that only Horvath and Granat resigned, and not eight musicians as the Times story reported, because all other players are hired on a free-lance, per-concert basis and therefore couldn’t quit jobs they didn’t have in the first place.

After the controversy over Porat’s leadership became public, three other musicians said they had been barred from a Camerata rehearsal, despite verbal agreements to play for the 1990-91 season.

But Camerata officials said the three musicians were barred because they had not been hired to play the group’s next concerts. Attorney Berman called the three “malcontent devotees of the one who led the mutiny” in the orchestra, an apparent reference to Horvath.

After consulting with the musicians union, all parties agreed to settle the matter of the three musicians in small-claims court. But the dispute over late payments--whether the Camerata’s contract specifying payment “within 14 days” meant 14 calendar days or 14 working days--has not been resolved.

According to union president Amoss, 17 Camerata members complained of late payments, prompting the union to require performance bonds from the orchestra before any future performances and rehearsals.

Porat categorically denied there had been any late payments. “There have been no late payments. Absolutely not,” he said. “I’m sure that in the past there have been some errors in some calculations, but they were all made good.”

A new agreement between the Camerata and the union obviated the need for a performance bond. Berman, who is also a Camerata board member, called the agreement “a vote of confidence.” But Amoss denied this, saying there had been “abuses of the musicians” and that the orchestra leaders “did nothing to alter the union’s understanding of the conditions that prompted complaints and resignations by its members who have been employed by the Camerata.”