Rival Offers Discount to Its Concerts : Music: Mozart Camerata subscriptions will be 50% off for subscribers of its troubled competitor, the OC Chamber Orchestra. Observers shocked.

In a move characterized by at least one arts official as “kicking a colleague when he is down,” the Mozart Camerata announced Tuesday that it will offer 50% discounts to subscribers of the troubled Orange County Chamber Orchestra, which last week canceled half its 1991-92 season because of financial problems.

“Obviously, they’re trying to steal our subscribers,” said Chamber Orchestra director Micah Levy.

The Camerata, Orange County’s only other chamber orchestra, announced in a circular faxed to area newspapers that its subscriptions will be available at half price to anyone mailing in a copy of a full set of Orange County Chamber Orchestra tickets. Camerata subscriptions normally cost between $59 and $169, depending on seating.

The Orange County Chamber Orchestra subscriptions cost $60 to $160. In lieu of actual refunds, the orchestra is offering either double the number of tickets to the remaining concerts or credit toward future ticket purchases.

Ken Dufour, a Camerata board member, said that since the Chamber Orchestra is having “a difficulty” and has cancelled three concerts and since “we’re going on with our season (of five concerts), we thought, why don’t we make an offer to these people: ‘Here’s another season, come and take a look at us, enjoy the music.’ There’s nothing more in this than that.”

Asked whether that is an accepted practice in classical music circles, Erich Vollmer, the executive director of the Orange County Philharmonic Society, said he is not aware of anyone else’s ever using “that marketing ploy. It sounds like ambulance chasing.

“It is enterprising,” he added. Others were less ambivalent.

“It’s one thing to accommodate patrons of the arts” by making tickets available at a discount, Stephen Belth, marketing director for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, said through a spokeswoman. “However, this can be construed as taking advantage of (a troubled) organization’s problems and even helping exacerbate its financial problems by taking patrons away.

“The Philharmonic would never do such things.”

“I personally would never propose to do something of that sort,” said Deborah Rutter, executive director of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. “I think it’s really unfortunate to kick a colleague when he is down. I think it’s inappropriate to deal with your own subscribers--who don’t get the discount--that way.

“As a professional, I can’t imagine going so blatantly out to take advantage of somebody else’s unfortunate circumstances . . . . It’s really too bad. The Orange County Chamber Orchestra is a valuable institution, and people should be rallying.

“Look at what other organizations did to rally round the Los Angeles Theatre Center” during its recent financial problems, Rutter continued. Gordon Davidson, artistic director of the competing Mark Taper Forum/Center Theatre Group, “helped raise money and didn’t go out and rob the audience from LATC. We’re supportive of one other. That’s what the arts are supposed to be.”

“This is not a raid or any surreptitious activity,” countered Dufour. “That’s not our concern . . . . That is not the intent. Period.

“Look at it from the perspective of the music-goer,” he added. “They purchased X numbers of concerts. That number of concerts is not going to occur. We’re going on. Fine. It’s their choice. If they like the music, come. If they don’t, that’s OK.”

The Camerata is having its own problems, legally if not financially. Director Ami Porat and former members of the group are locked in countersuits over allegations of breach of contract and slander. A small claims court found in the musicians’ favor in the breach of contract suit earlier this month. The Camerata says it will appeal.