Camerata Cancels 4 Concerts

The Mozart Camerata, facing a loss of subscribers from last season, has canceled four remaining 1991-92 concerts at Irvine Barclay Theatre while retaining its scheduled performances at St. Andrew’s Church in Newport Beach.

As planned, the Irvine-based chamber orchestra’s season was to include five separate programs, with each program performed first at Irvine Barclay in a Friday night subscription series and repeated the following night at St. Andrew’s.

The first program was performed Nov. 1 and 2; the remaining four programs in the series will be performed once at St. Andrew’s, the orchestra’s home since 1989. The Camerata initiated the dual-concert series last season.

“Business is down, and to maintain both series would not be fiscally responsible,” Camerata founding music director Ami Porat said Wednesday. Subscriptions at the Irvine Barclay had dropped about 35% from last season’s level of 355, “which is the main reason we had to consolidate.”

The Mozart Camerata is the second chamber group to cancel dates at the Irvine Barclay this season. The rival Orange County Chamber Orchestra also eliminated three of its six scheduled performances at the facility this season. In addition, Orange County Philharmonic Society executive director Erich A. Vollmer said Wednesday that because of low subscription rates for its current Festival Series of chamber music at the Irvine Barclay, society officials are “considering canceling” the series at the theater for 1992-93.

Porat said that to rely on non-subscription single ticket sales to compensate for the low number of subscriptions “would have put an excessive burden on everyone, and too great of a risk.” The orchestra sold about 150 single tickets to its first Irvine Barclay concert, which Porat said fell well short of the number needed to cover the cost of producing a concert.

“The series needed to justify itself, or close to it, in ticket sales,” Porat said. The cost to produce a concert, per seat, at the Irvine Barclay is about triple that at St. Andrew’s, he said. The Irvine Barclay has 756 seats; St. Andrew’s has 1,200.

The Camerata’s subscription sales at St. Andrew’s have fallen roughly 10% from last season, to about 630, Porat said. Season subscriptions at St. Andrew’s ranged from $59 to $99, while subscriptions for the Irvine Barclay ranged from $85 to $169.

The canceled Irvine dates are Dec. 5, Feb. 7, April 3 and May 15. Porat said Irvine subscribers have been contacted and offered tickets for the St. Andrew’s series; in addition, they will be offered free “bonus” tickets for this season (to compensate for the more-expensive Irvine Barclay subscriptions) and a higher seating priority for future season subscriptions.

Porat said the cancellations were necessary to avoid incurring debt (the orchestra is carrying a “minuscule” debt from past seasons, he said), and he blamed the situation on the economic recession.

The Orange County Chamber Orchestra also cited dwindling ticket sales in canceling half its season in September. In a move that was criticized by one arts official as “kicking a colleague when he’s down,” the Mozart Camerata quickly offered a 50% discount to Orange County Chamber Orchestra subscribers. The orchestra’s director, Micah Levy, could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Cancellation of the Mozart Camerata dates will not cause hardship for the Irvine Barclay, according to its president and executive director, Douglas C. Rankin. “They just basically released the dates and I’m sure we’ll be able to fill those before the season is over,” he said Wednesday.