San Diego Spotlight : Symphony Provided Year’s Major Mozart Event in S.D.

Now that the yearlong Mozart bicentennial celebration is drawing to a close, it’s appropriate to evaluate how the San Diego music scene fared in this category.

Not surprisingly, there was nothing undertaken locally to compare with the encyclopedic project of New York City’s Lincoln Center, whose affiliated performing organizations performed all 626 Mozart works. (In truth, this massive project will not be completed until some time next year.)

Nor did any San Diego music organization display the style and adventuresome programming of the San Francisco Opera’s monthlong Mozart Festival in June. Four major Mozart operas, including the splendid David Hockney-designed “Der Zauberflote” and the rarely performed early opera seria “Lucio Silla,” kept Bay Area opera buffs entertained, while across the street at Davies Symphony Hall, Roger Norrington led the San Francisco Symphony in all-Mozart programs.

San Francisco’s citywide festival “Mozart and His Time” had no counterpart in San Diego, where, as usual, every organization did its own small thing on its own time table. In a word, San Diego’s Mozart bicentennial salutes were modest at best. San Diego Opera opened its 1991 season with a well-sung but conventionally staged “Cosi Fan Tutte.” When “Cosi” stars baritone Haken Hagegard and soprano Carol Vaness left town at the production’s end, that was the last Mozart word from the local opera company.

San Diego’s Mainly Mozart Festival scored high marks for presenting Mozart exotica. Artistic Director David Atherton brought in Dennis James to perform the two Mozart works for glass armonica, a rare 18th-Century instrument James has revived with no small amount of artistry. Atherton also conducted a semi-staged version of Mozart’s one-act comedy with music, “The Impresario,” a little-known, lightweight entertainment the composer concocted in 1786 for a royal dinner party. But taken as a whole, this year’s Mainly Mozart Festival proved eclectic and unfocused. By nature the most likely institution to capitalize on the bicentennial, Mainly Mozart operated with an essentially business-as-usual approach.

Yoav Talmi, San Diego Symphony music director, made the most worthy contribution to the city’s Mozart observance. Though the orchestra’s programming of Mozart this past year was generous but unremarkable, instituting the Mozart Prelude concerts enriched the city’s concert life. These short programs of Mozart’s chamber music were played prior to all symphony subscription concerts that featured Mozart. Orchestra players and other colleagues presented a wide range of chamber music, from the sublime Viola Quintet in G Minor, K. 516, to the quaint Adagio in C Minor, K.517, with Talmi himself playing the celesta part.

Talmi’s grand finale Mozart Marathon on Dec. 6 and Dec. 7 was the sole local bicentennial event worthy of the term celebration. The prospect of a four-hour Mozart concert may not have been that inviting, but the relaxed format allowed patrons to come and go all evening, to grab a quick meal in the lobby or go out to eat and return for the midnight “Requiem.”

The marathon drew a festive, near-capacity crowd each night, and including the shorter version of the marathon on Dec. 8, more than 5,800 patrons participated in the event. Talmi’s stamina on the podium and his evident love of the music drew the audience into the spirit of the marathon. For once, the avalanche of Mozart’s music was not too much of a good thing.

Multicultural emphasis. The San Diego Symphony has added three concerts to its 1991-92 season that will broaden both the orchestra’s outreach and its musical repertory.

Under the baton of San Francisco Ballet Music Director Denis de Coteau, the orchestra will play a tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at 2 p.m. Jan. 11. The program will include Hale Smith’s “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” William Dawson’s “Soon, I Will Be Done” and Ulysses Kay’s “Fantasy Variations.” Louise Pearson, who prepared the choir last January for the symphony’s inaugural King tribute, will assemble a massed gospel choir featuring singers from several San Diego churches. Pearson directs the San Diego State University Gospel Choir and teaches music at Lincoln Preparatory High School.

A “Fiesta Sinfonica” on March 12 will be devoted to orchestral music by Hispanic composers and will be directed by Cuban-born conductor Odaline de la Martinez. Like the King tribute concert, this program will be given in Copley Symphony Hall.

On May 2 at Gateway Park, music and traditions from a variety of the city’s ethnic groups will be celebrated in an outdoor fiesta featuring local performers and a smorgasbord of ethnic foods. The event will culminate with an evening concert by the San Diego Symphony under Carl Hermanns.

Last-chance carol sing. Unless it snows in Balboa Park on Sunday, civic organist Robert Plimpton will lead carol singing from the console of the Spreckels Organ as part of the regular 2 p.m. Spreckels Organ concert. Plimpton has established audience carol singing as a traditional part of the last Sunday afternoon recital before Christmas. Plimpton’s recital, which is free, will include Christmas selections by Tchaikovsky, Ellsasser, Purvis and Pelz.

CRITIC’S CHOICE

HAYDN MASS TO BE HEARD AT ST. BRIGID’S CHURCH

Because this is Christmas week, the critic is making an exception to the rule and recommending not a public concert but a religious service. St. Brigid’s Catholic Church in Pacific Beach will celebrate the Mass of Christmas Eve with Franz Joseph Haydn’s Mass in Honor of St. Nicholas.

Haydn’s sacred music projects an elegance and purity that complement the season. At the service, which begins at 10 p.m. Tuesday, Music Director Jerry Witt will conduct the parish choir, soloist and chamber orchestra in the Haydn work.