Pavarotti Lines Up S.D. Date : Opera: Italian superstar will appear at the Sports Arena. The five-concert 1992-93 Civic Theatre season offers familiar fare.

Striking a populist theme for San Diego Opera’s 1992-93 season, general director Ian Campbell announced a concert by Luciano Pavarotti at the San Diego Sports Arena Oct. 19. Campbell said the popular Italian tenor will present his standard concert program of overtures and arias, with the specifics still undecided, and will be accompanied by an orchestra, also undetermined as yet.

“Sports Arena or not, it’s a cultural event,” Campbell said, alluding to the 14,000-seat stadium’s more typical use for rock concerts, sports events and monster truck rallies.

Pavarotti sang a similar concert at the Sports Arena in 1985 and was last seen in a San Diego Opera production in 1980. Campbell conceded that featuring Pavarotti in a full-run Civic Theatre opera production would be economically unfeasible for the company, but he described the tenor’s return to the city for a single concert as a great stimulus to the community in the current economic downturn.

The new five-opera 1992-93 season at the Civic Theatre offers well-known repertory, with the exception of Bizet’s “Les Pecheurs de Perles,” which has never been staged in San Diego. Rossini’s comic opera “Il Barbiere di Siviglia” will open the season Jan. 23-Feb. 3 with a production borrowed from Lyric Opera of Chicago. American mezzo-soprano Delores Ziegler will sing Rosina, and Australian baritone Jeffrey Black will make his local debut in the title role. Edoardo Muller, a perennial on the opera orchestra podium will conduct, and John Copley will direct.

Although Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” was presented by the company as recently as 1989, Campbell will bring it back Feb. 13-24 with Korean soprano Young Mi Kim in the title role and rising young Puerto Rican tenor Cesar Hernandez as Pinkerton. Veteran baritone Richard Stilwell returns to sing Sharpless; Muller conducts, and Adelaie Bishop, who directed the 1989 “Butterfly,” returns for the same assignment.

Mozart’s “Don Giovanni,” with Italian bass-baritone Ferruccio Furlanetto in the title role, will play March 6 to March 17. Campbell noted that, although Renee Fleming had been previously announced in the role of Donna Elvira, the celebrated young soprano will be replaced by Patricia Schuman. Having released Fleming to sing at Milan’s La Scala Opera, Campbell promised that she would return to San Diego Opera to sing Tatiana in Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin” in 1994 and the title role of Dvorak’s “Russalka” in 1995.

Other singers in the “Don Giovanni” cast include German tenor Hans Peter Blochwitz as Don Ottavio, soprano Rita Cullis as Donna Anna, and American bass Dean Peterson as Leporello. German Ulf Schirmer will conduct, and Austrian Wolfgang Weber will direct.

“Les Pecheurs de Perles,” frequently called Bizet’s “other opera” in comparison to the ubiquitous “Carmen,” will be given March 27 to April 7 with an all-American cast. Soprano Jan Grissom sings Leila, tenor Gregory Kunde sings Nadir, and Mark Doss, a bass who just completed his local debut in the “Rape of Lucretia” production, sings Nourabad. Karen Keltner, the company’s associate conductor, will be on the podium, and Johnathon Pape will direct.

The season will close April 17 to 28 with Jules Massenet’s sentimental tragic opera “Werther.” American tenor Richard Leech will sing the title role, and English mezzo-soprano Jean Rigby will sing opposite him as Charlotte. The role of Sophie will be sung by American soprano Jeanine Thames, and American baritone Vernon Hartman sings Albert. Richard Bonynge will conduct, and Bliss Herbert returns to direct the production.

All five operas will be sung in their original language with English super-titles provided.