Hitting High, Low Notes

The year opened with a recital by tenor Placido Domingo to benefit Opera Pacific and closed with a Chanticleer Christmas program that raised money for AIDS Services Foundation of Orange County.

Between those extremes, Pacific Symphony music director Carl St.Clair experimented with the seating arrangements of the orchestra to improve its sound markedly. Soprano Deborah Voigt, the 31-year-old Fullerton native who had made her Metropolitan Opera debut in 1991, singing Amelia in Verdi’s “Un Ballo in Maschera,” went on in 1992 to win the prestigious Richard Tucker Foundation award, and took home $30,000. The Royal Danish Ballet gave revelatory performances of works by seminal 19th-Century choreographer August Bournonville.

Amid any rejoicing, however, we counted the loss of several creative talents. Pianist Albert Dominguez, one of three founders of the Southwest Chamber Music Society, died of pancreatic cancer in March, at the age of 48.

Modern dance choreographer Gloria Newman, 65, founder of the most respected company in the county, died of complications resulting from surgery in June.

Shubho Shankar, the 50-year-old son of Indian composer and sitar player Ravi Shankar, died of pneumonia in September. Shubho was a resident of Garden Grove. San Francisco Kathak dancer Chitresh Das dedicated his concert in Brea four days later to him.

September also was the month when Opera Pacific held a memorial service for its former community programs director, Stephen Rapp, who had died the previous year on Christmas Eve.

An organizational demise occurred when the South Coast Symphony voted to fold, reportedly facing declining corporate support and limited ticket sales. The orchestra traced its roots to a youth group founded in Long Beach in 1972. Music director Larry Granger felt blindsided by his board’s decision.

A new board at the Orange County Symphony fired general manager Yaakov Dvir-Djerassi, one of a handful of people who had founded the orchestra--then called the Garden Grove Symphony--in 1984. Dvir-Djerassi cited “personal friction” with board chairman Lorraine Reafsnyder, but she said the problems were between him and the entire board.

But the orchestra also ventured a concert at the Celebrity Theatre in Anaheim, in what may have been a first step in finding a new community home--and in cultivating its relationship with the Anaheim-based Leo Freedman Foundation. The foundation, which owns the Celebrity Theatre, gave the orchestra $8,000 last December, and is particularly supportive of groups that provide arts to Anaheim residents.

Two fledgling organizations, announced with some fanfare several years ago, appeared to have dropped from sight. Not a word was heard this year from the Orange County Four Seasons Orchestra or the Garden Grove Opera.

There were several positive signs, however.

The Irvine Camerata came back to life after an 18-month hiatus prompted by major money problems. The Philharmonic Society discovered a grand new potential audience when it turned hundreds away from a sold-out performance by the Ballet Folklorico de Mexico at the 3,000-seat Orange County Performing Arts Center. Officials of all organizations should take note.

The Pacific Symphony and Cal State Fullerton announced plans to start a joint orchestra training program for students, to begin in the fall of 1993.

The Pacific also went on the airwaves in October by beginning to broadcast its Thursday concerts at the center over KUSC-FM (91.5). These were the first concerts to be broadcast on a regular basis from the hall.

High-profile visitors included Britain’s so-called bad-boy violinist Nigel Kennedy appearing with Edo de Waart and the Minnesota Orchestra, courtesy of the Philharmonic Society. After the concert, Kennedy went off to jam with jazz musicians at a local club.

Additionally, Christopher Hogwood conducted the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra on a Philharmonic Society series, and the Juilliard and Guarneri quartets paid separate visits courtesy of a splendid joint-sponsorship between the Laguna Chamber Music Society and the Philharmonic Society.

The Toronto-based Nexus Percussion Ensemble appeared with St.Clair and the Pacific, which also hosted different leadership in a program with the veteran Scandinavian conductor, Sixten Ehrling.

New works continued to be scarce. Nexus and the Pacific played the West Coast premiere of Toru Takemitsu’s “From Me Flows What You Call Time” in March. A month later, Jacob Druckman’s “Seraphic Games”--a Philharmonic Society commission--was given its first performance by Zubin Mehta and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Both concerts were at the center.

Alexander Goehr’s “Sing, Ariel” received its U. S. premiere by members of the Southwest Chamber Music Society at Chapman University in November. William Hall led the Master Chorale of Orange County in the first West Coast performance of Paul McCartney’s ballyhooed “Liverpool Oratorio.”

Ballet Pacifica premiered a commissioned work by Rick McCullough, “No Less Than Every,” which the choreographer dedicated to his friend, Joffrey Ballet dancer Edward Stierle. Stierle died in 1991 at the age of 22 of complications of AIDS. Ballet Pacifica dedicated the entire October program at the Irvine Barclay to Gloria Newman.

AIDS continued its horrifying ravages. Orange County groups----and even the Kirov Ballet musicians--took time out to acknowledge the impact in the fourth annual Day Without Art observance on Dec. 1. Otherwise, attention was scarce. But the Philharmonic Society raised $4,500 for the AIDS Services Foundation at the Chanticleer Christmas program at the center. And that was about all.

Among other dance events at the center, American Ballet Theatre brought “Don Quixote,” the Kirov Ballet danced Balanchine and Tudor in May and returned with a dreary centennial celebration of the “Nutcracker” in December. Fortunately, the invigorating Paul Taylor Dance Company appeared there for a two-day engagement.

Ballet Pacifica continued its summer choreographers-workshop program conceived by artistic director Molly Lynch.

The Jose Greco Company danced for the first time at the Irvine Ballet Theatre, which also opened its own new modern dance series--Feet First Contemporary Dance--with the Bebe Miller Company. The Irvine theater additionally presented the Maria Benitez Teatro Flamenco company and an Indian dance-theater work, “Women in the Mahabharata” created by Los Angeles dancer-choreographer Viji Prakash.

The international scene was represented in other diverse ways.

Music by African composers appeared on the program by the Kronos Quartet at Orange Coast College; the San Francisco-based ensemble had commissioned the works. The Cuarteto Latinoamericano gave an eloquent, committed program of music by Latin American and Spanish composers at Founders Hall at the center in February. The concert was one of the highlights of the year.

Operas included Puccini’s “Tosca,” Saint-Saens’ “Samson et Dalila” and Emmerich Kalman’s “The Gypsy Princess,” courtesy of Opera Pacific. Metropolitan Opera bass Sherrill Milnes sang the title role of Mendelssohn’s “Elijah,” with the Pacific Chorale under the direction of John Alexander.

The St. Joseph Ballet announced a commission of a score by Cirque du Soleil composer Rene Dupere for a 10th anniversary celebration next May. (1993)

Small groups persevered, including the Corona del Mar Baroque Music Festival, the Fullerton Friends of Music, the North Orange County Community Concerts Assn., the Orange County Chamber Orchestra, Mozart Camerata and the Seal Beach Music Festival. The Cypress Pops Orchestra continued to draw enthusiastic audiences.

Of all the events, however, the high point had to be the Royal Danes dancing “La Sylphide” and “Napoli,” particularly with an incandescent Nikolaj Hubbe in the principal male roles.