MUSIC & DANCE NEWS : From USC to Music Center

William Vendice, for the last three years music director of USC Opera, takes over a newly created full-time position at Los Angeles Music Center Opera May 1: Head of music staff and chorus master.

Vendice spent 13 years (1975-1988) on the staff of the Metropolitan Opera.

“I started as a rehearsal pianist and left as a full conductor,” he recalled in an interview. Beginning with his conducting debut in Lincoln Center in 1983, Vendice led performances of “Barbiere di Siviglia,” “Lucia di Lammermoor “Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail,” “Porgy and Bess” and “L’Italiana in Algeri.” Before coming to USC in 1992, he worked in European opera houses in Berlin (Theater des Westens), Hamburg and Geneva, among others. Previously, he had been connected with Santa Fe Opera, Boston Opera and Houston Grand Opera.

As music staff head at the Music Center Opera, the 46-year-old native Northerrn Californian will directly supervise all music activities of the company. In addition to his duties as chorus master, he will advise on the growth and development of the resident artists program, serve as the company’s principal vocal coach and hear both principal and chorus auditions.

Indeed, he spent most of last week overseeing chorus auditions.

“We plan to hear at least 260 singers in these five days,” he said last Sunday. “We’re aiming for a steadiness in the chorus--a core of strong people--which is not as easy as it sounds, since the needs of each season’s repertory are always different.”

Isn’t hearing all those aspirants a bit grueling?

“No. I enjoy auditions,” Vendice (pronounced VEN-dee-chay) claims. “Another one of my functions in this job is going to be scouting.” He says one surprise he has had since coming to Southern California three years ago is “the amazing number of good singers here--wonderful singers, not all of them (currently) attached to the opera.”

His last production at USC Opera will be Otto Nicolai’s “Merry Wives of Windsor,” which opens April 20.

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IN DANCE: A 20-dancer ensemble from Oakland Ballet is on tour in March and April, fulfilling a 14-city itinerary beginning in Helena, Ark., March 5 and concluding in Stony Brook, N.Y., April 8. Repertory for the tour includes Ronn Guidi’s 1993 staging of Prokofiev’s “Romeo and Juliet,” and a mixed repertory program including Eugene Loring’s classic “Billy the Kid.” . . .

The first New York City Ballet staging of Jerome Robbins’ “West Side Story Suite” will be given during the company’s Lincoln Center season, May 18 (repeated through June 4). Paul Gemignani will conduct; the performance will include guest vocalists. “Suite” was taken from Robbins’ Tony Award winning choreography for the original 1957 musical.

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TRIBUTE: Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu will be honored by the Society for the Preservation of Film Music March 15 at the Nikko Hotel, when the prolific 64-year-old composer, who has written more than 90 film scores in addition to his large catalogue of symphonic, vocal, chamber and tape works, receives the society’s 13th Career Achievement Award.

Information: (818) 248-5775.

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BRIEFLY: Philip Glass’ opera for ensemble and film, “La Belle et la Bete,” which uses Jean Cocteau’s classic 1946 film as visuals, will be given a single Southern California viewing next season, when the UCLA Center for the Arts hosts the touring company at a date to be announced. . . .

Today’s Sunday afternoon performance by the Los Angeles Philharmonic (the main feature of which is the Steven Stucky’s Concerto for Two Flutes) begins at noon, sharp, in order for the orchestra to broadcast live to Europe and countries of the former Soviet Union. This broadcast, to be heard here, simultaneously, on KUSC-FM, is part of a series of six by United States orchestras, made possible by a grant from ITT Corp. The L.A. Philharmonic program to be broadcast is the only one of the six offering a world premiere performance.