The Final Curtain Falls at Ambassador Auditorium : Entertainment: The Pasadena venue, noted for its intimacy and stellar acoustics, closes amid church controversy.

“Concert-going As It’s Meant to Be”--that’s the way the ads have long billed the fare at the Ambassador Auditorium. But apparently it isn’t meant to be anymore.

When the last note rang out Wednesday night from saxophonist Larry Elgart and his Manhattan Swing Orchestra, the highly regarded Pasadena venue closed its doors not only on an evening of music but also on a 20-year era in Los Angeles concert-going.

The hall--which is owned by the Worldwide Church of God and located on the organization’s 54-acre campus near Pasadena’s Old Town--is a casualty of the ongoing financial crisis that has beset the church since last year. The venue will continue to be used for church services, as it has since it opened in April of 1974, but there are currently no plans for any further arts programming.

Praised for its intimacy and stellar acoustics, the Ambassador has always showcased an eclectic array of performing arts. It is famous for having hosted such distinguished artists as Artur Rubinstein, Vladimir Horowitz, Ella Fitzgerald and Dizzy Gillespie. Recently, it offered acts as diverse as Opera a la Carte’s “H.M.S. Pinafore,” early music’s Hesperion XX and the cowboy folk sounds of Riders in the Sky. Its popular Gold Medal series provided a way for audiences to discover up-and-coming jazz and classical musicians while paying reduced ticket prices.

“The music was often as wonderful as money could buy,” wrote The Times’ music critic Martin Bernheimer, when the closing was announced five months ago. “Ambassador’s sophisticated booking agents . . . knew that they commanded the finest hall in the area for recitals, for chamber music, for any event predicated on intimacy.”

The venue was also beloved by artists. “It’s simply the best hall,” says percussionist Tom Raney, who performed at the Ambassador with its resident Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. “It was warm. The audience was close to you. The acoustics are fabulous.”

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The Worldwide Church of God--which was founded in Pasadena in 1933 by the late Herbert W. Armstrong--has lost more than 10,000 of its 92,000 members over the last five years due to controversies over doctrinal matters. It has been in particular trouble since rules governing mandatory tithing were relaxed last year, causing a 30% drop in church income.

Last January, the church announced that it would end the Ambassador series because it no longer had the money to subsidize performing arts programming there. Despite frequently selling out the hall, the church had been subsidizing the performances to the tune of $2.5 million a year.

According to David Hulme, the former director of the Ambassador Performing Arts Foundation, efforts were made in the months leading up to the announcement to find outside funds to save the programming, but they were unsuccessful. And without that money, the foundation couldn’t schedule future seasons.

“I would have to have had some guarantee from the church that the hall would be available sufficiently far into the future [to make booking artists feasible],” says Hulme, who resigned as head of the foundation in April. “I was unable to get that written guarantee.”

Things have gotten steadily worse for the church, which continues to be rocked by defections. On May 3, Hulme headed a splinter group that formed the United Church of God. His departure, he says, had nothing to do with his work with the auditorium.

For now, the future of the hall remains unclear. From Hulme’s perspective, the only hope of preserving it as an arts venue would be for an outside presenter to take it over. “We wanted to have someone come in and absorb the whole package,” he says. But church ownership presents obstacles to such an option. First, the Ambassador is unavailable for performances on Friday and Saturday nights, which is when the church holds its Sabbath services. And secondly, the church wants to retain control over programming. “How do you save an entity that is known for [its] level of quality without allowing people control over the programming?” Hulme asks.

Yet there is some hope that the facility will survive in a more limited way as an arts venue, perhaps as an event-by-event rental facility.

According to Michael Blachly, director of the UCLA Center for the Performing Arts, the Ambassador could be a boon to the UCLA program, given that the Westwood campus’s landmark Royce Hall, which was damaged in the January, 1994, Northridge earthquake, is not expected to be operational again until October, 1997.

Of course, not all of UCLA’s programs would be acceptable to the church. “But in terms of the recital and chamber series,” Blachly says, “it would be a good space.”

“I would certainly consider it for future years. We will certainly pursue discussions.”