O.C. Dance, Music Season Composed of Old, New

For almost a century, Gluck’s “Orfeo ed Euridice” marked the beginning of opera. Of course, there had been opera before this work composed in 1762, but until the comparatively recent emphasis on the dramas of Monteverdi and Handel (plus a handful of others), “Orfeo” was the earliest opera to be staged regularly.

The year ahead brings “Orfeo,” amid promises of other interesting stage works, in a new production directed by Mark Morris, once regarded as the “bad boy” of modern-dance choreographers.

Morris’ collaborators on “Orfeo,” which will be staged April 24 and 25 at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa, are the venerable Boston-based Handel and Haydn Society Orchestra and Chorus. Performances will be conducted by Christopher Hogwood, and soloists will include Michael Chance, Dana Hanchard and Christine Berandes. Sponsors are the Philharmonic Society of Orange County and Opera Pacific. Those who miss the dates here can catch the production on April 26 through 28 at the Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, Opera Pacific, the home team, ventures Verdi’s demanding “Otello” in January, and Marc Blitzstein’s rarely heard “Regina” and Rossini’s perennial favorite, “Il Barbiere di Siviglia,” both at the center in March.

Speaking of opera, Pacific Symphony music director Carl St.Clair will travel to Austin, Texas, this month to conduct Wagner’s “Tannhauser” at Austin Lyric Opera.

Here, St.Clair will lead the Pacific in Mahler’s Symphony No. 6 and share the bill with the jazz-influenced Turtle Island String Quartet, in two different programs in February. The orchestra also plays Henryk-Mikolaj Gorecki’s runaway hit Symphony No. 3 (“Symphony of Sorrowful Songs”) and Verdi’s massive Requiem, in separate programs in May.

More Mahler: The composer’s massive Symphony No. 8, the “Symphony of a Thousand,” also pops up in May. It will be sung by the William Hall Master Chorale and a slew of soloists (Mahler calls for eight), plus various other choirs, all directed by Hall in the dubious acoustic of the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, of all places.

Marin Alsop, once a Leonard Bernstein conducting fellow with St.Clair at Tanglewood, Mass., will lead the Pacific in a program of music by Bruch, Barber and Rimsky-Korsakov in January at the Performing Arts Center.

Among the guest conductors and orchestras arriving at the center courtesy of the Philharmonic Society are Mariss Jansons conducting the St. Petersburg Philharmonic and Keith Lockhart leading the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, both in January; Esa-Pekka Salonen leading the Los Angeles Philharmonic in February; Leonard Slatkin conducting the St. Louis Symphony in March; and Giuseppe Sinopoli leading the Dresden Staatskappelle Orchestra in two different programs in April.

Author Ray Bradbury will be the preconcert lecturer for a program of a cappella music sung by the Pacific Chorale led by John Alexander in April. The connection is the premiere of Alexander’s “A Time for Kites,” set to a text by Bradbury. Alexander will also conduct the chorale in Bach’s B-minor Mass at the center in May.

From the host of other musical events, two others stand out: the Harlem Spiritual Ensemble singing at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo in January and Prokofiev-competition winner Robert Thies playing Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with Ami Porat and the Mozart Camerata at Concordia University in Irvine and St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach in April.

Chamber-music highlights include the powerful Cuarteto Latinoamericano in Founders Hall in March, the splendid Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio at the Irvine Barclay Theatre in March and the intriguing Ensemble Modern led by John Adams at the Irvine Barclay in May. The last two events are part of the distinguished chamber-music series sponsored by the Laguna Chamber Music Society and the Philharmonic Society.

Don’t overlook the offerings by the other local groups, however.

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The dance year begins with Toronto Dance Theatre at Orange Coast College in January, followed by American Ballet Theatre in “Romeo and Juliet” and Samulnori: Drummers and Dancers of Korea, both in separate dates at the Performing Arts Center in February, and Feld Ballets/NY at the center in April.

Dancing at the Irvine Barclay Theatre will be Hubbard Street Dance Chicago in February, Paul Taylor Dance Company in March and Stephen Petronio, Britain’s “bad boy” counterpart to Mark Morris, in May.

The summer so far again belongs to the Pacific Symphony at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre, the Baroque Music Festival of Corona del Mar and the Seal Beach Chamber Music Festival. Nothing for the fall has been announced.

Best Bets

* Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, Irvine Barclay Theatre, March 29. One of the superb chamber-music ensembles we’ve ever heard returns to Orange County to play a program that has yet to be announced. It doesn’t matter. Go, whatever they play.

* Gluck’s “Orfeo ed Euridice,” directed by Mark Morris; Christopher Hogwood conducts the Handel and Haydn Society Orchestra and Chorus, Performing Arts Center, April 24 and 25. The opera, one of the earliest, is wonderful, and this production will be modern-dance choreographer Mark Morris’ first effort at stage direction. It’s an intriguing combination.

* Mahler’s Symphony No. 8, William Hall Master Chorale, eight soloists, other choruses, William Hall conductor, Crystal Cathedral, Garden Grove, May 2-3. If Mahler’s massive symphony, dubbed the “Symphony of a Thousand,” doesn’t blow out a few panes in the cathedral, it’s not loud enough.

* Verdi’s Requiem, Pacific Symphony and Pacific Chorale led by Carl St.Clair, with soprano Camellia Johnson, mezzo-soprano Eugenie Grunewald, tenor Stephen O’Mara and bass Brian Matthews, Performing Arts Center, May 29-30. Verdi’s stupendously operatic approach to the Day of Judgment alone is worth the price of admission.