Traveling in Good, Big Company

When New York City Opera established its touring National Company in 1979, Renata Scotto was reigning queen at the city’s preeminent company, Metropolitan Opera.

The touring arm began with a twofold mandate to take opera to communities around the country and to provide young artists with performing experience; its first production was “La Traviata.”

The company, which last appeared in Southern California in 1980, and “La Traviata” are back, appearing Wednesday through Sunday at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts.

Now, Scotto is on NYCO’s roster, having served as production supervisor for the company’s current production of the Verdi opera. Scotto’s is the only legendary name in the credits. But company manager David Beahm suggests you don’t let that stop you.

“We’re not a B company,” said Beahm, reached by phone between performances in Albuquerque. “We’re not a training program, which is the perception. My main focus [is] to try to dispel that.”

In fact, the bus-and-truck company uses the same sets and costumes from the main company’s productions, and some of the same singers, along with young singers who haven’t made it to the company’s home stage at the State Theater in New York.

“The people you see on stage at Cerritos are [many of] the same ones you see at New York City Opera,” he said. “Placido Domingo got his name at City Opera. But our thing is not big-name stars--it’s affordable opera for the people.”

Beahm, 34, nevertheless believes that the singers at Cerritos will be big-name stars one day. So keep your eyes and ears on Shelley Jameson, Virginia Grasso and April-Joy Gutierrez, alternating this week in the role of Violetta; Rick Moon and Eduardo Valdes, sharing duties as Alfredo, and Grant Youngblood and Charles Robert Stephens, trading off as Alfredo’s father, Germont.

The company is nearing the end of a 98-concert North American tour that began in New York in January; the final performances are April 23-24 at the California Center for the Arts in Escondido.

“Sixty artists on the road for four months nonstop has been a baptism by fire,” allowed Beahm, who came to City Opera via San Diego Opera in October.

Beahm isn’t the only new hire at NYCO. Hollywood native Paul Kellogg, general and artistic director of Glimmerglass Opera in Cooperstown, N.Y., for 17 years, was appointed to that position at NYCO in January, replacing the late Christopher Keene.

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Before Kellogg’s appointment, according to Beahm, he didn’t even know that the National Company existed. Because Kellogg stayed on as artistic director at Glimmerglass--he relinquished only the general directorship--his first opportunity to attend a performance was two weeks ago in San Antonio.

Yet Kellogg is already making plans for a National Company expansion that includes an increased budget, more concerts and newer repertory, Beahm said.

“We’ve been known for just doing the standards and only productions that the main house did,” Beahm said. “The National Company is going to be more of a company on its own. In 1998, for instance, we’re going to do a brand new production of [Donizetti’s] ‘Daughter of the Regiment,’ which the mother company is not doing. For us, that is very different.”

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According to Beahm, the National Company is the only remaining full-scale touring opera company in the country.

There’s a reason:

“It costs a lot of money, $20,000 per day, to keep this company on the road,” Beahm said. “None of us is getting rich off this tour.”

* New York City Opera National Company presents Verdi’s “La Traviata” at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, 12700 Center Court Drive. Today, Thursday and Friday, 8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, 2 and 8 p.m. $25-$58. (800) 300-4345 or (310) 916-8510.

Tour ends April 23 and 24 at the California Center for the Arts, 3410 N. Escondido Blvd., Escondido. 8 p.m. $20-$61.50. (619) 738-4100.