Placido Domingo to Head L.A. Opera

L.A. Opera will today name Placido Domingo, the celebrated opera star and member of the Three Tenors, to head the company when Peter Hemmings, who started building it from scratch 14 years ago, retires as general director in June 2000.

Domingo, who now holds the title of artistic advisor and principal guest conductor with the company, will become its artistic director, sharing oversight of L.A. Opera with a day-to-day manager, who has yet to be named. Domingo will also continue his wide-ranging singing and conducting career and his duties as head of the Washington Opera in the nation’s capital.

“Becoming artistic director [at L.A. Opera] feels less like a major change in my life [there] than a kind of upgrading,” said Domingo by phone from Washington, where he’s appearing in that company’s season opening production of “Fedora.” “Peter Hemmings did a great job and the company is inherently very healthy. But now it is time to think of how to proceed into the next millennium. That will be my responsibility.”

Hemmings, 64, has made no secret in recent months that he has been considering retirement. “I have been [in this business] for 43 years,” he said. “I don’t really want to do it anymore. I am happy about our accomplishments. We have persuaded 16,500 people to subscribe. We have a huge following and play to good houses for unfamiliar operas and very good houses for familiar ones. We have established a bedrock [company] of resident artists. And we have a $1-million outreach program.”

Hemmings, a native of Great Britain, ran opera companies in London, Scotland and Australia before moving to Los Angeles. He was hired in 1984 to form what was first known as Los Angeles Music Center Opera. Although the art form had been presented in Los Angeles as early as 1865 (by a visiting troupe from Mexico City), Los Angeles struggled for more than a century to create its own resident company. Between 1939 and 1962 alone, there were 13 failed attempts.

Hemmings ascribes his success to timing. “A latent demand for high quality opera existed in Los Angeles long before I came,” he said.

Steady Growth Despite Criticism

Although his directorship of L.A. Opera has not been without criticism--he is sometimes faulted for failing to consistently attract opera’s biggest stars and, lately, for overly conservative programming--Hemmings is widely credited with building a solid base for the company and has proved to be adept at spotting and developing new talent.

With a budget of $19.5 million for this season’s eight productions, L.A. Opera now ranks among the six largest companies in the country. Opera America, a Washington-based service organization, calls its steady growth in an era of dwindling arts funding “little short of miraculous.”

Domingo will be asked to both continue that tradition and take the company into uncharted territory. For all of its history, L.A. Opera has had to share its theater in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, which performs three or four nights a week. But with the orchestra’s move into Walt Disney Concert Hall, scheduled to open in 2002, L.A. Opera will become the Pavilion’s main resident. That means it could greatly expand its offerings, given sufficient support from donors and audiences.

Domingo’s celebrity is expected to be a magnet for drawing that new support to the company as well as more opera stars to its stage. “I think Placido can be very helpful in attracting more Westside support,” said Leonard I. Green, president of the L.A. Opera board, about the company’s difficulty in interesting the entertainment industry’s power brokers in opera.

“And with his connections in the opera world, Domingo will be able to bring some people who might not otherwise have an interest in singing and conducting at L.A. Opera. During his couple of years in Washington, the level of talent greatly increased.”

For Domingo, one of the busiest and most powerful figures in opera, his new role will make him even busier and more powerful. The 57-year-old tenor remains in great demand as a singer, giving about 65 opera performances a year. This fall, he starred in the opening nights of L.A. Opera and the Metropolitan Opera (celebrating his 30th anniversary with that company), as well as Washington Opera.

And that is only one side of his career. He is becoming increasingly active as a conductor. He has been artistic director of Washington Opera, the same job that he will assume in Los Angeles, for two years and is credited not only with giving the company greater visibility but also with solidifying its bottom line. The gala that welcomed him to the company in 1996 raised $2.6 million, a figure believed to be a record for nonpolitical fund-raisers in Washington.

And with Luciano Pavarotti and Jose Carreras, he is one-third of the Three Tenors, the most successful act in classical music. Their most recent concert, during the World Cup soccer tournament in Paris in July, was televised live around the world and the recording is now No. 2 on the classical charts. And Domingo has even entered the restaurant business with an eponymous upscale Spanish eatery on the Upper East Side in New York.

Domingo says he has no plans to abandon any of these activities as he takes charge in Los Angeles. “But I will organize my singing geographically,” he said, “so that I can spend a greater amount of time on the West Coast.”

Managing Two Companies at Once

A greater potential conflict may be the joint administration of two opera companies. His Washington Opera contract expires in 2002, and he has been asked to extend it until 2004.

“I want to emphasize that I am not leaving Washington,” Domingo said. “It was long my dream to run L.A. Opera when Peter Hemmings retired, but now I want to find a formula that will be successful in both theaters. The important thing is that each have its own personality.”

Right now, Domingo says it’s too early to detail specific programming, but he has begun to lay out a general vision for the company.

“I want to make the Hollywood community enthusiastic about opera, and utilize their talents more in our productions,” he said. “And I want them as subscribers. I know how busy these producers, actors, designers, directors are. But they have children, and it is very important that their children have a well-balanced cultural background.”

Another priority, Domingo said, is building bridges to the Latino community. Domingo was born in Madrid and raised from age 6 in Mexico City, and he has retained strong ties with Spanish-speaking cultures. He is a national hero in Mexico, especially after his tireless efforts to raise money for victims of the 1985 earthquake in Mexico City.

Artistically, though, the effects of Domingo’s appointment won’t be felt in Los Angeles for some time. In opera, it is not uncommon to book performers and productions three and four years in advance and Hemmings has completed the company’s programming through the 2000-01 season. That means Domingo’s first season will begin in the fall of 2001.

Domingo also said not to expect too many changes at first: “I may have to sacrifice my tastes at the beginning, so the first season will be conservative. But once we warm up the public and build an even larger subscription base, then we can start taking some chances.”

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Times staff writer Diane Haithman contributed to this story.