Rehearsing Multiple Roles

The story of the opening night of L.A. Opera’s first production will be told, and elaborated upon, as long as opera here lives. For more than a hundred years, Los Angeles had been an operatic Wild West, noted for attracting operatic naifs and charlatans in equal measure. We were best served by itinerants like the touring New York City Opera.

Finally the Music Center did form a company, and it opened its first season in 1986 with Verdi’s “Otello.” But on that opening night, as the music roiled to mimic a violent storm, as the ship’s crew called out in terror and the choristers on shore watched the wave-tossed vessel in operatic horror, the curtain stuck. It was just for a couple of seconds, but time seemed to stop as the symbolism of it sank in.

After its hesitation, though, the curtain rose, and an exultant Otello stepped out to sing his triumphant “Esultate.” The chorus burst into its startling victory chorus. L.A. got opera. Chills went up our spines.

That Otello was Placido Domingo. His tenor rang clear, certain. His pose was cinematically heroic. He inspired then exactly the confidence we needed.

And now we will be turning to Domingo again to get us past stuck curtains, although under completely different circumstances. It was announced Monday that Peter Hemmings, who built the company not just from scratch but from the negatives of all the failures before him, will retire as general manager, and Domingo will become artistic director.

Domingo’s loyalty to L.A. Opera has been admirable. He has returned year after year to perform with the company and give it just the stellar luster it needed. Serving first as artistic consultant, then artistic advisor, he used his amazing Rolodex to attract singers not otherwise inclined to travel so far from the European centers of opera. An indefatigable talent scout, he brought stunning new voices, such as tenor Jose Cura, here first.

Domingo has not been unrewarded for his services, but both parties have profited. He used L.A. Opera as a platform to perfect his conducting skills, and the company made him principal guest conductor. He has also made L.A. Opera a family affair. His wife, Marta, a former singer, will direct “La Traviata” later this season.

But as the man assigned to transport L.A. Opera, which has known only one era, into a new one, Domingo seems better prepared to raise some kinds of stuck curtains than others.

As it was on that opening night 12 years ago, his presence is very reassuring. The value of celebrity cannot be underestimated in this star-struck town.

But Domingo’s celebrity comes at a price. He is famous because he is a great performer--an intelligent, passionate, committed singer of opera and also a media darling who has a flair for popular culture, given his Three Tenors membership and his appearances with pop singers. He loves it all, and he does it all. He is almost laughably overextended.

Domingo can hardly be expected to stop being Domingo in order to head L.A. Opera, and we wouldn’t want him to. His singing career should be winding down by now, but he defies his 57 years and, despite a bit of inevitable fraying at the edges, his voice remains remarkably strong and vital. That keeps him in the limelight and keeps his celebrity fresh.

But there are limits to how much even Domingo can do--singing, conducting and administering. Two years ago he added to his resume the artistic directorship of Washington Opera, a company pretty much on par with L.A. Opera. Each produces eight operas a season. Washington’s budget is around $25 million; L.A.’s is $19.5 million.

Each City Is Promised Its Own Identity

Domingo has, by all reports, had a bracing effect on the nation’s capital. He doesn’t spend much time there--an executive director runs the operation of the company--but he has proved a spectacular fund-raiser, and the company’s current season is a strong one, with big works like “Tristan und Isolde” and “Boris Godunov”; a rarity, Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari’s “Sly” with Jose Carreras; and an American opera, Robert Ward’s “The Crucible.”

Domingo will continue to run Washington Opera while he heads L.A. Opera. He says that he will keep the two companies distinct. Certainly some of the singers will appear in both cities: Every audience wants the top stars. But the operas and the directors, Domingo said the other day over the phone from Washington, will not, for the most part, be the same. Each city, he insisted, has its own personality, and the companies must reflect them.

Yet Domingo also has his own personality, and we wouldn’t want an artistic director without one. He is known to have an inquiring mind--I’ve even seen him peering down from the box seats at esoteric operas by Georges Enescu and Philip Glass in Vienna and New York. But can he cater to individual needs of both Washington and Los Angeles and still be true to himself? We already have the same clothing stores and bookstores in practically every city. Will L.A. Opera become just another Domingo franchise?

L.A. Opera has, right now, special needs. If all goes as planned, in the fall of 2002, the Los Angeles Philharmonic will move out of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and into its new Walt Disney Concert Hall, handing L.A. Opera a theater of its own for the first time. It is a great opportunity for growth.

And Domingo was clearly attractive to the L.A. Opera Board because he can--perhaps uniquely--inspire growth. He raised $2.6 million for Washington Opera in a single evening. He has made the opera company, once considered dowdy, the center of Washington high society.

In Los Angeles, Domingo, it is hoped, will have the same galvanizing effect on L.A.’s elite--Hollywood--which shows very little interest in high culture these days. Domingo said he also sees his operatic mandate in broad terms. He is eager to exploit his own roots in zarzuela, the popular musical theater of his native Spain, and to take opera out of the Music Center and to the people. The political desirability of a Latino director at the opera has not escaped the board.

But this agenda requires a consistent effort, not just dropping by now and then. That consistent effort, consequently, will depend on some kind of executive director or general manager who will actually run the day-to-day operation of the company. No exact title and no exact duties for this post have yet been defined.

Questions in Need of Answers

Dual management is not an uncommon arrangement, although it works differently in every instance. At the Met, for instance, James Levine is the artistic director, but the real power is said to lie with the imperious general manager Joseph Volpe, who apparently has the final say over casts and repertory. At the Salzburg Festival, however, visionary director GerardMortier manages to overrule the conservative objections of his financial guardians.

It could work here, but there are also endless opportunities for the curtain to stick.

How available will Domingo be? When he is performing, he has to be single-minded in his concentration on his role or his conducting. How accessible can he possibly be to staff? Who will get his attention first if crises arise (and they always do in opera) at both companies? And where will the real power lie? Domingo? The executive director? The board?

The thoughtful, cultivated Hemmings brought L.A. Opera an initial sophistication and professionalism that it absolutely needed in order to be taken seriously. He found a fine formula of mixing adventure with solid repertory choices, and he created special occasions that attracted international attention: presenting world premieres, reviving neglected operas and bringing the splash of David Hockney’s designs to the stage. But there has been less of that in recent seasons: It appears that a board driven by the bottom line has asserted its control. We’ve entered into a period of comfortable uniformity and decent ticket sales. But the curtain feels stuck.

The question is: Can Domingo raise it with another focused, resounding “Esultate” that will be heard loud and far?