The Gambler Shows His Hand

The stage of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion has been transformed into an elegant room of spectacular proportion. Walls tower toward the flies, framing an expansive sweep of floor, while a massive crystal chandelier hangs overhead. It is both daunting and surreal--the entire room, up to and including the chandelier, has an almost dizzying tilt.

In the middle of this imposing space, a man and a woman circle a table in anguished pursuit of one another. Abruptly, they stop, and with them the music and the illusion. The man and woman are no longer the characters Herman and Lisa, but singers Placido Domingo and Galina Gorchakova, rehearsing Tchaikovsky’s “The Queen of Spades.”

Domingo confers with director-designer Gottfried Pilz, then discusses an intimate moment with Gorchakova. The three work out a bit of stage business, agreeing to try a slightly different approach, before the pianist begins again.

Domingo is in fine voice. He is congenial, passionate and, above all, collaborative. After all, the tormented Herman is not the only role he is playing at this moment. The tenor is also the artistic director.

Although Domingo’s tenure at the helm of Los Angeles Opera officially began more than a year ago, this production represents the start of his programming and the onset of a new era in L.A. Opera’s 15-year history. The first entry of the 2001-02 season opens Tuesday, conducted by Valery Gergiev.

“This is really the first season where everything is our own responsibility,” explains Domingo, clad in a black running suit and gym shoes as he sits in his office between rehearsals on a recent evening. “So it’s a big question that we ask ourselves--how the format we have now is going to be taken by the public.

“Something that is making us happier already is the reaction of the subscribers, which has been very strong,” he continues, referring to this year’s approximate 12% increase in full subscriptions, up to nearly 16,000. In addition, L.A. Opera set a company record on Aug. 5, the first day of single-ticket sales, with nearly $200,000, an increase over last year in both dollars and number of tickets sold.

But will they like the slanted room? Indeed, that arresting setting can be seen as more than the backdrop for one opera. It is also emblematic of Domingo’s aspirations for the company. It is larger than life and grand. And it’s daring.

“The Queen of Spades” will be the first of eight company premieres, including four new productions, this season. Those statistics alone mark a significant departure from the regime of founding general director Peter Hemmings, who in recent years relied heavily on company revivals, and created and premiered few new productions.

If the stellar Russians of “The Queen of Spades” may be taken as an indication, the level of casting is also on the rise. In addition to Domingo and Gorchakova, the principals include Elena Obraztsova, Vladimir Chernov and Sergei Leiferkus. Domingo has also instituted a greater emphasis on conducting--with the appointment of Kent Nagano as principal conductor, the first in the company’s history, and an ongoing relationship with Gergiev.

Elements of Domingo’s first season that aren’t straight opera--the Achim Freyer staging of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Mass in B Minor and the concert presentation of Arnold Schoenberg’s “Moses and Aron”--are also unusual fare for L.A. Opera.

And Domingo intends to unveil one entirely new work each season, starting next year with an opera by Italian modernist Luciano Berio that stars Domingo in a story loosely based on the tenor’s experiences. L.A. Opera, which until now had only presented two world premieres in its history, has also commissioned new operas from Deborah Dratell and John Williams.

Then too there is the L.A. Opera “Ring.” In the year since it was announced, the first-ever Los Angeles staging of the entire Wagner cycle is taking shape as a project of unprecedented scope and ambition. Created in collaboration with the special-effects gurus at Industrial Light & Magic and set to be presented at the Shrine Auditorium beginning in spring 2003, the L.A. “Ring,” with early cost estimates at $30 million to $35 million and climbing, is likely to be the most expensive cycle ever staged. (By comparison, the recent Seattle Opera “Ring” cost nearly $15 million.

“When Placido Domingo thinks, he thinks big,” writes former Los Angeles Times music critic Martin Bernheimer, citing the company’s “new priorities” in the latest issue of Opera magazine. “Even if achievements don’t...match intentions, life won’t be dull in Los Angeles.”

“I don’t believe there exists any company that doesn’t want to grow into a bigger one,” says Domingo, who, in addition to singing and conducting at L.A. Opera, served as the company’s artistic consultant since its inception and, since 1995, its artistic advisor and principal guest conductor. “When there is a change of direction, you really want to go off somewhere big, and I think that we have that possibility here.”

The November 1998 announcement of Domingo’s appointment, given his celebrity, was clearly a step in that direction. However, there was also concern that his busy singing and conducting career, not to mention his duties as head of Washington Opera, would hamper his ability to lead L.A. Opera. Manager of artistic operations Edgar Baitzel, a German-born director, dramaturge and opera administrator, came on board in April 2000 to serve as Domingo’s partner in realizing his vision. On the business side, the company named Ian White-Thomson, former head of U.S. Borax and a member of the opera’s board of directors, as executive director.

Now the team sees the tenor’s international schedule as a singular advantage. “Having Placido all over the world is one of the most valuable things that an artistic director can do,” says Baitzel, who has had a longtime professional association with Domingo. “That would normally cost the company a lot of money to send around an artistic director to collect all this information and bring the best of it to Los Angeles.”

“You have to go and make direct contact with people,” Domingo explains, “directors, designers, conductors, singers--and try and encourage everybody to come to California, which is a little further than New York. Now I’m still singing and conducting, but even when I stop, I will still have to do this. I have never seen an artistic director who is sitting in his office the whole time.”

The time away from L.A. Opera, says Domingo, might be a problem “if I didn’t have the right people here. But Edgar and I speak the same language artistically, and we have more or less the same ideas.”

“We talk together, and then I start to talk to people, and he goes further with doing the contracts and really engaging the people and doing all the follow work,” Domingo says.

“The process is like all theater processes, whether you’re sitting together in a room or communicating over a phone or through fax or e-mail,” Baitzel says. “We had our long-term plan and vision, and since we have outlined the next three or four years, we now can start diving more into casting and so on.”

One of the main tasks of the past year has been what Baitzel describes as “turning the company from a presenting into a producing company.”

“Of course, we will still be a presenting company also,” he says. “But out of our eight productions, the goal is to create three new productions per season, and one of those three will be a premiere of a new work.”

This is essential to crafting a distinct artistic identity for the company. “A new production, and especially a premiere of a new opera, is always a gamble,” Domingo says. “But it is a gamble that I think we should take.”

“A new production is a business card that you present,” Baitzel adds.

Clearly, the double-header at the beginning of this season--”Queen of Spades” followed by the opening of “Lohengrin” on Sept. 12--is conceived as trumpeting the plan. “Queen of Spades” represents the first presentation of a Russian-language opera in the company’s history. “Lohengrin,” conducted by Nagano, is staged by veteran actor-director Maximilian Schell and choreographed by Lucinda Childs.

“The season is about to start with two explosive operas,” Domingo says. “We really need to start with something very strong.”

As for the rest of the 2001-02 offerings, there have been two changes since the season was announced last year. A recital by soprano Renee Fleming has been added. Also added, in lieu of a staging of “The Merry Widow” in Spanish, is “A Night of Zarzuela and Operetta with Placido Domingo & Friends.”

“I rethought, and my thinking was that, after all, ‘The Merry Widow’ is already a Viennese operetta and we are doing it in English already,” Domingo explains. (The English version is a company premiere.) “So that’s acceptable, because the public would like to be more involved. But yet to do it in Spanish, I don’t think it had too much echo.”

The idea is to tailor programming to L.A.’s audiences--including Spanish speakers. “I believe it is important to create something special for Los Angeles, and I don’t just mean having film directors direct,” he says. “That alone is not special. But I believe that some more of these productions are going to be created with the mind of this city.”

Observers feel that Domingo is uniquely situated to popularize opera. “He is the only person in the world today who is almost a human vacuum cleaner getting the dust off opera and its reputation,” says Helmut Sorge, longtime entertainment correspondent for Der Spiegel. “I think he has a lot of guts to go to Los Angeles.”

It all comes with a price tag. “We are in the fortunate situation that the board raised so much more money for Placido’s first season,” says Baitzel, referring to the fact that the company’s operating budget increased by $8 million this year, from about $24 million to $32 million. “A lot of money went into general improvements,” Baitzel adds. “The orchestra and chorus needed more time to rehearse, and the technicians need more time to prepare new productions. These are general improvements that are necessary for this company to match the standards that Mr. Domingo wants to bring to Los Angeles.”

Whatever the hopes for this first season, the crucible for Domingo’s L.A. Opera will be the “Ring.” The opera world already has its sights trained on L.A., on the lookout for any news.

“The ‘Ring’ is a very big event, and I think we can see in a couple of months all of this materializing,” Domingo says. “I do believe that if you are here in L.A., this is the right way to go.”

In an unusual development, Domingo and Baitzel say that singers have been approaching the company about the project, rather than the other way around. “I can assure you,” Domingo says, “that I have never heard more offers from the agents and the singers that they want to come and sing in this ‘Ring.”’

During the last year, L.A. Opera began the design process, working with German director Peter Mussbach, whose work has been seen at the Salzburg Festival and the Metropolitan Opera, and a team of artists from Industrial Light & Magic. “Step one was for us to answer the question, ‘Does this idea work artistically?”’ says Baitzel, referring to the mix of high technology and opera. “And we spent one year working to figure out that we have a positive answer.

“The other part of step one is the estimation of the costs,” he continues. “And we got 80% of the necessary information that we need about the costs, and they are very high, like we expected. We can say that this new technology might easily cost between $30 million to $35 million. That does not include additional money for the hardware to bring the ILM software onstage. [Another possible cost is] adjustment work at the Shrine, to reconfigure the pit and proscenium and so on.”

In fact, a reliable estimate of the overall costs is not possible at this point. The number of ILM effects to be used will be a key factor. “Now it is a matter of seeing how many scenes we need,” explains Domingo.

Lining up the funding will be a major factor. ILM might come on board as a co-producer and give L.A. Opera a price break. “We are counting that they will see the possibilities of this and they are not going to charge us full price,” says Domingo.

Another likely scenario is a more traditional co-producer. L.A. Opera is close to closing a deal with a party outside the U.S. “We are in the final negotiations with a co-producer, and we will know by the end of September,” Baitzel says.

Domingo’s internationalism is nowhere more crucial than in cementing such negotiations. “The only way that this project works is with the star power of Placido,” Baitzel says. “You cannot raise the money locally or statewide, and perhaps not even nationwide because no other city is interested in giving the money for the ‘Ring’ in Los Angeles. Without Placido’s international connections, this project would have never been possible to dream about.”

Transitions between artistic regimes are never seamless. There has been a feeling of waiting, and anticipation around L.A. Opera for the past year, with Hemmings’ programming still up on the stage and Domingo’s in the wings. But now the wait is over.

On Tuesday, the curtain rises on the future of L.A. Opera. Will the ambitions be realized?

“The morale of the company is really great,” Domingo says. “I feel there is a great spirit there, and they agree that the plans that we have are important and we are going in a direction that makes them happy.”

“Of course this is a huge challenge for this company. The good thing is that I have the impression that they were really waiting for such a challenge,” Baitzel says.

“If you create a new sports team, you have to work on strategies, you have to define certain responsibilities and so on. It takes a good coach, and then you have a good team. And I think Placido is very much able to create a great team for Los Angeles.” *

*

“Queen of Spades,” Los Angeles Opera, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 10, 13, 19 and 25 at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 16 and 22 at 2 p.m. $30-$165. (213) 365-3500.