L.A. Opera’s Principals Must Be Rich in Frequent Flier Miles

The Los Angeles Opera may be boasting about the dawn of a new era--the first season planned by Placido Domingo having just opened Wednesday night with a new production of the company’s first Russian opera, Tchaikovsky’s “Queen of Spades”--but that doesn’t mean that its three most important artists for the opening weeks are actually going to stick around through them.

After singing the lead tenor role of Herman in “Queen of Spades” and attending the gala opening late-night dinner (the curtain calls didn’t end until almost 10:30), Domingo flew to Washington to attend the White House state dinner on Wednesday for Mexican President Vicente Fox. Domingo, who also heads the Washington Opera, grew up in Mexico, and his wife, Marta, is Mexican.

The tenor then flies right back to Los Angeles to sing the second performance of “Queen of Spades” today, but he must be back in the capital Saturday night when the Washington Opera opens its season with Marta Domingo’s production of Verdi’s “La Traviata.” Monday night, he is back on the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion stage for another “Queen of Spades.”

But Domingo is not the only one here and there. Conductor Valery Gergiev arrived in Los Angeles a week before opening night fresh from conducting at the Proms concerts in London. Gergiev’s international stardom adds considerably to the glitter of Domingo’s season kickoff, but his last appearance in the “Queen of Spades” is Monday. Two days later, he begins a 10-day Shostakovich Festival, which he has organized with the Rotterdam Philharmonic, of which he is music director (along with being artistic director of the Maryinsky Theater in St. Petersburg--a.k.a. the Kirov--and principal guest conductor of the Metropolitan Opera).

Meanwhile, Kent Nagano, the new Los Angeles Opera principal conductor, is hopping back and forth between the West Coast and Berlin. On Monday night, Nagano leads the German Symphony-Orchestra Berlin, of which he is also music director, in a benefit for the opening of the Jewish Museum--the striking program is comprised of Schoenberg utopian oratoria, “Jacob’s Ladder” and Verdi’s “Four Sacred Pieces.”

Two nights later, at the Chandler Pavilion, Nagano conducts Los Angeles Opera in its first production of Wagner’s “Lohengrin.” Unlike Domingo and Gergiev, Nagano will be on hand for all performances of his production, but in the midst of it, on Sept. 17, he also opens the new season of his other orchestra, the Berkeley Symphony, in a program at UC Berkeley, that includes two world premieres by Regis Campo and Daniel Brewbaker, and that repeats the following Monday.