Truly Operatic

With the final performances of “Duke Bluebeard’s Castle” and “Gianni Schicchi” this afternoon and “Turandot” Sunday afternoon, Los Angeles Opera ends what may have been its most unpredictable season since the first one, a decade and half ago. And, by all reports, the most chaotic.

As the initial season planned by Placido Domingo, who became the artistic director in 2000, how could it have been otherwise? Domingo is probably the most restless figure in the history of opera, juggling careers as opera star, pop singer, conductor and the artistic director of not one but two opera companies (Washington Opera along with L.A. Opera). Although he’s 61, his voice remains in remarkable shape, and he shows no sign of slowing down.

Inevitably, there are grumbles that Domingo spreads himself too thin. But that’s part of the persona; it helps connect the singular Domingo with the wide world.

And, having proved that he can have it all, he wants the same for Los Angeles Opera. He appears perfectly willing to use his power, glamour and charm to get as much as he can for us.

As a result, we now have a company with great ambition that runs by the seat of its pants. That’s a recipe for driving the board of directors to distraction, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing for the rest of us. That Domingo is all over the place--artistically as well as physically--means that at least some of those places are bound to be fascinating, exotic and controversial.

The most radical departure that Los Angeles Opera took this season was Achim Freyer’s abstract staging of Bach’s Mass in B Minor, which divided the audience into those who found it stimulating, those who simply didn’t see the point and those who were offended by the very notion of illustrating Bach’s sacred masterpiece with unrelated stage pictures.

Domingo admitted in a news conference that the Mass was a gamble and that there had been pressure on him to cancel its February run, what with the board fretting about depressed ticket sales after Sept. 11. But he held firm, and he says that the company sold more tickets than projected for the six performances, proving that Los Angeles has an audience for venturesome music theater.

The most productive example of Domingo’s persistence and persuasiveness was his ability to get the normally cautious Kent Nagano, after nearly a year of hesitation, to commit to becoming L.A. Opera’s first principal conductor. No single performer, not even Domingo, means more to the company.

With Nagano in the pit--as he was for Wagner’s “Tannhauser” in September and as he is for the operas being performed this weekend--productions take on a kind of glow. The orchestra, traditionally a weak point, is transformed, the aural equivalent of going from wan black and white to sparkling Technicolor. When everything works well, as it does in William Friedkin’s uproarious production of Puccini’s comedy “Gianni Schicchi,” Nagano demonstrates that L.A. Opera can rise to a level of theatrical vibrancy and sonic sophistication that was almost unthinkable a year ago.

When things don’t work well, Nagano is equally valuable. Take Tuesday night’s performance of “Turandot.” It was the second and final performance from the second cast, and the leading tenor and soprano were woefully inadequate. The production by Giancarlo del Monaco has a few nice touches (especially the use of the chorus in the crowd scenes), but it has been a problem for the company.

Reportedly, the director was disliked by the performers; he did not take the traditional curtain call on the first night. The company will not say whether he will be back to direct next season’s opener, Puccini’s “The Girl of the Golden West,” as planned, but the welcome mat is not out.

Nagano saved the day Tuesday by maintaining an overall musical elegance behind Puccini’s raw spectacle and by guiding the vocally distressed principals with tender care. He made the new ending by Luciano Berio sound even more compelling than he had at the opening 2 1/2 weeks earlier.

Yet Tuesday night also indicated the kind of slapdash planning that marks the Domingo regime. One wonders what he could have been thinking when he chose to bring this production to Los Angeles, especially given that the Metropolitan Opera had already become disillusioned with the temperamental director.

Did no one measure the sets? Those sitting in the balcony couldn’t see the Emperor seated at the top of a high staircase; and many downstairs couldn’t see around pillars that were part of the stage design. Tuesday’s disappointing tenor, Ian DeNolfo, was hardly unknown to Domingo; he has been regularly engaged by Washington Opera.

Under the last years of Peter Hemmings’ tightly run regime, high points and low points at L.A. Opera were uncommon. Instead, the company was on a kind of boring even keel. Now the ship lists dramatically. In the fall, Domingo’s coequal, executive director Ian White-Thomson, responsible for the company’s finances, summarily resigned. He was not replaced. Instead, the company created a new post, a director of administration who reports to Domingo.

Don’t expect anything to settle down soon. Not only is there a problem with the director for “The Girl of the Golden West,” but the company also lacks a full cast and a production team for Mozart’s “Don Giovanni,” at the close of the season. Given that prominent singers and directors book years in advance, this could become a crisis. It’s all the more complicated because the company would like the same director to mount two more Mozart operas, “The Marriage of Figaro” and “Cosi fan Tutti,” in future seasons.

On the other hand, insane as such last-minute planning can be, it also frees the company to pounce on young talent whenever Domingo discovers it, rather than waiting years, as most major, long-booked companies must.

L.A. Opera’s biggest challenge for next season, though, will be Prokofiev’s mammoth “War and Peace,” conducted by Valery Gergiev and featuring a cast drawn from his Kirov Opera in St. Petersburg. This production of the grandest Russian opera of them all was given at the Met earlier this year, and it was an ordeal even for that well-organized company, which has far greater resources than Los Angeles Opera.

Who exactly will populate the cast of hundreds? Will Gergiev, who is at least as hard to pin down as Domingo, be in town long enough to prepare it? He was here only a week to rehearse “The Queen of Spades,” which opened this season. This is tightrope programming: A lot of nails will be bitten down to raw skin.

Already L.A. Opera has backed down on another anticipated highlight of next year’s season, the premiere of a new version of “The Coronation of Poppea,” with an orchestration commissioned from Berio. Rather than a world premiere staging, Monteverdi’s opera will now be presented in concert. Domingo explained that because Berio was in an automobile accident last summer, this chance-taking regime was taking no chances. But by all reports, Berio is recovered. The real concern may be Berio’s reputation for missing deadlines.

Undoubtedly, it was also a money-saving business decision; “Poppea” isn’t likely to be a strong box-office draw. With a multimillion-dollar “Ring” looming for 2006, it is hardly surprising to encounter penny-pinching elsewhere. I hope, however, that it is not a new lack of nerve on the company’s part.

Clearly, chaos and exuberance go hand in hand at Domingo’s L.A. Opera; lose one, and the other is threatened. But disorganization demands dollars, lots of them; everything costs more at the last minute.

As long as Domingo keeps on getting those dollars, he has proved more than willing to spend them in ways that make this former operatic desert a place where the art form blooms. L.A. Opera has become a place where just about anything can happen.