More room at the inn

Question: How much will the Walt Disney Concert Hall really add to the performing arts offered by the Music Center in downtown Los Angeles?

Answer: 16%.

Maybe that sounds suspiciously simple, but behind the stainless steel panels and high-flown civic rhetoric, the chief bottom-line goals behind downtown’s new $274-million concert hall are to give the Los Angeles Philharmonic a better-sounding space and to boost the arts scene in downtown Los Angeles.

And since the first of those ambitions will always be subject to taste, that leaves the mathematics of the second: If you add a concert hall and a smaller theatrical space to a three-venue complex in a transitional neighborhood amid a tentative economy, how many performances do you gain?

In the 2002-03 performing arts season, the old Music Center complex -- that is, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the Mark Taper Forum and the Ahmanson Theatre -- housed 888 performances.

In the year ahead, with the opening of the new 2,255-seat Disney Hall and the 266-seat REDCAT performance space operated next door by California Institute of the Arts, the number of performances in the expanded Music Center will climb to 1,028, an increase just shy of 16%.

The breakdown:

Los Angeles Philharmonic: In its move from the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion to Disney Hall across the street, the Phil is expanding from 117 performances in 2002-03 to 161 performances in the year to come, a slate that includes not only orchestral events but added offerings of jazz, world music and other genres.

Los Angeles Master Chorale: Making the same across-the-street move, the Master Chorale will expand from 11 to 18 performances (beginning with an Oct. 12 a cappella performance in Disney Hall).

Los Angeles Opera: Afforded a chance to stay put and spread out its season in the Chandler Pavilion, the opera goes from 58 performances last season to 69 performances in the next.

Music Center Dance: This program, a series of performances by visiting troupes, will increase from 10 performances by three companies in 2002-03 (most in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion) to 30 performances by six companies in 2003-04 (all in the Pavilion).

REDCAT: At the new 266-seat Roy and Edna Disney CalArts Theater (REDCAT), whose entrance will stand at Hope and 2nd streets beneath the concert hall, CalArts has booked 48 days and nights with music, dance, drama and other events from late October through June. (In addition, CalArts plans 25 or more film screenings, which aren’t included in the total here because they involve no live performers.)

The Center Theatre Group: The CTG, which runs the Mark Taper Forum and Ahmanson Theatre, will continue to stage its performances in the same places and to stage more of them than any other Music Center tenant. Counting evening performances, matinees and student shows, CTG officials say they mounted 366 performances in the Mark Taper Forum in 2002-03, with 360 scheduled in 2003-04. In the Ahmanson Theatre, the figures were 326 performances in 2002-03; tentative plans call for 342 in 2003-04.