Opera class with a little pop twist

The youthful cast of Baz Luhrmann’s “La Boheme,” which opens Sunday at the Ahmanson Theatre, got a big surprise at a rehearsal this week. Luhrmann announced that a new tenor would be joining the cast. As he tells it, this caused a rustle of panic among the tenors already in the production, who wondered exactly why another singer was suddenly needed and which one of them might be unexpectedly leaving the cast.

But if they were surprised by that announcement, they were dumbfounded when the “new tenor” waltzed in for his audition: Luhrmann’s friend Placido Domingo.

Just a little bit of opera humor. In truth, Luhrmann had asked Domingo -- who provided the voice of the moon in Luhrmann’s eye-candy movie musical “Moulin Rouge” -- to drop by to say hello to the cast. The superstar tenor is general director of Los Angeles Opera, which makes its home at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, across the Music Center plaza from the Ahmanson. And Domingo, 62, got a laugh when he suggested that he might be too young for the romantic role of Rodolfo, tragically in love with the dying Mimi.

Despite their busy schedules -- the Australian director less than a week away from the local opening of his Broadway version of the Puccini opera, Domingo already preparing for L.A. Opera’s 2004-05 season -- the two men were at it again the next day.

Domingo was on hand to introduce Luhrmann, 41, as instructor of a master class for four up-and-coming local singers, held Thursday at the Colburn School of Performing Arts, just down the street from the Music Center.

A smattering of local opera donors and music students from Cal State Northridge and UCLA were also present as an informal audience.

Domingo wore an impeccable charcoal suit and tie; the wiry Luhrmann wore a suit too, but completed the outfit with athletic shoes and a shirt worn open-collared and untucked, peeking out from below his jacket.

The students -- Los Angeles Opera resident artists Joohee Choi and Gregorio Gonzalez, former resident Shana Blake Hill and Robert MacNeil -- came prepared to sing. Instead, Luhrmann began with an opera therapy session of sorts, seating them in a circle and quizzing them about the “crossover moment” when they decided to make a career in opera.

MacNeil offered that, after he saw his first opera at age 22, the art form became “almost a compulsion.” Hill confessed that she saw “The Flying Dutchman” at about age 7 and hated it -- but then saw an opera production in college featuring people her own age and got hooked, promptly switching from her intended major in archeology to music. Choi, a native of South Korea, said that she fell in love with the costumes she saw at the opera house near her home.

Hill added that she now proselytizes for opera.

“I’ve never had a friend that I’ve brought to the opera who didn’t become a fan,” she said. “I’ve met people on airplanes who say they’ve never been, and I say: ‘Here -- you have tickets.’ ”

Luhrmann, for his part, encouraged the singers to keep trying to convert their young friends into opera fans.

At one time, he noted, the form was as popular with European audiences as television is now.

“When you get it, you’ll never forget that experience,” he said dreamily. “And you’ll be looking for it for the rest of your life.”

After a break, the four students finally got around to some singing -- but even that required an actor’s exercise in motivation from Luhrmann. After hearing Choi’s Mimi and Gonzalez’s Marcello in a scene together, he insisted they stop and translate what the characters were singing from Italian into spoken English to help themselves understand.

“They are not hearing the music, the characters,” he said. “We are hearing the music, the audience, because it is amplifying the emotions onstage. When it works, it is an exaltation.”

Luhrmann laughed as he acknowledged that Choi had the more difficult task as Mimi, a role that requires being able to convincingly waste away of consumption while still belting out a song.

After the session, Luhrmann said he was surprised at the calmness of the singers. .

“They were incredibly bright, actually, and less nervous than I thought.” And comparing teaching a handful of hopefuls with directing a Broadway show, he called teaching “the good bit.”

“It is the good bit,” Domingo agreed. “I have been like this since I was 30 -- I was hoping that one day I could help the young singers. It’s wonderful when you see them growing on all the stages around the world.”

The tenor added that Luhrmann’s updated version of “La Boheme” might itself help broaden opera’s audience.

“It has multiplied the love of this story,” he said. “When we compare classical music to the big boom of pop music, we need more development. He presents it in a striking way visually, and with feeling. For me, it was a phenomenal experience when I saw it the first time.”