New works for new Orange County hall

The Orange County Performing Arts Center is thinking holistically about the fall 2006 launch of its new venue across from the old one on Costa Mesa’s Town Center Drive.

Officials of the center confirmed details of the inaugural events this week.

The 2,000-seat Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, a curvy, glass-fronted structure designed by Cesar Pelli that’s halfway completed, will embrace new, specially commissioned music by William Bolcom and Philip Glass on its first two nights, Sept. 15 and 16, 2006, courtesy of its key resident, the Pacific Symphony.

Placido Domingo will be the opening night soloist for Bolcom’s “Song Cycle,” which takes its text from Federico Garcia Lorca. Premiering Sept. 16 will be Glass’ yet-to-be-composed “The Passion of Ramakrishna,” a tribute to the 19th century Indian spiritual leader. The Pacific Chorale will perform with the orchestra on both nights, with other soloists to be announced.

The most magnetic offering of the center’s six-week opening celebration, however, promises to be the Kirov Opera’s first U.S. performance of its production of Richard Wagner’s four-part “The Ring of the Nibelung.”

That will take place in Segerstrom Hall, the established 3,000-seat auditorium that will mark its 20th anniversary as its sister auditorium is being inaugurated. The Maryinsky Theatre of St. Petersburg, led by artistic director Valery Gergiev and consisting of the Kirov Opera, Orchestra and Ballet, will straddle the wings of the center in a 17-day residency in October.

The opera and ballet will perform in Segerstrom Hall; the orchestra will play three concerts in the new building. One will be a joint affair incorporating members of the Pacific Symphony, with Gergiev sharing the conducting with the Pacific’s music director, Carl St.Clair.

“I look forward to performing the ‘Ring’ cycle for the first time in America. It’s terribly important we do it right,” Gergiev said Monday, speaking from San Francisco. On tour now with the Kirov Orchestra (including a scheduled Disney Hall concert Tuesday night), he was planning to appear today in Costa Mesa at an afternoon ceremony to announce the 2006 festivities.

To date, the Kirov has done its “Ring” cycle only in Russia and Germany, Gergiev said. He and designer George Typsin depart from the traditional Norse imagery of Wagner’s original and instead draw upon mythic and cultural influences from Gergiev’s home region, the Caucasus, as well as ancient Latin American and Chinese cultures.

In addition to Wagner’s opus, Mussorgsky’s opera “Boris Godunov” will receive three performances, while the ballet company will dance “Romeo and Juliet” and “Swan Lake.” Also on tap in the new hall is an Oct. 4 and 5 concert version by Opera Pacific of “Porgy and Bess.”

Jerry E. Mandel, the center’s president, demurred when asked how much it will cost to import the “Ring” cycle and a 17-day stand by the Kirov but predicted the gambit will deliver plenty of prestigious bang for the bucks.

“Certainly within the [arts and entertainment] industry we’re well-known, but I don’t know that internationally or even nationally we have that same kind of reputation yet,” Mandel said. “This clearly takes us up to that next level.”