Good L.A. opera

IN the late 1970s and early 1980s, opera power brokers at the Music Center had no real idea where to go with this most mercurial and trying of art forms [“Holding Onto a High Note,” Oct. 8]. Other people and companies did.

In 1979, a feisty lady named Johanna Dordick formed a company called Los Angeles Opera Repertory Theatre (later L.A. Opera Theatre). A year later, the company unveiled its first production, Benjamin Britten’s “Albert Herring,” at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre, starring a then-unknown tenor named Jonathan Mack.

Full disclosure compels me to report that I did provide some public relations counsel for the company back then, but it’s worth noting that Los Angeles Times music critic Martin Bernheimer lauded the company’s presentation of Richard Strauss’ “Der Rosenkavalier,” praise he was not usually willing to bestow.

L.A. Opera Theatre presented well-attended, full productions, which demonstrated that not only was homegrown opera possible in Los Angeles but that it could be a success.

In 1982, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and its music director, Carlo Maria Giulini, mounted Verdi’s “Falstaff” at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

Giulini’s reputation for conducting Verdi operas was legendary, but by the time he had become the Phil’s music director in 1978, Giulini had abandoned the opera pit. General Director Ernest Fleischmann coaxed Giulini back after a 14-year hiatus by meeting the conductor’s demands for lengthy rehearsals and complete control over the production.

The results were amazing. The eight performances sold out, and Donal Henehan in the New York Times wrote, “For one golden moment, at least, this opera-starved city has become the center of the opera universe.”

ROBERT D. THOMAS

Los Angeles