MUSIC REVIEW : O.C. Celebrates 5 Years of Culture, Hype

Five years ago, Costa Mesa opened its glamorous 3,000-seat Performing Arts Center. In one fell, conspicuous, resounding swoop, Orange County achieved cultural maturity and cultural independence too. Or so we were told.

Miraculously, the lima-bean fields had yielded high art.

Saturday night, as part of a 10-day coming-of-age-cum-fund-raising celebration, the powers in charge mustered their only acknowledgement of serious music--or at least an unreasonable facsimile thereof. Previous gala benefits in the local temple of sophisticated splendor had focused on such virtuosos as Ann Jillian, Ben Vereen, Roger Miller and Hal Ketchum. Now it was time for a little Wagner, a little Tchaikovsky, a little Bernstein. . . .

Significantly, perhaps, the art of dance remained unrepresented.

The gushing ads said it all. The concert, devoted to the five organizations that lease Segerstrom Hall most frequently, was pitched to the reluctant masses as if it were a pretentious B-movie.

The lure line heralded “MUSIC! CHAMPAGNE! CELEBRATION!” The anniversary was breathlessly described as “Unprecedented,” leading the innocent to wonder what other kind there is. James Galway and “Maestro” (note the classy official title) Carl St. Clair were billed as stars.

The top ticket fetched $250, with a post-concert dindin thrown in. The music alone cost as little as $16, as much as $55. That isn’t much by current gala standards in other cities. But, compared to what is offered in other cities, this wasn’t much of a gala.

The house, not incidentally, was not sold out.

Much has happened in this lavish haven of the itinerant muses since the doors first opened Sept. 29, 1986. Major orchestras, ballet companies and recitalists have come and gone. So have musical comedies. Meanwhile, local companies have had to struggle as part-time tenants, making do with limited budgets and leftover dates. Essentially, the center has evolved as a fancy all-purpose booking house, a massive business institution more concerned with importing a product than creating one.

The programming policies still seem to lack a central artistic focus. That can’t be accidental, for the management team still seems to lack a bona-fide artistic director. Under the circumstances, no one could be too surprised to find that Saturday’s festivities represented little beyond an elaborate mishmash.

Unlike TV shows, so-called classical concerts can make their points without the aid of a master of ceremonies. Orange County authorities felt, however, that they needed a guide on this portentous occasion, so they engaged a musicological expert: Meredith MacRae.

According to her biographical sketch in the glossy program book, the erstwhile diva of “Petticoat Junction” now serves as host of a “talk/home shopping show” called “ValueTelevison.” Before embarking on her hype narrations, she volunteered some additional credentials: “My best friends live in Orange County, and I do all my shopping here.”

The motley musical agenda began with Carl St. Clair--incipient savior of the Pacific Symphony--conducting an energetic if strident “Meistersinger” prelude, a performance marred especially by untidy strings. What, no National Anthem in Orange County of all patriotic places?

Next, the Master Chorale offered a raucous performance of Verdi’s potentially poignant “Va, pensiero” and a coarse approximation of the “Mefistofele” prologue under the leaden leadership of Anton Coppola. Dramatic vitality might have been better served if the baton had been yielded to the regular conductor of the chorus, William Hall.

Representing Opera Pacific, Coppola remained a stodgy force on the podium for two excerpts from “Il Barbiere di Siviglia,” artfully sung by the veteran baritone Pablo Elvira and the youthful mezzo-soprano Gail Dubinbaum.

Accompanied by St. Clair and representing the Philharmonic Society, James Galway brilliantly tootled the inane flourishes of Stamitz’s G-major Concerto. Stubbornly expending push-button approval even after five years of fruitless critical nagging, the audience applauded happily between movements.

After intermission, St. Clair led John Alexander’s Pacific Chorale--redundant archrival of Hall’s Master Chorale--in five rousingly vulgar choruses from “Carmina Burana.” Young Angel Liu, a prize-winning violinist from Shanghai via Irvine, brought much panache compromised by a few pitch problems to the finale of the Bruch Concerto, which seemed a bit anticlimactic and out of context.

Ealynn Voss, whose Turandot here may have been a springboard to a major international career, returned as a replacement for another Opera Pacific soprano, Diana Soviero. Before blasting her superb way through the theme song of Puccini’s frigid princess, she voiced a rapturously hefty greeting to the $72.8-million auditorium via Wagner’s “Dich, teure Halle.” Appropriately enough, the title of the aria can be translated either as “You, dear hall” or “You, expensive hall.”

For their moment of solo glory, St. Clair and the orchestra aggressively thumped the scherzo of Tchaikovsky’s “Pathetique.” This led incongruously to a “Carmen” suite arranged as a mindlessly grateful vehicle for Galway’s golden flute.

Finally, everyone joined forces--one choir on the stage, another in the side aisles--for a roof-rattling, potentially deafening, super-banal parting gesture: “Make Our Garden Grow” from Bernstein’s “Candide.”

Wine flowed generously in the lobbies. At least one ingrate would have preferred a tabu cup of coffee.