Pasatieri Flourishes in California

When opera composer Thomas Pasatieri moved to California in late 1983 to work in films and television, his New York friends warned him, he says, “that my creative juices would dry up--since there was no culture out here.”

Four and a half years later, Pasatieri--the writer of no fewer than 17 published operas, all of which have been produced, some many times over--laughs at his friends’ naivete.

“First of all, it’s not true. There is plenty of music, as well as everything else, here. But, more important for a composer, for any artist, one’s culture comes from inside. I’ve never been more productive than in the past five years.”

This week, the 42-year-old Juilliard graduate travels to the Soviet Union to attend performances of his most recent opera, “Three Sisters,” based on Chekhov’s play, in Moscow. Three concert performances are scheduled at the Moscow Musical Theater, beginning Saturday; in October, the opera will receive full staging in the same theater. According to Pasatieri’s publisher, G. Schirmer Inc., these performances are part of the Soviet government’s response to the “Making Music Together” festivities in Boston last month.

(At the same time, composer John Adams will go to the Soviet Union for performances of his music at the Third International Music Festival in Leningrad and for performances by Dance Theatre of Harlem of “Footprints Dressed in Red,” using his “Grand Pianola Music,” in Tbilisi, Moscow and Leningrad.)

Pasatieri reports that “Three Sisters,” which had its world premiere by Opera Columbus in Ohio in 1986, will be performed in Russian in a version prepared by the in-house translator for the Moscow Musical Theater company.

“It’s interesting that royalties from such performances are shared four ways: By publisher, composer, librettist and translator,” the San Fernando Valley resident said in a telephone interview.

“Ever since the premiere of ‘The Seagull’ (Pasatieri’s seventh opera) in Houston in 1974, I seem to have been adopted by the Soviets--they tell me my music is part of their culture.” Given that a recording of “The Seagull” has been part of the permanent exhibition at the Chekhov Museum in Taganrog (the playwright’s birthplace) since then, it was no surprise to Pasatieri when Pravda sent a reporter to cover the opening of “Three Sisters” in Columbus two years ago.

Pasatieri’s latest work is a song cycle, the composer’s first song cycle in German, based on poems of the late soprano Lotte Lehmann. Commissioned by the Music Academy of the West on the occasion of Lehmann’s centenary, “Sieben Lehmann-lieder” will receive its world-premiere performance Aug. 6 in Lehmann Hall at the Santa Barbara academy. Soprano Judith Beckmann, a student of Lehmann, will sing the new work, with the composer at the piano.

“I was listening to a recording of Lehmann one day last year,” Pasatieri recalls. “At the conclusion, my phone rang, and it was Alexander Saunderson, calling from the academy, to ask me to write these songs. He sent me the book of Lehmann’s poems, and my first reaction was a violent, gut-wrenching one. I loved those poems immediately. Then I chose seven of them to form a unified cycle.

“During the composing, I felt Lehmann’s presence with me, constantly. Of course, I couldn’t be surprised that the musical style evokes (Richard) Strauss and the late Romantics--after all, I’m a composer of the theater, and the text always dictates my musical style for a particular piece.”

Pasatieri--the first composer to receive a doctoral degree from Juilliard--has now begun work on his 18th opera, again in collaboration with the librettist of his Chekhov operas, poet Kenward Elmslie.

It is “a musical theater piece, halfway between an opera and a Broadway show,” based on the life of Oscar Wilde, the composer says. According to Michael Harrison, general director of Opera Columbus, “the work is now in the pre-commissioning stage and has already received funding from Opera America (through its ‘Opera for the ‘80s--and Beyond’ program) and from the Ohio Arts Council.”

CORONA DEL MAR FESTIVAL: “We’re in the black because the founder and artistic director gets no money,” Burton Karson of Corona del Mar Baroque Festival says in describing his functions and his salary. The Newport Beach-based festival opens its eighth one-week season next Sunday night in one of its two locales, St. Michael & All Angels Church.

Karson is quick to add that he really has no complaints. “I think we can really be proud that we make so much music with a budget of only about $17,000--also that about 90% of that goes directly to the musicians. We save money in every possible way, like sending our program copy to be typeset in Hong Kong, because we can save $900 on it, doing that.

“Beyond that, we’re actually having a wonderful time, finding music, mostly, music we haven’t known about or done before. In eight years, we have never repeated a major work.”

One of the novelties of 1988 will be what Karson thinks is a first United States performance--”I can’t prove it, so I should really keep my mouth shut”--of Adriano Banchieri’s “La Barca di Venetia per Padova,” a group of 20 madrigals written in 1623. “They’re Renaissance-style madrigals actually composed in the early Baroque--very amusing, irresistible, even.” The rediscovered work, with narration in English, will be given June 8 at 8 p.m. in the festival’s other location, the Sherman Library and Gardens in downtown Corona del Mar.

Among the participants at the 1988 series will be organist John Walker (director of music at the Riverside Church in New York City), harpsichordist Malcolm Hamilton, conductor Karson, violinist Peter Marsh, sopranos Renee Patitucci and Jennifer Smith and tenor Gregory Wait, and the festival singers and orchestra. The final program, June 12, will offer choral and instrumental music by Albinoni, Bach and Handel.

Information: (714) 673-1880.

OJAI ‘88: Music by Peter Maxwell Davies, Purcell, Stravinsky, Michael Torke, Beethoven, Bach, Rameau, Handel and Martinu makes up the programs at the 1988 Ojai Music Festival, beginning Friday night at 8 in Festival Bowl in downtown Ojai. Nicholas McGegan is music director, Davies (or, Sir Peter, if you will) is composer in residence, and the assisting ensembles are the festival chamber orchestra, Philharmonia Baroque and the Pacific Chorale. Among the visiting soloists are soprano Nancy Armstrong, tenors Paul Elliot and Jon Garrison and oboist Stephen Colburn.