A Conversation With L.A.’s Mr. Opera : Peter Hemmings Doesn’t Think Opera Should Be Just for Highbrows

Peter Hemmings, 54, general director of Los Angeles Music Center Opera, is charged with building an opera company in a city where opera, at best, has had a checkered past.

Following last weekend’s opening of “Tales of Hoffman” and “Cosi fan Tutte,” Calendar interviewed Hemmings in his poster-and-photograph-bedecked office at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Among this British citizen’s photos is one taken of himself while he was at Scottish Opera being presented to Queen Elizabeth II.

His desk is almost bare. Except for a telephone, the most obvious object is a string of wooden beads with a purple tassel which he and his wife Jane picked up several months ago while vacationing in Greece. “They’re worry beads,” he said.

And when was the last time he used them? “This morning,” he said laughing.

Is it an advantage for an opera company to be in Los Angeles, the entertainment capital? How involved are the film and television communities?

We were able to persuade Dudley Moore, who is a film star, to sing with us (“The Mikado”). We have film director Andrei Konchalovsky directing “The Queen of Spades” for us next year. We’re in conversation with two other film directors about working for us. We did “Broadway at the Bowl” (in August) where 17,500 people came to hear celebrities sing.

Although $140,000 was raised after expenses, isn’t there somewhat of a dichotomy? Here you are selling opera with Broadway stars at the Bowl?

I think it was actually a very good crossover evening. I was very pleased because 17,500 people came and that presumably means that a lot of people heard about the opera company for the first time.

Do you have any film or television people on your board?

“Broadway at the Bowl” was organized by Doug Cramer (vice chairman, Aaron Spelling Productions). And Bob Bookman (at Creative Artists Agency) is also on our board. And actually, Placido Domingo (Music Center Opera’s artistic consultant) comes into this very strongly. Placido is very interested in the film business, very anxious to see that crossover develop. I would have said that we are gradually breaking down the feeling that has always existed in this city that Hollywood and downtown have nothing to do with each other. They clearly do.

Speaking of crossover, just tossing out a generic name, do you ever foresee a Spielberg-directed opera?

I gather Spielberg is very interested in opera. Yes. Obviously it would be very great fun to do, but I mean the fact that we are using a film director and a Konchalovsky (“Runaway Train”; “Duet for One”) is an indication of our interest. . . . Of course, I’d use Spielberg, yes.

Have you been talking to him?

There was at one stage some discussion with him. I’m sure I might.

How do you make opera more relevant to multicultural audiences, particularly in a metropolitan area as diverse as Los Angeles?

Well, I’ll tell you one thing that we’re doing, and that is commissioning an opera in Spanish. . . . I’m not going to tell any more than that. . . . We’re thinking of doing it in 1992.

The other thing is that a lot of our performances for children have in fact been to minority children, blacks and Latinos. Mr. Domingo is a great help to us in this way. . . . Domingo has been talking to us for some time about his feeling that there would a substantial audience here for zarzuelas . You can’t even say they are Spanish operettas, which they’re not because there are some which are much more serious and some which are not and they cover a period of 200 years. It’s the national Spanish operatic tradition.

And that would be included as part of the regular season?

Yes, absolutely.

There are 10 women on the opera board out of 48 members. How many blacks, how many Latinos, how many Asians are on the board?

We have one black (Gerald Secundy) on the board. That’s all we have at the moment.

No Asians, no Latinos?

No. We are very conscious of the need to do this and we’re working towards that.

In this the third season of Los Angeles Music Opera, you have eight operas and 47 performances, up from seven and 28 last season. What informed your choices?

Actually, it’s really 50 performances because we did three previews and the previews are for senior citizens and young people, at very modest prices. We attach a great deal of importance to being able to allow people to come in at lower prices because we don’t want to put them off.

We always tried to have a catholic choice of repertoire covering, as far as possible, periods, styles, countries of origin and balancing challenging new pieces with standard operatic war horses.

Last year we did (new productions of) “The Fiery Angel” and “Midsummer Night’s Dream” and this year we have “Wozzeck” and “Kat’a Kabanova.” The audience seems to find (that combination) attractive, and that certainly has been the case this year, because our subscription is up by 25% and we had an 80% renewal.

Why “Wozzeck” and “Kat’a Kabanova,” which are of this century?

They were big masterpieces and “Wozzeck” is something that was already on the cards when I came here. “Wozzeck” is based on the book from the play and it is baldly to do with a soldier whose mind eventually gives out under the pressures both of his work as a soldier and his marital relations. “Wozzeck “ is about many, many other things. It’s clearly one of the greatest masterpieces of the 20th Century. In fact, it will be completely rethought and redesigned.

“Kat’a Kabanova” is probably the most important of all the other (Leos) Janacek operas. It’s my hope that in due course we will be able to do all those operas over a long period. When I started in opera in the ‘50s, Janacek was hardly known in Britain at all.

You have 7,000 subscriptions now. How many can you handle?

We can handle 12,000. So we are roughly at 60%.

What are the season’s highlights besides “Wozzeck” and “Kat’a.” You also have Marilyn Horne in “Tancredi.”

I think Marilyn Horne coming back to her home city to sing opera for the first time, I think, in 24 years is a very important thing. . . . I think also the fact that we can revive two of our first season’s operas which were triumphant successes, “Otello” and “Salome” with Domingo in “Otello” and Maria Ewing in “Salome,” it shows that the audiences are already accustomed to the idea of seeing a production again after a modest break.

Last year you had two hits, “Fiery Angel” and “Tristan” with that combination of conductor (Zubin) Mehta, (director Jonathan) Miller and (designer) David Hockney. Do you intend to revive those?

“Tristan” we will certainly revive but it takes a long time to find the time when the L.A. Philharmonic is available and when Zubin Mehta is available. The production in the meantime is about to be seen in Florence. It’s already in rehearsal in Florence and I shall be going to the premiere. And David Hockney is there and he’s very much overseeing the revival. . . . I very much want to bring back “Fiery Angel.” “Fiery Angel,” in fact, is presently in Europe, because it was a co-production with Geneva Opera who did it very successfully in the spring and we are now in conversations with the Netherlands Opera as well. I would hope that we could do the “Fiery Angel” again by ’92.

Do you see more new productions in the future to give a definitive stamp to this company?

I think that we already have a definitive stamp. I think that the way we do new productions is the way we would like to be judged. Obviously, we can’t always do new productions of anything. Obviously, sometimes we have to rent or to borrow. On the other hand, I see great future in the concept of co-productions. This “Kat’a Kabanova” was seen first in Paris in February of this year, and I was privy to the discussions about the style of the production and the way it went on in Paris is the way it will go on here and the two principal ladies, Karan Armstrong and Leonie Rysanek, were in the Paris production too.

You said that Music Center Opera already has a definable stamp. What is that?

I think, for instance, what Peter Hall did with “Salome” and has done with “Cosi fan Tutte” is to go back to the text and treat the pieces with great seriousness and in a challenging way.

What are your own favorite operas that we haven’t seen, that we will be seeing?

Ha-ha! Always dangerous to ask anyone what his favorite opera is. I sometimes think that my favorite opera is the opera I’m seeing at that particular time. I have a special love for “Mahagonny,” and that’s why we’re doing that (next season). Also, it turned out that that love was shared by Jonathan Miller and Robert Israel, the director and the designer.

What are the pluses and what are the minuses of the company?

Fifty-three percent of our total costs is earned. Not entirely from the box office. We gain a certain amount of money from renting our productions. But I think we are over 50% at the box office, which is more than the national average and certainly substantially more than it was in our first season.

One of the problems we have in this country is that the theaters have to be so big because so much money has to be earned from the box office. In Europe, of course, a vastly lower percentage needs to be earned because the concept of government subsidy is a much more developed one than it is here.

Therefore, you have to do operas in larger theaters than you would ideally like to do. I don’t speak of “Hoffmann” or “Tosca” or “Otello.” I talk of “Cosi fan Tutte.” Although one of the great successes of Peter Hall’s production of “Cosi” is that he has made it work in a very good-sized theater by a simple but nonetheless ingenious way: The set fills the stage but the action is constantly in the middle. Undoubtedly, we shall be reviving that production at some point.

Back to pluses and minuses, you also have a $3-million debt.

That’s a $3-million debt which has been accumulated over the last three years, in fact over the last four years. It goes back before we even started. What we are doing is we already have indications of considerable support over a long period. That support we will use in three ways: to eradicate the accumulated deficit; to put toward the deficits for each year and to set up a sort of endowment which will act as a hedge.

Are you getting enough support from the Music Center Unified Fund or is it a battle behind the scenes? . . .You’re laughing!

What is enough support? When the Music Center was opened and when the Performing Arts Council was set up to raise money for the various resident groups, opera played a tiny part. Now opera’s playing a much bigger part and the Unified Fund is aware of the fact that the opera needs more money as time goes on and I think that that awareness is beginning to bear fruits.

Is anyone telling you behind the scenes that you’re spending too much?

What is too much? Our average cost per performance is about $250,000. Which is, again by the national average, about right for a large opera company like ours. We are now the fifth biggest opera company (in the nation). . . .

According to statistics from Opera America, the Met’s annual budget last season was $82 million; Beverly Sills’ New York City Opera was $25 million; San Francisco’s $22 million; Lyric Opera of Chicago $17 million. Compare that to Los Angeles Music Center Opera’s $10 or $11 million--how can Los Angeles hope to compete?

Our budget for the current year, fiscal ‘88-’89, is $12.5 million. So the number of performances we do, which is say, 50, as against San Francisco’s 75 or 80, seems to indicate that we are perhaps more cost effective than they are. On the other hand, they have included in their budget a very considerable outreach program which we don’t have yet.

What about audience demographics in the classic sense of income level, racial mix? Isn’t it generally a white, upper-middle income group?

I think that that concept is based largely on your coming to gala first nights. . . . I wish you would come to some of the previews that we put on, which appeal to a very different sort of audience. For instance, one of the things we did was to offer a preview to the county employees who work in the county offices across the road there. This year it was “Kat’a.” The year before it was “La Cenerentola.” Several people have said to me, “Look, for the last 10 years I’ve worked across the road from this building and I’ve never been into it until now. And this I found enormously stimulating.” We have this totally new potential audience.

We are thinking in terms of doing an audience survey. . . . I don’t believe that there should be a question on the audience survey that says, “Which operas would you most want to see?” What I think we need to know more about are starting times, even more important, finishing times.

You talked about senior citizens before; 45,000 school children are going to see 16 performances. Is that the way you’re going to expand your audience?

I think it’s part of the way you expand your audience. Basically, our expansion must come from people who gain a knowledge of opera from whatever exposure initially, but who then consider that the expenditure is justified and they will be prepared to put up $500 a year to come to opera . . . and if that means they have to do that instead of owning the boat or whatever, OK.

Placido Domingo is perhaps the best-known artist connected to the opera association. He’s also your artistic consultant. On what does he advise?

He does exactly what his title says. . . . He’s also involved with us in casting generally. He is involved in the audition process and his presence, simply by itself without him having to do anything, gives us leverage in persuading international singers to come here.

You said you emphasized the word consult . He consults. Do you ever disagree?

Actually, I can’t think of any occasion that we disagreed and furthermore, we have been working together long enough now that I think both of us almost by a sort of shorthand osmosis are able to identify potential danger spots which we therefore avoid.

The second chapter of Los Angeles Music Festival under the direction of Peter Sellars is going to come here in the fall of 1990 and I know Peter has been talking about doing his production of “Nixon in China” opera here. Will that happen?

Well, it’s our production. We are participants in the initial production which was seen in Houston and at BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music) and the Netherlands and recently in Edinburgh, and it’s going to come here, hopefully in the fall of 1990.