U.S. Debut for Soviet Basso Georgi Selezneev Fulfills Hope

Basso Georgi Selezneev has leapfrogged from the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow to the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa for his American debut in Opera Pacific’s new production of Bellini’s “Norma,” which begins Saturday.

“It’s always been a hope and a dream that I could come” to America, Selezneev said recently, speaking through an interpreter. However, he does not feel that his appearances in “Norma” (he plays Oroveso) are resulting from recent thaws in the relationship between the United States and the U.S.S.R. The obstacles have been more professional than political, he said.

“Even during the coldest times,” he said, “there has been an exchange of artists. That seems to be something that transcends (political) things. . . . I don’t feel that my coming here has anything to do with glasnost.

“The main thing is that impresarios and theaters like Opera Pacific and others are very careful about a new name. Different performers have different fates. Some of them are like a star and are immediately recognized. I probably fall into the category where people recognize you a little at a time, slowly.”

Selezneev, who has been singing with the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow for 10 years, did not grow up expecting to be an opera singer. “I wanted,” he said “to be an aviator,” like his father who was a military officer. Even when he decided to get involved with music, it was in a totally different direction from the one he eventually took.

“After the war, in 1953, there was a real boom in (American) music, Harry Belafonte, boogie-woogie, rock ‘n’ roll,” he recalls. “So I thought that that was the kind of singing I was going to do. (But) when I said that to my first music teacher, she just kind of smiled knowingly. She didn’t think it was going to happen.”

Sure enough, he found himself steered toward roles of kings and generals and distraught fathers--the staples of the basso repertory. An exception was the most famous cripple of Catfish Row: the male lead in Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess,” which Selezneev sang in Leningrad in 1969.

“It was my first professional part in a theater,” he said. “We did it in blackface and wigs. First, they had the idea of just having white people. It just didn’t work. The music is so colorful, it just didn’t ‘jive.’ We felt it was really necessary to do that other way.

“Actually, Gershwin is quite popular in Russia. They play his music on the radio quite a bit.”

Among Selezneev’s favorite roles are Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, Philip in Verdi’s “Don Carlos” and Don Basilio in Rossini’s “Il Barbiere di Siviglia.”

One role he covets, but has not had the chance to sing, is Mephistopheles in Gounod’s “Faust.”

“For some reason, he has disappeared in Europe,” he said. “They do not do it.” And time may be working against him. “I am already aged, I’m 50,” he said with a self-deprecating smile. “It is becoming more difficult every time to sing the higher repertoires.

“The part that has always excited me, frightened me, worried me, was (Verdi’s) Rigoletto. It’s got a lot of highs and also is a long part. The physical thing (of playing a hunchback) is no problem. Holding the higher (vocal) range is more difficult.”

He feels that Oroveso in “Norma,” a comparatively small part, “doesn’t give me an opportunity to show myself in a good way.”

“Norma is the (main) character,” he said. “Everybody else is secondary.”

But he feels “very honored” to be working with Dame Joan Sutherland. “When they knew in the (Bolshoi) theater that I was going to be working with Joan Sutherland, I could see a little envy in people’s eyes,” he said.

So far, his first trip to the United states has been rewarding.

“The first time I walked into the choral group, they all tried to have at least one Russian word for me,” he said. “It was very pleasant.”

He muses upon similarities between the opera chorus here and at home in the Soviet Union. “They all work so hard, they all have these wonderful eyes, they all are very intent on what they are doing and they are all such nice people,” he said. “And I say to myself, I know we have a lot of people at home like them, and can it be possible they can ever have anything against each other?

“Isn’t it a shame that such wonderful young people, imbued with a love for their art or for what they are doing musically, should ever have anything other than friendship for a group just like them, who also are young and also are imbued with their love for music?”

Georgi Selezneev will sing Oroveso in Opera Pacific’s presentation of Bellini’s “Norma,” with Joan Sutherland and conductor Richard Bonynge Saturday at 8 p.m. and Feb. 15, 18 and 24 at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Tickets: $25 to $50. Information: (714) 979-7000.

FEGHALI PROGRAM ADDED: The Irvine Theatre will underwrite a recital for senior citizens by pianist Jose Feghali at 2 p.m. March 28 at the South Coast Community Church in Irvine. The Van Cliburn Competition Gold Medal winner already is slated to perform at the church that evening at 7:30, under the auspices of the South Coast Symphony. The early program will include works by Chopin, Debussy and Villa-Lobos; the evening program will feature Chopin, Debussy, Beethoven and Brahms. Bus transportation to the early concert will be provided by the city of Irvine and coordinated by the Irvine Senior Foundation. Tickets to the afternoon program are $7. Information: (714) 662-7220.