Summer Splash : CRITIC’S PICKS

Summertime, and the listenin’ is easy.

Easy, of course, is a sometime thing. Take the lavish new production of Gershwin’s epochal “Porgy and Bess,” which originated in Houston and plays both at the Music Center Opera (June 6-18) and the Orange County Performing Arts Center (June 21-25). The production values are reasonably strong and so are the casts, though the evil intrusion of microphones forces the serious listener to take certain musical qualities on faith.

The ever-sophisticated, always intimate and usually adventurous Ojai Festival (June 9-11) has something of a French accent this year, with the Lyon Opera Orchestra holding forth under its American conductor, Kent Nagano, on the tiny alfresco stage. Steller guests include baritone Sanford Sylvan, flutist Eugenia Zukerman and actress-narrator Claire Bloom.

Want to go Bowling? Try our beloved festival of amplified music under the stars and airplanes in an 18,000-seat amphitheater attended by cheery crickets and happy picnickers (June 21-Sept. 16). The schedule offers such lures as a concert-version of the “Triumphal” act of Verdi’s “Aida” led by that ever-sweet-and-smooth-talking maestro, John Mauceri (June 30), and the all-too rare appearance of a woman on the Philharmonic podium, in this case Sian Edwards (Aug. 1 and 3). Special interest is aroused by the Aug. 8 concert, which is to reintroduce Kathleen Battle, whose limpid soprano and exquisite persona remain unblemished, we trust, by the much-publicized contretemps that caused her firing last year at the Met.