LOOKING BACK

Young Chang

Denyse Graves, the internationally acclaimed mezzo-soprano who sang

Friday at the national prayer service in memoriam of the victims of

Tuesday’s terrorist attacks, performed at the Orange County Performing

Arts Center in January.

Dave Brubeck opened the 2001-02 season at Founders Hall this weekend.

“Rent” has been staged there. So has “Annie Get Your Gun,” “Fosse” and

“La Bayadere.”

Visited by top notch entertainers from around the world throughout the

year, the Center is the biggest reason outsiders know Costa Mesa.

“It certainly put Costa Mesa on the map worldwide because every major

performing arts group knows where Costa Mesa is now,” said Center

president Jerry Mandel. “But the Center’s bigger than Costa Mesa. It’s a

Southern California venue.”

Celebrating its 15th anniversary on Sept. 29 and looking forward to

new facilities predicted to open by 2004 through a $200-million expansion

project, the Center started as an empty five-acre plot of Segerstrom

land.

In 1979, an arts activist named Elaine Redfield asked Henry Segerstrom

about the land he owned next to what was then called South Coast

Repertory’s Fourth Step Theater. She thought it would be fitting for a

much-needed county concert center.

Segerstrom donated the land and an additional $1 million for the

design and construction of the Center, which was called the Orange County

Music Center. In 1981, the name changed to the Orange County Performing

Arts Center, and in July of 1983, the Center had its groundbreaking.

The 3,000-seat Segerstrom Hall opened in 1986. The Center’s

International Classic Dance Season launched a year later with the New

York City Ballet. Opera Pacific performed its first season there in 1987.

Mandel said that before the Center was built, renowned operas,

symphonies and Broadway shows had to be seen in Los Angeles.

“If we did bring a major orchestra here, they had to play at Santa Ana

High School or some place like that,” he added. “And you never heard them

correctly.”

* Do you know of a person, place or event that deserves a historical

Look Back? Let us know. Contact Young Chang by fax at (949) 646-4170;

e-mail at young.chang@latimes.com; or mail her at c/o Daily Pilot, 330 W.

Bay St., Costa Mesa, CA 92627.