Early Days of S.D. Opera Are Recalled

SAN DIEGO —  Mezzo-soprano Irene Dalis’ recollection of San Diego Opera in 1972, when she sang the title role in the fledgling company’s first world premiere of Alva Henderson’s “Medea,” is couched in her distinctive brand of idealism.

“The company was very professional. You must understand that I had come from the Met and the Berlin Opera, so my standards were very high. The company had one quality in particular that appealed to me. (Then general director) Walter Herbert had the nerve to do an opera by an unknown composer. He was willing to take a risk.”

Risk-taking has been a hallmark of Dalis’ profile since she founded Opera San Jose in 1984. In its short history, her plucky regional company has mounted three world premieres, including George Roumanis’ “Pheadra,” which opened Nov. 14 and ends its run Sunday in San Jose’s Montgomery Theatre.

Dalis is everything one would expect in a diva turned director. Assured and unflappable, her conversation maintains the relentless pace of a Rossini overture. Her resonant voice sounds about an octave lower than her once-celebrated mezzo range--she retired from the stage in 1977--and she smokes without apology.

The morning after the “Phaedra” opened, she met for a breakfast interview to articulate her artistic credo. The San Jose company, which Dalis launched after starting an opera program at San Jose State University, was established to give young American opera singers at the entry level a place to hone their craft and gain stage experience.

“We don’t import stars; we export them,” Dalis said, using a maxim that she quickly admitted will take a few years to substantiate.

“We’re the only program in the country that works with the singers for an entire year and promises them four major roles over a season. We use only American singers and try to focus on singers from California. Each of our four annual productions is double cast to use as many voices as possible.”

Dalis’ zeal for cultivating American singers on their own soil stems from her own experience in the early 1950s when the young mezzo from San Jose had no choice but to go to Germany and apprentice there. But Dalis’ concern for American opera singers is balanced with her concern for American opera composers. Hence the opera premieres in San Jose.

“Doesn’t a company have a responsibility to the future,” she asked rhetorically.

For Opera San Jose’s initial foray into new repertory, she went to Henderson, who resides in nearby Menlo Park. It was an appropriate return of a favor, since Henderson called on Dalis to sing his “Medea” once Herbert and San Diego Opera agreed to stage the opera. Henderson’s “West of Washington Square,” actually two one act operas under a single title, was premiered by Opera San Jose in 1988.

Encouraged by her patrons’ positive response to having a new opera in their midst, in 1990 Dalis and her company premiered “Hotel Eden” by San Jose State University resident composer Henry Mollicone. “Hotel Eden” was well received, and ardent opera buffs have been urging Dalis to bring the production back in a future season.

Dalis discovered, however, that successfully marketing world premieres has not translated into developing an audience eager for 20th-Century opera.

“I don’t have to worry about box office for a world premiere. There is great interest in a new work, and the press and TV channels give it lots of coverage. But last season when we did Benjamin Britten’s ‘Turn of the Screw’--now a classic of contemporary opera--there were lots of empty seats. Even many of our subscribers did not come.”

Dalis acknowledged that not every new opera makes its way into the repertory, and, in fact, she never had an opportunity to sing Henderson’s “Medea” after San Diego. (In fact, she did not even complete San Diego’s run of the work due to a throat infection. Her understudy, Los Angeles mezzo soprano Marvelee Cariaga, sang the final two performances.) But Dalis was pleasantly surprised recently when a singer auditioned for Opera San Jose with one of the arias from “Medea.”

Dalis’ brief encounter with San Diego Opera left her with a cherished memory, however. An elderly Dame Judith Anderson, who had often played Medea in Robinson Jeffers’ noted stage play, traveled from her home in Santa Barbara to see the opera, whose libretto was based on Jeffers’ text. Following the opening night performance, Anderson greeted Dalis in her dressing room.

“I always had a problem with the demands of the role. It was such a one-woman show; it would have been a great relief if some other character would have taken the stage for a while. Anderson reassured me that she endured the same problem with Jeffers’ script. She was very sweet and gave me a sandal she used to wear when she played Medea. I used to wear it tucked under my costume in other roles as a talisman.”

Whitsitt premiere. San Diego composer James Whitsitt’s latest work, “Sicilienne,” will be given its first performance Dec. 5 by the Allegro chamber ensemble, for whom it was written. A retired member of the Mesa College music faculty, Whitsitt has maintained a high profile. His recent Quartet for Piano and Strings, which won an award from Illinois State University this spring, was premiered earlier this month in Bloomington, Ill., by members of the State University music faculty. And Whitsitt’s computer-electronic composition “Tokomak” was featured last month at the College Music Society’s annual convention at the University of San Diego. Allegro’s program in Mesa College’s Apolliad Theatre begins at 8 p.m. Local conductor and critic David Amos will give a lecture on “Sicilienne” prior to its performance.

CRITIC’S CHOICE

MAHLER WORK

San Diego Symphony music director Yoav Talmi will conduct Gustav Mahler’s expansive, brooding and wondrously orchestrated orchestral song cycle “Das Lied von der Erde” at 8 p.m. Thursday and Friday in Copley Symphony Hall.

Talmi’s empathy for the Austrian conductor’s music and his ability to probe his Romantic soul have been amply demonstrated during Talmi’s tenure with the local orchestra. Each season the Israeli conductor essays one Mahler symphonic work. The program opens with Schubert’s Symphony No. 8 (“Unfinished”).