Los Angeles Music Center Opera Company

Wilson High School students shouted and stepped to a director's commands, repeating the movements to get them just right for next month's production of a high school opera about young political refugees in contemporary Los Angeles. "Think about where you are during the scene," director Ira McAliley calls out to the students-turned-performers. "If you don't think about it, you're going to forget. There's only one more rehearsal before we perform."

Picture this: a neo-swag fixture that resembles a Hershey's Kiss or a monochromatic Wayne Thiebaud cake painting come to life. It weighs 150 pounds, measures 3 feet high and nearly 5 feet in diameter, and has a steel armature covered with aluminum. And one more thing: This lamp can serve as a roosting place for singers. You won't find it at IKEA, though, because this is an Achim Freyer original.

Everything from the excited expressions on their faces to the way they were dressed--he in a preppie navy blazer and gray slacks, she in a demure evening dress--suggested that this was no ordinary date. College age or close to it, the young couple had arrived at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion for a night at the opera. The obviously nervous young man asked the ticket clerk what type of tickets were still available. She replied: "We've got the $20 and the $70."

Los Angeles Opera, under Placido Domingo, will grow. It must. In 2003, when Disney Hall opens, the company will no longer share the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion with the Los Angeles Philharmonic but will be the hall's principal tenant. It is, I think, safe to say that Domingo's star power, his ability to draw audiences and fund-raising potential, were strong arguments for making him artistic director. The company is bearish. But what will Los Angeles Opera be besides bigger?

Soprano Elise Ross and her husband, conductor Simon Rattle, have withdrawn from L.A. Music Center Opera's new production of Debussy's "Pelleas et Melisande," due in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in February. Replacing Rattle on the podium will be Esa-Pekka Salonen, music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, in his local operatic debut. The role of Melisande will be performed by mezzo-soprano Monica Groop, also a Finnish musician.

During an early February rehearsal, a slightly rumpled fellow with an Aussie accent and an easy laugh walks up to the tenor playing the Duke of Mantua in the upcoming Los Angeles Opera production of "Rigoletto." What, inquires the singer, is my state of mind in this scene? The director, a stickler for behavior and body language, warms to the question. "You're irritating everyone in the room--but no matter," he replies. "You're the big cheese and everyone's inhibited by your fame.

It seems fitting that Peter Hemmings' final season as general director of L.A. Opera will feature Benjamin Britten's "Billy Budd," based on the novella by Herman Melville. Hemmings had hoped for years to bring Francesca Zambello's critically acclaimed production from the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden to Los Angeles. The production, which premiered in Geneva in 1994, featured baritone Rodney Gilfry in the title role; Gilfry will reprise the role at L.A. Opera in June 2000.

Director Julie Taymor, who will unveil her new production of Wagner's "Der Fliegende Hollander" (The Flying Dutchman) with the Los Angeles Music Center Opera on Saturday night, is a relative newcomer to the operatic stage. As a visionary young New York theater artist, she first made her mark with Off Broadway experimental productions, works that drew on non-Western theater and dance traditions, with startling uses of puppetry and masks.

For Wednesday night's opening of the 14th season of Los Angeles Opera, an A-list of celebrities was scheduled to be on hand at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, from Jack Nicholson to David Hockney, from Sidney Poitier to Julia Ormond. Annette Bening, however, wasn't able to make it--opening night of the opera collided with the premiere of her new film, "American Beauty." But Bening wasn't about to miss Placido Domingo in "Samson et Dalila."

The story of the opening night of L.A. Opera's first production will be told, and elaborated upon, as long as opera here lives. For more than a hundred years, Los Angeles had been an operatic Wild West, noted for attracting operatic naifs and charlatans in equal measure. We were best served by itinerants like the touring New York City Opera. Finally the Music Center did form a company, and it opened its first season in 1986 with Verdi's "Otello."

After nearly 20 years in Los Angeles, Peter Hemmings still seems a quintessentially proper Englishman. The founding general director of Los Angeles Opera, who will retire next month, doesn't publicly shirk blame or boast. Over lunch recently, he ended many thoughts about his 14 seasons here with the question, "Do you think I was right?" or the doubt, "Perhaps I was wrong."

Peter Hemmings has not stopped surprising the local opera scene since he made his presence known in 1984, founding Los Angeles' own opera company. But after 43 years of dedicating his life to mentoring young opera singers, Hemmings will retire. But not before receiving one more recognition from Cal State Northridge.

The Los Angeles Opera and Pasadena's Armory Center for the Arts are the top Southland recipients of National Endowment for the Arts grants in the federal arts agency's second round of fiscal year 2000 grants, announced today. The opera company received $100,000 for its Educational Continuum program, and the Armory Center was given the same amount for two curriculum-based educational programs.

During an early February rehearsal, a slightly rumpled fellow with an Aussie accent and an easy laugh walks up to the tenor playing the Duke of Mantua in the upcoming Los Angeles Opera production of "Rigoletto." What, inquires the singer, is my state of mind in this scene? The director, a stickler for behavior and body language, warms to the question. "You're irritating everyone in the room--but no matter," he replies. "You're the big cheese and everyone's inhibited by your fame.

The 2000-2001 Los Angeles Opera season, to be unveiled today, was largely designed by departing general director Peter Hemmings, but Placido Domingo will mark his arrival at the helm next season with appearances both as conductor and singer. In announcing the program, Hemmings and L.A. Opera artistic director-designate Domingo acknowledged that the season had been planned well in advance of Domingo's appointment, which was made public in 1998 and is set to begin in July.

For Wednesday night's opening of the 14th season of Los Angeles Opera, an A-list of celebrities was scheduled to be on hand at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, from Jack Nicholson to David Hockney, from Sidney Poitier to Julia Ormond. Annette Bening, however, wasn't able to make it--opening night of the opera collided with the premiere of her new film, "American Beauty." But Bening wasn't about to miss Placido Domingo in "Samson et Dalila."

Peter Hemmings has not stopped surprising the local opera scene since he made his presence known in 1984, founding Los Angeles' own opera company. But after 43 years of dedicating his life to mentoring young opera singers, Hemmings will retire. But not before receiving one more recognition from Cal State Northridge.

In the way that there's an impulse to find universal truths in all religions, the same mistake is made with art, which lets us cheat ourselves. You have to see it all. What I get from Robert Crumb I miss in Robert Lowell, and what I liked about seeing the Backstreet Boys with my daughter I'm not going to find at the Music Center when the opera is on the stage, which is why I decided to subscribe last year, instead of waiting for the reviews to tell me if I wanted to go.

In the way that there's an impulse to find universal truths in all religions, the same mistake is made with art, which lets us cheat ourselves. You have to see it all. What I get from Robert Crumb I miss in Robert Lowell, and what I liked about seeing the Backstreet Boys with my daughter I'm not going to find at the Music Center when the opera is on the stage, which is why I decided to subscribe last year, instead of waiting for the reviews to tell me if I wanted to go.

L.A. Opera's new production of Saint-Saens' "Samson et Dalila" (borrowed from San Francisco Opera) continues at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., Sunday and Sept. 26 at 2 p.m., Wednesday and Sept. 18, 21 and 24 at 7:30 p.m. Denyce Graves sings the role of Dalila at all performances. As Samson, Placido Domingo sings Sept. 18, and American tenor Gary Lakes takes the role Wednesday and Sept. 21, 24 and 26. Lawrence Foster is the conductor, Nicolas Joel the stage director.