Pacific Chorale

As leader of the Pacific Chorale, John Alexander has often shown a flair for the dramatic. So Tuesday night, it came as no surprise to see bell ringers placed strategically throughout the Orange County Performing Arts Center, with timpani, harp and two sets of chimes flanking the chorus on stage. The occasion was the opening of the group's 1990-91 season. More than that, it was the premiere performance of the final revised version of Leonard Bernstein's "Missa Brevis."

Poulenc and Brahms can be odd musical bedfellows indeed, unless the forces performing both on one night give equal-opportunity devotion. Fortunately, this was the case Saturday in Segerstrom Hall at the Orange County Performing Arts Center when John Alexander led the Pacific Chorale and Pacific Symphony in the Frenchman's "Gloria" and the German's "Ein Deutsches Requiem." Alexander's unwaveringly sure command of all elements produced an evening of distinguished music-making.

No mightier or more complex challenge awaits an ambitious choral organization than Beethoven's "Missa Solemnis," one of the peaks of our musical repertory. But, successfully met, the challenge reaps wondrous rewards. Rewards there were when John Alexander led the Pacific Chorale, Pacific Symphony and four accomplished soloists in the massive, intricate and spirit-lifting work Sunday night in Segerstrom Hall at the Orange County Performing Arts Center.

The Pacific Chorale, under the direction of John Alexander, presented a vocally unforgiving program of 19th- and 20th-Century French devotional music Saturday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. The chorale rose stunningly to many of the challenges but could not conquer them all. The choir's greatest strength on this occasion lay in its eminent control during a cappella passages.

There are two choices facing a conductor putting together a Christmas program, according to Pacific Chorale music director John Alexander. "You can take traditional carols and go into the Bing Crosby mode, the lighter area, or do what in my opinion is the most beautiful tradition of all: Go toward the English mode, meaning the mode of the boys choirs in England and the beautiful choral concerts you hear in the cathedrals."

He acknowledges that putting on an a cappella concert can be "a very risky thing to do," but Pacific Chorale music director John Alexander says that even so, he can't resist programming such works. "The literature is so wonderful," he says. "Besides, last year, our a cappella program turned out to be our subscribers' favorite program."

The climax to the season-opening concert Sunday by the Pacific Chorale in the new Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall at the Orange County Performing Arts Center was a double premiere: first hearings of new works by important, internationally acknowledged American composers Morten Lauridsen and Jake Heggie. But first, the 180-voice chorale, celebrating its move into its new home, gave performances that served as a reminder of its high achievement over a 39-year history in Orange County.

Comparisons are no fun at all, but they are inevitable. Between the two entries in this summer's Southland "Carmina Burana" sweepstakes, the prize has to go to conductor Carl St.Clair, the Pacific Symphony and the Pacific Chorale on Saturday at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre. Their rivals were the mighty Los Angeles Philharmonic and Los Angeles Master Chorale, led by Carlo Rizzi last month at the Hollywood Bowl. Rizzi had internationally known soloists. But St.

The Pacific Symphony was still waiting Tuesday for $37,000 it is owed by the Orange County Master Chorale for having played in the chorale's Oct. 27 and Dec. 3 concerts at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. The orchestra was to have been paid in full on Monday, according to statements reaffirmed by John Rhynerson, chairman of the Costa Mesa-based chorale, last week when it was learned that the Pacific had pulled out of a Feb. 9 concert with the chorale because of the debt.

If there is a hell for people who hate to sing, it has to be Tallinn, Estonia, for the next few days. To begin with, Estonia is known as "the singing country," the Wales of the Eastern Bloc, where if you don't sing you're considered a bit of a flake. Now, imagine Tallinn, the capital, swarming with perhaps 15,000 people who have come to add their voices to the chorus.