Irvine Meadows Is OC’s Hollywood Bowl? Not Yet

The Pacific Symphony launched an ambitious venture this summer, an attempt to bring alfresco classical music to the county with five concerts at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre.

Actually, the Santa Ana-based orchestra had dipped its toe into the same water last year, only to find it a bit chilly: Of three concerts announced at the venue, one had to be canceled because of poor advance ticket sales (and at another, truth be told, the orchestra merely served as backup for pop crooner Tony Bennett).

This year, things seem to be turning around. The programs are full-fledged classical music and attendance is respectable. Already, at least one politico has praised the series--which has just passed the halfway point--as a resounding success and has touted Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre as the county’s own version of the Hollywood Bowl.

The Hollywood Bowl? Well, maybe.

But first a few problems have to be worked out. Audience behavior needs to improve. Noise from planes has to be monitored. And the amplification system could stand a tuneup.

None of these problems is peculiar to Orange County. Nor, for that matter, are they limited to the amphitheater. But they do cast a shadow over the new series.

Take the third program, a week and a half ago. People just streamed into the amphitheater. Hordes of them. Official figures put the number at 7,091--a dent in the capacity of 15,000, true, but still an audience of respectable size for a venture such as this (symphony concerts at the Performing Arts Center sell out at less than 3,000).

The problem was: The people kept streaming in. Even after the program had started.

And, once they were in, an amazing number of them got up, strolled out for a hot dog or who knows what, then sauntered back at their whim. All that, while Keith Clark and the orchestra played on--Beethoven’s “Egmont” Overture and Ninth Symphony, and the premiere of Mark McGurty’s Piano Concerto.

Some brought their babies--hungry, uncomfortable or otherwise complaining babies.

Matt Curto, the director of operations at Irvine Meadows, said: “We are instructed by the symphony to keep (people) seated. (But) if someone gets up to get a hot dog, I can’t force them to sit in their seat for two hours.”

Curto suggested that some people who came late and moved around during the concert might be annual subscribers (he said there are about 1,000 of them) who get symphony tickets along with their tickets to the Meadows’ more characteristic presentations of pop and rock.

“(Subscribers) are more used to coming and going” at rock concerts than symphony audiences are, Curto said.

Pacific Symphony executive director Lou Spisto did not seem too bothered by the behavior. “It’s just part of the experience of producing outdoor events,” he said. “You have to know and be aware that this is part of reality. You try your best to account for it.

“It exists at Hollywood Bowl too. You can’t expect audiences at an outdoor concert to be as prompt as they will be all the time at indoor events. It’s also a problem sometimes at the (Orange County Performing Arts) Center.”

Once in place, the Irvine Meadows audience applauded between each movement of the works.

Applause between movements hardly ranks as a significant sin in this age of the desaparecidos in Argentina and genocide in Cambodia. But composers don’t write four separate pieces, slap them together and call the result a symphony.

Beethoven’s Ninth is a tightly developed, reasoned and inspired work, with each movement developing out of identical falling intervals. Composer McGurty has said all of his Piano Concerto emerges from the theme in the first eight bars. So it might be nice to hear those bars and notice the way they unfold.

You don’t drop in and out of this kind of music.

Silences are part of the music, as well. They give a chance to reflect, digest and sense that the musical argument is left hanging. Hearing a change in key when the next movement starts, for instance, helps make an emotional, intellectual and musical point.

At Irvine Meadows, some people who had hauled in plastic foam coolers were popping tabs off beer cans throughout the concert.

Other, far more grating distractions were provided through the courtesy (or lack thereof) of the Marine Corps, as fighter jets from the nearby El Toro Marine Corps Air Station ripped through the skies above.

Curto said: “(I) immediately called the tower at El Toro. They told me that they were sorry. They had completely forgotten we had a concert. The flights were immediately directed over the freeway. We have a great rapport (with El Toro).”

Spisto said that was the only concert in the series during which fighter jets posed a problem. “El Toro has been extremely cooperative in rerouting jets during our concerts,” he said.

Most surprisingly, the sound system at the concert left something to be desired. The orchestra and the chorus sounded fine, but the vocal soloists seemed to be coming from a 1940s radio broadcast.

“It is not our sound system,” Curto said. “It is brought in by the symphony. Irvine Meadows has no house system. We do have a delay system that enables people on the terrace and the lawn to hear without our having to turn up the sound system so loud that people in the orchestra level are uncomfortable.

“But the principal sound system is brought in by each individual artist that plays here.”

Spisto defended the orchestra’s system, which he said was designed by Joseph Magee, an independent sound engineer who has been a consultant for the Hollywood Bowl.

“We’ve gotten very positive reviews and some negative reviews” about the system, Spisto admitted, but: “That’s to be expected in an outdoor facility. Hollywood Bowl been working for the last 20 years on its sound system and is still trying to fine-tune the sound. Quite frankly, I’m quite proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish in a year.

“We are monitoring each concert. Each concert has to be adjusted somewhat because the programs are so different. . . . We’ve learned from each concert, and the next two should be easier to set up.”

Spisto also said that the Irvine Meadows venture has been “risky” for the orchestra but that he has been encouraged by the public response.

“We went into a huge new undertaking, expanding and adding approximately $400,000 of expense to the budget,” he said. “That was risky. But we are on target with income and expense projections. We are definitely going to do this (again) next year.”

The Pacific Symphony’s series of outdoor concerts at the Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre, 8800 Irvine Center Drive, Irvine, continues Aug. 27 at 8:30 p.m., when Keith Clark will conduct Ottorino Respighi’s “Pines of Rome,” Dvorak’s “New World” Symphony and Edvard Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A minor, with soloist Leonard Pennario. Tickets: $10-$39. The series will conclude Sept. 10 with a Tchaikovsky “Spectacular” (including fireworks). Information: (714) 973-1300.