Onward with Adler

"I inherited a city uniquely devoted to opera," says Kurt Herbert Adler, a man uniquely devoted to opera. Adler is the general director of the San Francisco Opera and last week, as his company kicked off its 50th-anniversary season, citizens and patrons were busy proving their devotion. In what other major American city would the mayor set aside a big chunk of downtown (Union Square) and invite 10,000 for a musicale? Where else would Jesus Freaks mingle with bankers and hard hats to watch Fafner the Dragon chase Wagner's Rhinemaidens and the clowns from I Pagliacci on specially constructed mini-stages? Who else but Adler could persuade Prima Donna Joan Sutherland to brave both the crowd and the city's infamous outdoor air-conditioning and sing Ah fors' e lui and Sempre libera from Verdi's La Traviata? Introduced by his Honor Joseph Alioto, the statuesque ("La Stupenda"), redheaded Joan beamed upon her vast audience and remarked with her familiar air of Aussie nononsense: "The mayor's already told you what I'm going to sing, so I might as well get on with it."

La Stupenda really got on with it a few nights later as the star of opening night's new production of Bellini's bel canto classic Norma. Though Sutherland did not warm up until after her cruel Act I setpiece Casta Diva, she has rarely sung as passionately or been so actively involved in the dramatic proceedings. Under Tito Capobianco's ingenious direction, Sutherland clearly dramatized the two sides of Norma's often enigmatic personality--severe and stately as the imperious high priestess of the Druids, yielding, even frantic as a woman in love with, and ready to kill for, a Roman proconsul (Tenor John Alexander).

Bel canto opera puts everyone to the test, including the audience. Norma, for example, is one of those static abstracts that--like most neo-Roman architecture--more often command respect than love. That Sutherland, Capobianco and Designer Jose Verona could infuse it with any passion at all was testimony to the peculiar alchemy of opera when it is defying both the gods and the arts.

It was, in other words, exactly what San Franciscans have come to expect of their opera. The company's tradition goes back to a genially schizoid Italian named Gaetano Merola who founded it back in 1923. Merola was schizoid in that, though he favored Italian opera, he would have little to do with Italian musicians. "The Italians never come on time," Merola would grumble. "Give me the Germans. They are prompt, orderly, reliable." One of the most prompt, orderly and reliable "Germans" was Kurt Adler. A Viennese immigrant, Adler reached San Francisco as chorus director in 1943, after five years at the Chicago Opera. He became director when Merola died in 1953.

In the two decades since, Adler, now 67, has more than doubled the company's regular fall season (from five to eleven weeks) and quadrupled its annual budget past the $3,000,000 mark. He has also introduced a widely adored spring program for offbeat operatic productions sung in English (among them Kurt Weill's Mahagonny). More important, he has launched the roving Western Opera, a company of young American singers and players that regularly tours in places as far apart as Alaska and Arizona. But it is in the cavernous War Memorial Opera House of the parent company that Adler has really made a showing. He presented the first major U.S. stagings of such operatic landmarks as Strauss's Die Frau ohne Schatten, Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream and Berlioz's Les Troyens. He was the first to put such now celebrated Europeans as Birgit Nilsson, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Geraint Evans on the American stage. He has also led in giving major roles to relatively unknown U.S. singers, among them Leontyne Price. Says the grateful Price: "I sort of grew up in San Francisco, both vocally and professionally. It's definitely equal to the Metropolitan."

If San Francisco is even arguably equal to the Met, it is because Adler has prepared so long in music and drama, and because he oversees every phase of the company's operation --from program notes to the lighting on the front steps.

Courtly. Perched on the aisle in Row V at rehearsals, Adler is a fidgety puppeteer who claps his hands if the tempo is too slow, phones backstage impatiently if the chorus is flat, barks commands to his secretary, who will come in an hour early the next morning to type them up. Says Leontyne Price: "Just when you think Adler is finally holed up in his office, he will turn up in the chorus or pop out from behind a bush to tell you your train is a foot too long." A short man with an advancing paunch, soft, silver-gray hair over the collar, and kind, blue, bespectacled eyes, Adler can be ultra-suave when kissing a board member's wife, making a courtly progress through a drawing room, or wooing a soprano. "You will luff the tenarr I have for you," he coos into the phone. "He is so-o-o hawn-zum." But he is unmovable on the subject of contracts and rehearsals.

In an average year, the San Francisco Opera company settles for a dozen shows, including at least three exciting and lavish new productions. That way it has an annual deficit of $1 million. This 50th-anniversary year will be different. In addition to two complete presentations of his two-year-old "Ring" cycle, he will offer a completely new Tosca and a new L'Africaine, as well as the American premiere of the Von Einem/Duerrenmatt The Visit of the Old Lady.

One of the most decorative ornaments will be the arrival in November of a new Lucia di Lammermoor with Beverly Sills, contrite at having tried, and failed, to talk her way out of early rehearsals. "Kurt, so if I arrive two days later what is the big deal?" asked Beverly. Replied Adler: "You wanted a new production. It's yours. You wanted a first-class tenor; I can't go better than Luciano Pavarotti. You wanted Capobianco. You have Capobianco. Now you have to live up to your terms." Sills thought for a minute. "You're right," she said. "I'll be there when you expect me." Adler has that effect on a lot of people.

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