Classically Trained: Tuned into new performance venue

ALISO VIEJO — Refreshingly intimate, visually understated and acoustically marvelous, the new Soka Performing Arts Center seems to have it all.

Its 1,000 configurable seats, especially the ground-level, front-and-center ones, provide a wonderful proximity to the performers, as if they were playing in your very own multimillion-dollar living room. The cherry wood walls and Alaskan white cedar floor imbue warmth but aren’t a visual distraction from the real gem at hand: the onstage sound that’s remarkably live, vibrant and rich.

The most recent large group to sound off at the $73-million facility, still fresh from its Sept. 17 opening gala with the Pacific Symphony and pianist Horacio Gutiérrez, was the St. Petersburg State Academic Symphony Orchestra on Tuesday night.

Led by Russian conductor Alexander Titov and featuring Chinese pianist Xiayin Wang, this Russian ensemble was the center’s first visiting orchestra, and surely one of many others to come.

The program was simple: Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s “Rhapsody of Moldavian Themes for orchestra,” Prokofiev’s “Piano Concerto No. 3 in C major” and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4.

Likely reflecting the center’s burgeoning status, and host Soka University of America’s relative obscurity in the higher-education world, the place wasn’t quite full Tuesday, but still attracted a good-sized crowd.

Those who did attend were understandably enthusiastic to be in the new setting, whose setup is derivative of L.A.’s Walt Disney Concert Hall and provides great views all around.

Earning much of that interest was Wang, whose virtuosic, crisp attacks on the Prokofiev concerto aptly demonstrated her skills. The orchestra, however, while equally impressive on its own, had the all-too-often tendency to drown her out and leave the listener lightly straining to hear her.

This regrettable scenario I attributed to the hall and the orchestra’s novice experience playing in it. It can be hard to quickly perfect instrumental balance in an unfamiliar setting.

The venue, as has been commented by other critics, nicely brings out all the orchestral colors, particularly the woodwinds. Heard from my seat in the mid-rise stage-left section, I found this assertion to be true as well, with the extra note that a French horn section has remarkable transparency at Soka. Because horn bells project downward and behind, the horns’ sound often gets muddled on the stage before reaching the audience’s hears, yet at Soka, this common condition is not apparent.

When we could acutely hear Wang’s piano playing, it had a wonderful acoustical quality, thanks to this hall, that left me hoping she would play a short solo encore without the “distraction” of the orchestra — a little Chopin etude or Beethoven, perhaps. Such a blessing was not to be.

The star of the evening was definitely the rendition of the Tchaikovsky symphony, which highlighted both the hall’s and St. Petersburg’s capabilities. Brisk tempos throughout by conductor Titov kept it moving nicely along. He didn’t even take much of a break in between the movements to recuperate as some others do.

The orchestra — established in 1967, which makes it somewhat of a newcomer to the city of St. Petersburg’s classical scene — treated its native composer’s work with great sensitivity, delicacy and, when needed, raw power.

I cannot wait to hear how our county’s own Pacific Symphony fares in this hall (I unfortunately missed its appearance last month) when compared to its home base, the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall in Costa Mesa.

All eyes (and ears) should be focused in on this now-venerable venue in Aliso Viejo, with its affordable ticket prices, free parking and extraordinary acoustics.

BRADLEY ZINT is a copy editor for the Coastline Pilot and a classically trained musician. Email him story ideas at [email protected].