Royal Philharmonic, Las Vegas Sun, Oct. 13, 1997

Artful acts and empty seats Lisa Ferguson Monday, Oct. 13, 1997 | 9:28 a.m. Psst ... did you hear that the world-renowned Royal Philharmonic Orchestra is performing in Las Vegas tonight? No? Well, don't fret: You're probably not the only one just now learning of the concert that is hours away from beginning at UNLV. In any case, there should still be several hundred good seats available, given that only 815 tickets to the show had been sold by the middle of last week. Maybe you didn't catch that -- we're talking about the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, folks. Is history repeating itself? Poor ticket sales also plagued another pair of world-class performance groups, the Bolshoi Ballet and the Boston Pops Orchestra, which stopped in Sin City during the past year. Here's a recap: * The Bolshoi, Moscow's premiere dance company, gave a week's worth of performances last October at the 7,000-seat Aladdin Theatre for the Performing Arts, to sparse crowds, netting just over $200,000 in ticket sales. Strike one. * The Pops, an East Coast holiday season institution, performed a pair of Christmas carol-laden concerts at the massive MGM Grand Garden last December, and managed to draw only 6,500 spectators over two nights. Strike two. So, will the RPO's performance tonight be strike three in the game of attracting top-name performing arts groups to Las Vegas? Depends on who you ask. "I don't know," says Janis Tanno, president of the Nevada Symphony Orchestra. "The (show) presenters are going to lose money at some point. It's a crime to come to the entertainment capital of the world and not have an audience. The Bolshoi should not have come here and failed." Besides an overabundance of local arts events -- too many symphony, dance and theatre programs already -- Tanno points to a lack of community support, especially from area hotel-casinos, in promoting the well-known performing groups. "That has to have a tourist element to it in order to succeed. It has to be promoted where the bodies are -- in the hotels and at the conventions," she says. "Our entire gaming industry somehow has to create a synergism that allows this type of culture to occur and endorse it. If you bring in the Royal Philharmonic, it can only be good for the whole community." Or, say, Luciano Pavarotti. The tenor performed here twice during the '80s, once to a packed house at the Riviera hotel-casino and again to nowhere-near-capacity crowds -- and with jet airplanes taxiing overhead -- at the Thomas & Mack Center. To the surprise of countless fans, when Pavarotti returned to the Silver State last spring, he took the stage in Reno. Rumor has it the decision not to return to Las Vegas was made by the show's promoter, who was disappointed with the reception Pavarotti and other performers he promoted had received here. "That's what I heard," Tanno says. "He was bringing in high-level cultural programs and there wasn't the reception that he needed. "Reno," she says, "has a much finer-tuned population for the cultural arts. Why? I don't understand it. I can't put my finger on what the real issue is." "I think it's an issue of being sensitive to the cultural ecology," says Hal Weller, orchestra director at UNLV. Just take a look at the Performing Arts Center line-up for this week: The university's orchestra performed yesterday, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra is on tonight and the Munich Chamber Orchestra takes the stage Wednesday. "That's a banquet for orchestral fans," Weller says, "but it's a lot all at once, so obviously if we see less-than-full houses, it may be because of scheduling problems." He adds: "I think tickets need to be accessible to people who are a potential market for that product. It needs to be coordinated ... better and priced reasonably." The university is hoping to change that, says Dr. Jeff Koep, dean of the college of performing arts, to which the Performing Arts Center reports. To help raise awareness of the Charles Vanda Master Series, local residents Marjorie Rapaport and Jack Rapaport, on behalf of the Alfred and Marjorie Rapaport Foundation, have donated $15,000 to underwrite tickets so that local school children and charities will be able to attend the series. "I think you really have to bring these people in," Koep says of the potential recipients. "I'm a big believer in audience education ... you have to sort of show them what it tastes and feels like to see a quality philharmonic. "I hope we can use this gift (to encourage) other people to get on board and say, 'That's an important thing to invest in,' " he says. As for why the Boston Pops fizzled, Koep offers a few reasons. For starters, the shows were held on weeknights and around the same time that the wildly popular National Finals Rodeo was hitting town. Also, he notes, the Boston Pops was not part of the highly successful Charles Vanda Master Series, now in it's 22nd season. "I think everyone would have thought they'd be a hit here because they have been a hit in comparable places." But the group is not a holiday tradition here, Koep reminds. "Perhaps it was the idea of putting the Boston Pops in (a venue the size of) the MGM (Grand Garden). Typically, symphonies and orchestras have done well in the (Ham) concert hall." "I think it could have been promoted a lot better," says Ginger Bruner, operations director and afternoon announcer at KNPR 89.5-FM, who also attended the concert. "The Pops played Las Vegas in the '70s and sold out," she says. "Another problem is that they have a new conductor (Keith Lockhart) who people just don't know yet, unfortunately." As for the Bolshoi, however, Bruner is less understanding. She's blames its poor reception on the bad taste left in fans' mouths by several imitation Bolshoi companies that performed in town prior to the genuine article. "People were mistrustful of the real deal," she says. "The other reason is that you shouldn't book the Bolshoi into the Aladdin Theatre for a whole week. That's silly. It's a huge hall, not a good hall to see ballet in." Bruner is more optimistic about the Royal Philharmonic's performance, due to its placement in the Charles Vanda Master Series, which KNPR is sponsoring this season. "The Master Series always does fine," she says. "It's when you get away from the series, when you don't have people who have been buying tickets to it for years and years, that you have problems" filling seats. Weller isn't worried either. "I have no doubt that there is a healthy arts and classical music audience in Las Vegas," he says. "I'm certain there are hard- and soft-core music lovers who should be filling every seat in that hall with standing room only for the Royal Philharmonic." archive