FROM AROUND THE WORLD: COSTA MESA.(Review)

Under artistic director and principal conductor John DeMain, Orange County's Opera Pacific has become a cultural force to be reckoned with in Southern California. However, the company's policy of double casting over a period of four or five days can yield mixed results. One cast may be excellent, the other less so; often the singers who perform on opening night are surpassed by the "second-string" players who follow in their wake.

For this season's Der Rosenkavalier, the first staging of a Richard Strauss opera in the company's fifteen-year history, the cast of choice was clearly the first: soprano Helen Donath (the Marschallin) and mezzo-soprano Patricia Risley (Octavian). On opening night (April 3), bass Markus Hollop replaced the ailing Daniel Lewis Williams as Baron Ochs. Soprano Nancy Allen Lundy was a lovably fragile Sophie at all five performances.

Though Hollop's performance as the lecherous Lerchenau was musically solid and his characterization endearingly silly and salacious, it was not of the size and strength that this central role demands. Donath, on the other hand, turned in a ...