FROM AROUND THE WORLD: SAN DIEGO.(Review)

Filling the seats is a perennial problem for any opera director who wishes to stray so much as an inch off the repertory's beaten track. Mozart's Idomeneo may be a master-piece, but if you expect a San Diego Opera audience to show up for this "obscurity," there had better be at least one big name in the cast.

In assigning tenor Jerry Hadley the title role, SDO's general director lan Campbell was banking on the drawing power of a local favorite. Campbell also engaged soprano Carol Vaness to recreate her widely celebrated impersonation of the hysterically vengeful Elettra. Vaness is not a familiar name in the town where she was born, so Campbell's best-laid plans went mildly awry when Hadley withdrew due to illness and had to be replaced by a largely unknown young artist, tenor Scott Wyatt.

However baleful this cancellation may have been for ticket sales, what happened next was a virtually flawless presentation of Idomeneo. Two seasons ago in Santa Fe, Hadley displayed considerable dramatic intensity but seemed vocally insecure as Mozart's King of Crete. Wyatt showed no such weakness in the third San Diego performance of Idomeneo (April 20). Confidently managing his lovely lyric voice, Wyatt commanded the stage, even in the score's most challenging passages.

A fine ensemble displayed a ...