Daniela Mack Photo: Simon Pauly, courtesy CAMI

The stage set-up for morning dedication ceremony, as seen from the balcony

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Audience files out of the Tobin Center after opening night “Celebration of the Arts.” Most of the structure is new, but it incorporates the facade of the 1926 Municipal Auditorium. 

New H-E-B Performance Hall, with orchestra shell in place, at the end of opening “Celebration of the Arts”

Tobin Center ‘Celebration of the Arts’

Opera, ballet, symphony conspire in unveiling of new performance hall

September 5, 2014 Seven years in the making — or 11 years if you count the fantasizing, flowers and sweet talk that customarily precede conception — the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts opened at long last on Thursday with a speech-laden dedication ceremony in the morning and an evening concert in which music and dance spoke for themselves. Some revelations are worth noting, apart from the Tobin Center itself and its main venue, the 1,759-seat H-E-B Performance Hall, where Thursday’s festivities took place.  Thursday evening’s event was a collaboration among Ballet San Antonio, Opera San Antonio and musicians of the San Antonio Symphony conducted by Sebastian Lang-Lessing.  I had not previously seen Ballet San Antonio, but continued absenteeism is not an option after tasting the canapés  it presented on Thursday — excerpts from the Petipa/Liadov “Swan Lake” and one movement (“The Sea and Sinbad’s Ship”) of a “Scheherazade” choreographed by the company’s artistic director, Gabriel Zertuche. This is a well-trained, attractive company with considerable depth of talent. Most memorable in “Scheherazade” were the electrifying Sinbad of Jayson Pescasio, a Filipino and one of Ballet San Antonio’s three principal dancers; and the compelling Rukh Bird (or Roc, if you prefer) of Yanaylet Lopez, a Cuban and a member of the corps de ballet. Mr. Zertuche’s choreography was rooted in classical technique but also drew on some modern expressive means.  In the “Swan Lake” excerpts, principal dancer Sarah Pautz — a native of Blanco — ideally characterized the Black Swan with crisply drawn technique that came across (aptly for the character) as a shade too calculated. Sally Turkel, a first soloist from North Carolina, projected an affecting vulnerability as the White Swan; she was on firm ground technically but wanted a little more presence. The corps de ballet was not the last word in precision or esprit, but it wasn’t bad. The company opens its season in the Tobin with a revival of Mr. Zertuche’s “Dracula” (score by Philip Feeney), Oct. 16-19.  Opera San Antonio supplied some of its top-drawer singers — soprano Elizabeth Futral and baritone John Brancy, from the cast of Tobias Picker’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” coming Sept. 23-28; and mezzo-soprano Daniela Mack.  In the “Habanera” and Gypsy Song from Bizet’s “Carmen,”  Ms. Mack’s supple, satiny instrument, her command of  vocal color and her well-conceived body language  portrayed the title character as she should be — fully  comfortable in her own skin, living in and for herself, a woman whose magnetism comes from her internal liberty, not (as in too many other portrayals) from her outward licentiousness. Opera San Antonio would hear no objection from this quarter if it were to build a production of “Carmen” around Ms. Mack. (She sang the title role for Santa Fe Opera last summer.) Ms. Futral turned in a delicious, if slightly frantic, “Glitter and Be Gay” from Leonard Bernstein’s “Candide” and joined Mr. Brancy in pleasing “Tonight” from “West Side Story.” Mr. Brancy’s secure, focused, light-caramel instrument was especially pleasurable in “Pierrot’s Tanzlied” from Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s “Die tote Stadt,”  and he also turned in a winning “Toreador Song” from “Carmen.” Mr. Lang-Lessing and the orchestra showed full sympathy for the insouciant style of George Gershwin’s “An American in Paris” and the madcap brilliance of Berstein’s overture to “Candide.”  Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky and Korngold got luxurious playing.  The circumstances of Thursday’s performance did not allow a fair assessment of the hall’s acoustics for orchestral concerts. To accommodate the dancers, both pit lifts were raised, extending the stage forward. Even so, the orchestra was pushed back well  behind the proscenium to maximize dancing space.  Perhaps for that reason, the sound at my seat (row H on  the orchestra level) was not very enveloping, full-bore  tutti passages were congested, and the double basses  seemed muffled. But the woodwinds and brighter  percussion instruments came across cleanly, and the  strings in light or medium textures sounded smooth  and transparent. The voices projected beautifully from  the forestage. In the balcony that morning, a reduced  orchestra playing baroque music sounded distant —  also the impression reported by friends who sat in the  balcony for the evening performance. But these observations are all vey preliminary. The first valid tests will come when soprano Renée Fleming joins the San Antonio Symphony for a special concert on Sept. 20, and when the symphony opens its subscription season with Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony on Oct. 10 and 11. But it almost always takes an orchestra several months, if not a full season, to adjust its playing style and seating arrangement to a new hall, so patience is advisable. From the audience’s perspective, the theater seemed to work admirably — with one troubling exception: No handicap parking spaces near the entrance. Visitors with mobility impairments can be dropped off in front, but the only option for mobility-impaired drivers is to use valet parking — a very expensive proposition. Once on site, accessibility seems to be excellent. The state’s accessibility standards do not address the Tobin’s parking situation, so the facility is not in violation, but it really needs to find a way to better serve its mobility-impaired visitors. Responding to an inquiry by email, Tobin Center president and CEO Mike Fresher wrote, “We are working with the city to see what the options are in the neighborhood.” One suggestion: Arrange with the city to reserve adjacent on-street parking spaces for cars with handicap tags, if those spaces can be made to meet ADA standards. In other respects the hall functioned nicely. I detected no significant bottlenecks at the front doors. With a near-capacity crowd, the main lobby was crowded but not oppressively so prior to the performance. The seating in the hall was remarkably comfortable and remained so for an hour and three quarters, without an intermission. Leg room was gloriously ample, even in the balcony, where I’d sat in the morning. The stairs in the balcony and mezzanine seating areas were of comfortable pitch, not vertiginously steep as in a lot of theaters and concert halls. The air conditioning was mercifully silent and draft-free (unlike the Majestic Theatre),  and the thermostat was set to a comfortable temperature, not Siberian winter.  And, gosh, the place looks fabulous. A full review of the architecture will follow in a couple of weeks.  Mike Greenberg 

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Principal dancer Jayson Pescasio animates a link to Ballet San Antonio’s season schedule.

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