C.C.C. in K.C.

In Kansas City one day six months ago, Mrs. Cynthia ("Cindy") Kemper, 35, the indefatigable, vivacious wife of Millionaire Banker R. Crosby Kemper Jr., decided that it was high time "to take a good look at ourselves." So she called together a group of friends to talk about it. Diagnosis: "We are not a jumping-off-place for the West but a thoroughly civilized 20th century community with all kinds of people and all kinds of possibilities." Remedy: "Kansas City needs to feel the pride of creation."

Walce Up. The result was the formation of a sorely needed Performing Arts Foundation of Kansas City--otherwise known as the C.C.C. movement, Cindy's Culture Crusade. Cindy & Co. agreed that the best way to get the show on the road was not to wage a "brick-and-mortar fund drive" but "to do something great with people." For its first effort, the foundation daringly chose to present the U.S. premiere of Handel's 241-year-old opera, Julius Caesar, a convoluted tale of love and intrigue in old Egypt, embellished with a floridly beautiful score.

Why such an offbeat opener? "Because," explains Cindy, "we wanted to wake up cultural interests here, not just put them to sleep with the same old safe arias." In transporting Julius Caesar into the 20th century, Conductor Nicola Rescigno, who was imported from the Dallas Civic Opera with Producer Lawrence Kelly, compressed the unwieldy 51-hour libretto into three hours and, to allow for the inclusion of ballet sequences, added several numbers judiciously borrowed from other Handel operas.

Tell the Kids. From opening night last week when one of the most glittering audiences in Kansas City history-packed the 2,500-seat Music Hall through the two other performances that followed, Julius Caesar conquered resoundingly. The old hall was dressed up to look like an opera house, with garlands of flowers ringing the grand tier and an Egyptian-style proscenium jutting out to the apron of the stage. Leading a competent cast of 200, Metropolitan Opera Bass-Baritone Giorgio Tozzi and Brooklyn-born Soprano Evelyn Lear, making her U.S. opera debut after an admirable, eight-year career in Europe, managed Handel's long, difficult, rapid-fire arias with fine finesse.

As one middle-aged first-nighter remarked, tugging uncomfortably at his black tie: "I wished to hell I understood a little more about opera. I'd like to tell my grandkids that I went to something like this." But the one aspect of the opera that most impressed the audiences was that it actually happened right there--in that thoroughly civilized jumping-off-place, Kansas City.

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