Saratoga News

Thanks for support: Ravi Kumra

Montalvo has succesful season at both venues

By Sarah Lombardo

Villa Montalvo officials are still crunching numbers for last summer's concert series, but one thing is already obvious: Montalvo's inaugural season managing concerts at the Mountain Winery was more successful than anyone had planned.

"We were very pleased with the community support and the vote of confidence of Villa Montalvo regarding the season," said Elisbeth Challener, executive director of Villa Montalvo. According to Challener, 22 of the 25 shows scheduled for the winery sold out, and more than 80,000 people enjoyed concerts at one of Montalvo's venues. Those numbers contributed to Villa Montalvo's boasting 93 percent sales of all the tickets available for Montalvo concerts, both at the Villa Montalvo site and the Mountain Winery site.

Bruce Labadie, Montalvo's director of performing arts, said they had expected to sell only about 80 percent of Montalvo's available tickets. "[The season] was pretty much beyond our expectations at both venues," he said.

Last year at this time, rumors were flying about whether a summer series would ever again be held at the historic Mountain Winery, and if so, by whom. This past January, a press conference was held by Montalvo officials and winery owner Ravi Kumra to announce that Montalvo would be managing a new summer series at the winery for 1997. Because the deal was made so late in the show-booking season, the winery was to host only a small number of shows--25--and officials said then that they were cautiously optimistic, stressing that a new venue, even one that used to hold concerts, would take a year or two to get up and running. Instead, Labadie said the response was a pleasant surprise. "We were just surprised at how quickly the tickets got sold," he said.

Kumra himself said he attended about 18 of the winery's 24 shows. "I felt I had to be there to just make sure that it was going well and there were no problems," he said.

Challener said the number of concerts will be increased from 25 to about 60 shows next year, and the season will include more Friday, Saturday and Sunday night shows; many of the shows will also run more than one night. That way, she said, there will be a better opportunity for fans to get tickets to a popular performance.

The summer series, which this year saw such big-name acts as Chris Isaak and the Doobie Brothers, will also be expanded to include a few classical music shows, a genre that played quite a role in the winery's 30-plus years of hosting concerts.

Although successful, Montalvo's first season at the winery didn't come off without any problems: An out-of-date seating chart was at the root of seating problems experienced in the summer series' return. Labadie explained that the chart was obtained from a past owner. "It was inaccurate, and we found out that some of the seats didn't exist," he said. "That was a big problem this year, but there was nothing else."

Montalvo took over management of the summer series after the winery had been silent for about two years. The winery, formerly the Paul Masson Mountain Winery, had been holding concerts in its 1,750- seat outdoor concert bowl since 1957. When the winery was sold to developer Ray Collishaw in 1989 for $5.3 million, the name was changed to the Mountain Winery, and the series continued. Collishaw filed for bankruptcy in 1993 and put the property up for sale, and there was talk that Villa Montalvo or the city of Saratoga would buy it. Kumra, a Monte Sereno resident, purchased the winery in 1995, but except for an abbreviated concert series that summer, the traditional summer concert series in the hills above Saratoga ended. The city entered into negotiations with Kumra in 1996 to purchase the winery and sponsor a summer series itself but announced in August 1996 that they had not reached an agreement.

For his support of the new Montalvo-managed summer series, Montalvo officials presented Kumra with a plaque recently.

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