The announcement of new seasons always produces a mixed response in me. I look for both consistency and growth at the same time, and usually get too much of one or the other. Perhaps a favorite theater company that specializes in classics has taken off for more avant‑garde terrain. I’m happy for the new, but sad to see a gap open in the classics. Some people want all they can eat; I want all I can experience on stage or concert hall. Here are a few questions for three of our major arts organizations about trends in the 2006‑2007 season. All are offered in the spirit of support. Is the Phoenix Symphony aware that the vogue for playing pre‑1800 music on period instruments has long ago peaked? The Symphony season 2006‑2007 includes a wonderful plan to focus on three composers by way of numerous performances as well as seminars, discussions, etc. The three for the plan’s first year are: Beethoven, Shostakovich and Christopher Rouse. That’s one old familiar name, a 20th‑century master, and a living American. Nice balance.

The Symphony is also intent on returning to bigger names for its soloists, seeing as next year will give us Yo‑Yo‑Ma, Midori and James Galway, to name but three. But then there’s this, from the Symphony’s season announcement:

“The holiday season includes four weeks of festive holiday concerts, led by (music director) Michael Christie. Pops concerts include four performances of ‘An Arizona Christmas: Tribute to Robert Shaw’ followed with a three‑week Holiday Baroque Festival featuring festive music performed on period Baroque instruments.”

Three weeks of baroque music? Has the Symphony gauged the local taste at all? This is a Brahms‑Strauss‑Mahler kind of town, which stretches well into 20th‑century music if it continues the post‑Romantic aesthetic. But music from before Haydn? The Valley’s only early‑music group closed up shop a year ago and a certain other local organization with a baroque word in its name is getting ready to change its name to avoid the reference. If the orchestra’s intent is less oriented to ticket sales than to status, it might look around and notice that “period instruments” have become old hat. We’re on the lookout for newer ways to play old music.

Why has Arizona Theatre Company stopped producing book musicals? Next year’s season will bring us productions framing the music and lives of Ella Fitzgerald and Janis Joplin, as this year brought us one about Hank Williams. Are the company’s hugely successful stagings of such musicals and operettas as “My Fair Lady” and “Pirates of Penzance”gone‑forever?

Given the enormous popularity of those shows, what has caused ATC to chase them away in favor of jukebox musicals that merely line up a bunch of songs by famous artists and let ‘em rip? Is it because Phoenix Theatre does so many book shows and does them so well? Even that company has allowed jukebox stuff to creep in. A look at Phoenix Theatre’s 2006‑07 lineup reveals plans for “Thoroughly Modern Millie” and “Guys and Dolls,” but also shows devoted to the music of Tony Bennett and The Mamas and Papas. Just what the attraction is of sitting for two hours listening to songs you’ve heard a thousand times on the radio while being loaded down with bio of the artist I know not.

Does Ballet Arizona know something about the snowbird population I don’t? Its 2006‑07 season crowds its two contemporary‑oriented programs into spring and early summer, while filling the fall and winter with the 19th century: “Swan Lake,” “Coppelia” and, of course, “The Nutcracker.” This implies that our winter visitors just don’t have the taste for adventure. While I don’t think that’s true, perhaps the Ballet has some demographics to prove me wrong.

At any rate, what you’ll miss next season if you leave the Valley before April 13 are two very promising Ballet Arizona programs. The first is a mixed‑repertory show set to include short pieces by George Balanchine and company director Ib Andersen, and, in June, a new full‑length piece by Andersen.

This follows by two years Andersen’s first full‑length ballet, “Mosaik,” a masterpiece by any measure. As demonstrated brilliantly in the Balanchine Festival it gave earlier this month, Ballet Arizona excels in contemporary ballet of the Balanchine stripe. What a pity the folks from Michigan and Ohio will be missing that.

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