Photos from opening night of “The Marriage of Figaro” at Walt Disney Concert Hall (UPDATED May 19)

May 18, 2013 Leave a comment

Figaro and Don Curzio (Act 2)

Last night, I had the good fortune to be able to attend the first performance of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s fully staged production of The Marriage of Figaro.

It was, in a word, glorious.

My full review will be posted in the next day or so.  In the meantime, please enjoy the hi-res photo gallery below from opening night (credit: Craig T. Mathew & Greg Grudt/Mathew Imaging).

UPDATE:  Additional images added from the dress rehearsal (taken by Genaro Molina for the Los Angeles Times) and design images courtesy of the Atelier Jean Nouvel and Azzedine Alaïa.

UPDATE #2 (May 19):  A couple of things . . .

  • I added a couple more photos:  a backstage pic of Dorothea Röschmann (Countess), plus a photo of Simone Osborne (Barbarina) by Mr. Molina.
  • I realized that if you happen to use Google Chrome as your default browser (which I do), some of the thumbnails below may not show up.  I have no idea why this is the case.  Rest assured if you click to enlarge any of the thumbnails you can see, the “missing” pics will be there as you scroll through the images.  Note that this problem doesn’t seem to exist if you browse with Firefox or Safari.  Go figure.

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LA Chamber Orchestra struts its stuff with program of Mozart, Stravinsky, Bach, and Handel at Royce Hall

April 5, 2013 Leave a comment

The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra often plays larger symphonic works — and does so quite well — but one of the joys and privileges of having a standing chamber group like them is the chance to hear pieces written for small to medium-sized ensembles that a full-sized orchestra would not take on.  Their most recent concerts were laden with concertante works by Mozart, Stravinsky, Bach, and Handel — the kind of concert for which they are very well-suited and play at an extremely high level.

On the Sunday performance I attended at UCLA’s Royce Hall, this was clearly evident from the get-go with the evening’s opening piece, Mozart’s Serenade No. 10, Gran Partita, a seven movement work for wind instruments and a single double bass.  Throughout the 40-minute traversal of various moods, textures, and rhythms that Mozart tosses out, I couldn’t help but smile at the way melodies seamlessly passed between oboes, clarinets, basset horns, bassoons, and horns.  Music Director Jeffrey Kahane ensured that the ensemble playing and blend was impressively tight and well-balanced, with Allan Vogel (Principal Oboe) and Joshua Ranz (Principal Clarinet) playing some particularly beautiful solo moments.

After intermission came more of the same with three shorter works, the first of which was Stravinsky’s Concerto in E-flat major, Dumbarton Oaks.   Commissioned in the 1930′s for the 30th wedding anniversary of Robert Woods Bliss and Mildred Barnes Bliss (i.e. the owners of the Dumbarton Oaks estate in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, DC), the chamber work has the distinction of not having a prominent solo instrument as you’d expect a “concerto” to have.  Instead, each instrument in the ensemble has a few moments of prominence, once again showing off LACO musicians’ skills as both individual artists and as a coherent single entity.  Mr. Kahane led a performance that was nicely angular while also maintaining the long line.  For me, the outstanding performance of this rarely heard gem was the biggest treat of the evening.

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Dutoit finally gets to show his Austro-Germanic side in latest program with the LA Phil; Gautier Capuçon & Carrie Dennis stellar in “Don Quixote”

February 26, 2013 3 Comments

Dutoit-G.Capucon-DennisCharles Dutoit’s annual visits to conduct the Los Angeles Philharmonic have become a highlight of every season, and his residency this year was more of the glorious same.  Adding to the joy was the chance to see and hear him conduct something other than the FrancoRussian rut he has been in during the past seven or eight years; I’m not sure whether pigeonholing him in that repertoire has been his idea, the orchestra’s, or some combination thereof.

In fact, the last time he conducted anything vaguely Teutonic was in 2006 in a program that included Mozart’s Figaro Overture and Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto.  Since then, there have been only two composers he has conducted locally that weren’t from either French or Russian composers:  a Ginastera curtain-raiser and the ubiquitous Grieg Piano Concerto.

His concerts this year featured music from Mendelssohn, Mozart, and Strauss.  It showed that no matter what he conducts, he continues to offer balanced and compelling interpretations of great beauty.

Nowhere was this more evident than in Strauss’s Don Quixote.  Mr. Dutoit elicited a sonorous yet bright sound from the orchestra, rich in expression and texture, while maintaing clarity throughout.  He also had the good fortune of having two wonderful soloists in the key roles.

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The long and short of last Thursday’s LA Phil concert with Ludovic Morlot and Emanuel Ax

January 29, 2013 Leave a comment

Emanuel Ax (photo by Lisa Marie Mazzucco)Just to prove to myself that I could summarize into three bullet points my thoughts on last Thursday’s Los Angeles Philharmonic concert:

  • Emanuel Ax played Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 25:  Spectacular.  Flawless.  Brilliant.  Dare I say, “Perfect.”
  • Conductor Ludovic Morlot:  Solid in Dutilleux’s The Shadows of Time and Beethoven’s 5th Symphony.
  • The orchestra:   Very good the whole night.

There, I did it.

Of course, there’s no fun in keeping things limited to three bullet points. . . .

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Angela Meade brings added punch to LA Opera’s cast of Don Giovanni for final two shows

October 12, 2012 Leave a comment

Los Angeles Opera made some cast changes for the last two performances of Don Giovanni, the most noteworthy being the addition of Angela Meade as Donna Anna (Julianna Di Giacomo played the role for the first five performances).  The winner of the 2011 Richard Tucker Award and the Met’s 2012 Beverly Sills Artist Award, Ms. Meade brought her talents fully to bear at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion Wednesday night.

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An old-school Don Giovanni: Ildebrando D’Arcangelo stars in LA Opera’s latest production

September 22, 2012 3 Comments

Last May, the Los Angeles Philharmonic presented Don Giovanni with a vocally and visually strong baritone leading a solid cast in a thoroughly avant-garde production.  Beginning tonight, Los Angeles Opera presents the same opera, with another hunky baritone leading a another solid cast, this time in an unapologetically traditional production.

Judging by Wednesday’s final dress rehearsal at the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion (*see caveat below), L.A. audiences probably could not have asked for two more completely different and yet equally valid interpretations of Mozart’s great work within a couple years of each other, yet here they were mere months apart.  For those who were turned off by the stylized psycho-sexual machinations at Disney Hall earlier this year, this old-school rendition will be most welcome.

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Back so soon? Live tweeting Don Giovanni at LA Opera tonight

September 19, 2012 Leave a comment

Opening night for Los Angeles Opera’s latest production of Don Giovanni isn’t until this coming Saturday, Sept 22nd, but I’ll be back at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion tonight, live tweeting the final dress rehearsal.  Unlike last Saturday’s gala opening of I Due Foscari (The Two Foscari), this time I’ll be in the front of the house, watching the goings-on from my usual Loge-eye view.

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Anna Prohaska sings “Exsultate, Jubilate” from this year’s Salzburg Festival

August 20, 2012 Leave a comment

Anna Prohaska, recently appearing as Zerlina in the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s production of Don Giovanni, is seen here at the opening ceremony of the 2012 Salzburg Festival singing some different Mozart:

Exsultate, Jubilate (K. 165)

What makes the performance more impressive is that she was only given a few hours notice that she’d be performing it — which, until this concert, she hadn’t sung in twelve years.

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Photo Credit:   Patrick Walter / Deutsche Grammophon

 

 

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DSO streaming Mahler 5th, with Manny Ax playing the Mozart 22nd

July 20, 2012 Leave a comment

Happy Friday.  In case you don’t make it out to any concerts this weekend, the concert can come to you:

Between now and Monday at 12noon Eastern Time, the Detroit Symphony is streaming their recent performance of Music Director Leonard Slatkin conducting  the Mahler Fifth Symphony and the Mozart Piano Concerto No. 22 with Emanuel Ax serving as soloist.  Click HERE, enter a little bit of registration information, and voila!  You’re in.

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LA Phil’s history with Mozart’s Posthorn Serenade

May 27, 2012 1 Comment

Following up regarding my last post about Friday night’s Los Angeles Philharmonic concert, here’s one extra little tidbit about Mozart’s Posthorn Serenade and the orchestra:

  • As stated in both printed and online version of the program notes, the first performance was March 26, 1942, with George Szell conducting.
  • Until this season, the most recent performance was one day later, March 27, 1942, again with Mr. Szell on the podium.

I realize that this serenade isn’t exactly regular fare, but I was a bit surprised to know that it hasn’t been played by the local band in over 70 years!  I guess this qualifies as a forgotten gem of sorts, at least around these parts.

Related post:

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Nothing casual about this Mozart: Kiera Duffy joins Gustavo Dudamel and the LA Phil

May 27, 2012 8 Comments

It wasn’t supposed to be an all-Mozart program.  What was originally announced as a Tchaikovsky/Sibelius program morphed a couple of times over the course of this season before landing on its final form.  One of the subscribers wasn’t happy about all the repeated changes and made her opinion known during the “Casual Friday” post-concert Q&A.  With a sense of annoyance and exasperation, she asked, “Doesn’t anyone know what’s going on?”

It was an uncomfortable moment.  Luckily, among the panelists on stage taking questions was the person best equipped to provide an answer:  Gustavo Dudamel.  With his good natured style, he made no effort to soft-pedal his response and instead took the question head on.  He explained that the Sibelius 5th Symphony means a great deal to him (he conducted it in his first concert with one of his other orchestras, the Gothenburg Symphony); however,  it made more sense to surround the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s performance of Mozart/DaPonte operas with Mozart Serenades.  Next year, it’ll be The Marriage of Figaro and the Haffner Serenade (though in the currently published version of the LA Phil’s 2012/13 season, it doesn’t show up).  For this year, they settled on pairing Don Giovanni with the Posthorn Serenade.

His style in responding to that question perfectly reflected the style with which he approached the two Mozart works on the program:  good natured but head on.

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Go big or go home: an ambitious Don Giovanni staged by the Los Angeles Philharmonic

May 22, 2012 4 Comments

It was not your average Sunday afternoon at Walt Disney Disney Concert Hall.  Gustavo Dudamel was still on the podium for the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s unofficial Mozart Month, but that was pretty much where “business as usual” ended.  The LA Phil had decided that their first-ever complete performances of Don Giovanni would be full-blown productions, not mere stand-and-sing concert versions of Mozart’s opera.

As if that weren’t enough, they:

  • hired Frank Gehry, the designer of Disney Hall and most famous living architect on the planet,  to create the setting
  • populated it with a young, attractive, and vocally strong cast led by Mariusz Kwiecien, one of the most prominent Dons currently around
  • dressed them in costumes designed by Kate and Laura Mulleavy of the noteworthy Los Angeles fashion house, Rodarte
  • handed the whole thing over to Christopher Alden, a director known locally for interesting operatic interpretations

The result was high in style and substance, sounding very good and looking stunning.  It wasn’t a complete triumph, with some aspects which were quirky and frustrating, but you had to appreciate and be impressed by the overall effort. Read more of this post

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Anticipating the Don

May 19, 2012 4 Comments

I’ve been looking forward to attending the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s fully-staged Don Giovanni for a number of reasons:

  • First of all, well, because it’s Don Giovanni and who doesn’t want to see and hear that under pretty much any circumstance?
  • The appearance of Mariusz Kwiecien in the title role.  It’s been a very good season for baritones in L.A. so far (let’s see:  Thomas Hampson, Vitalij Kowaljow, Mathias Goerne, and just for good measure, let’s throw Placido Domingo in there too).  Mr. Kwiecien is the latest in that distinguished line.
  • Frank Gehry’s set design and Rodarte (Kate and Laura Mulleavy) costumes.  I’m a huge fan of Mr. Gehry and have been intrigued by what I’ve seen from the Mulleavy sisters.  Though the initial sketches of set and costumes looked typically vague, the pictures released by the LA Phil look quite interesting — because of the designs, and also because of the curious lack of clarity on where the orchestra is seated.
  • What will Gustavo Dudamel do with this score?  Whereas Esa-Pekka Salonen favored the music of Haydn when he was in a Classical period mood, Mr. Dudamel clearly favors Mozart.  His past interpretations of his works  tend to be big and bold:  thrilling, but a bit more heavy-handed than I’d prefer my Mozart to be.  Of course, those have been symphonies and smaller scale orchestral works, and a full-blown opera is a different story.

The four-performance run opened last night, but I’m not going until tomorrow — and all of the above combine to make it worthwhile to brave the threat of impending Downtown LA traffic craziness to rival Carmageddon, not to mention missing the potential series-sweeping LA Kings game.  Of course, if this were the Stanley Cup finals, I’d have picked a different concert date . . . but more often than not, watching music being performed live trumps watching sports on TV.

My review will be posted Monday morning.  Stay tuned.

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Photo credit:   Autumn de Wilde (Los Angeles Philharmonic)

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Meeting Mozart

November 24, 2011 2 Comments

Mozart, prior to arriving in Los Angeles

Have you ever wondered what it would be like if you met Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart?  The REAL Mozart?  Today?

Stephen T. Harper, writer extraordinaire, did.  Or perhaps instead of wondering, he and his awesome wife, Christie Harper, actually met the guy.  It’s tough to tell . . . they are both friends of All is Yar, so you never know.

For your reading enjoyment, I strongly recommend that you visit SHarper Blog and read “Conversations with Dead Geniuses: Mozart”

While you’re there, read some of Steve’s other stories.  Or better yet, download and read Steve’s book, King’s X.

Happy reading, and again, Happy Thanksgiving!

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Photo credit:  from the painting by Johann Nepomuk Della Croce, Salzburg Mozarteum

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The world we live in, and life in general: LA Phil and Dudamel do Kurtág, Mozart (with Richard Goode), and Strauss

November 3, 2011 1 Comment

I almost always go to classical music concerts because I feel I must see/hear something on the program:  a certain composer or his work, a soloist, maybe even a conductor.  Other times it’s because I’m curious about a world premiere of a new work or a performer I’ve never heard before.  This past Sunday at Walt Disney Concert Hall was the rare exception:  a perfectly fine program about which there wasn’t really anything I craved or was curious, a concert I probably wouldn’t have attended had it not been included in my subscription, with the “life and death” overtones of the programming not necessarily adding to the appeal.  No matter.  The philosophically tinged program turned out to be quite enjoyable, and in the end I’m glad I went.

The main thing keeping me from switching out:  Richard Goode.  He has been a fairly regular visitor to the Music Center over the years, both in recital and with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, but I realized that the last time I saw him play was in the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion.  Clearly, I was way overdue.  It’s a special treat to hear him play Mozart, in this case the introspective and occasionally brooding Piano Concerto No. 20 in d minor.

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