My $0.02 on the (sad) 2017/18 LA Opera season, plus some straight talk from James Conlon
All Reviews / Interviews / Los Angeles Opera / Music News & Info: Classical / Reviews 2017/2018

My $0.02 on the (sad) 2017/18 LA Opera season, plus some straight talk from James Conlon

Folks, I’m generally an optimistic, positive-thinking kinda guy.  I try to find the bright side of things and give people the benefit of the doubt, even when most others wouldn’t dream of it. So leave it to our good friends at Los Angeles Opera to test my ability to maintain a stiff upper lip and keep … Continue reading

A very conscious coupling:  LA Opera’s unconventional yet compelling double-bill of <i>Dido</i> & <i>Bluebeard</i>
All Reviews / Los Angeles Opera / Music News & Info: Classical / Reviews 2014/2015

A very conscious coupling: LA Opera’s unconventional yet compelling double-bill of Dido & Bluebeard

Admit it:  the first time you heard that Los Angeles Opera had decided to pair the Baroque charms of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas with the expressionistic horrors of Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle, you didn’t exactly say to yourself, “Oh yeah, that makes total sense.”  No, at best, you probably thought, “Hmmmm — that’d be interesting.”  If … Continue reading

My chat with Plácido Domingo about singing Schubert lieder, plus Renée Fleming ponders singing baritone too
Los Angeles Opera / Music News & Info: Classical

My chat with Plácido Domingo about singing Schubert lieder, plus Renée Fleming ponders singing baritone too

It’s quite been quite a week for Southern California opera fans: Los Angeles Opera just finished a three-show run of André Previn’s A Streetcar Named Desire starring soprano Renée Fleming as Blanche DuBois, a role she created in the original 1998 production for San Francisco Opera.  Reviews have been mostly positive:  Timothy Mangan (Los Angeles Register) generally liked it despite some … Continue reading