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Tony Frankel
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Los Angeles Music Review: MIRGA CONDUCTS MAHLER (Los Angeles Philharmonic)
INACCESSIBLE? MIRGA MAKES US THINK AGAIN The three composers that make up LA Phil’s current program—which opened last night and plays through Saturday—are not what one would call “accessible,” meaning easy to listen to for some folks. Laypersons will often find themselves searching for lyrical, easy-to-digest melodies, or possibly an introduction of a theme or…
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Los Angeles Film and Music Preview: LA BELLE ET LA BíŠTE (LA Opera at Theatre at the Ace Hotel)
GREAT OPERA, GREAT CINEMA, GREAT PARTY! A familiar fairy tale takes on a broader and deeper subject’”the transformative power of love and art. Jean Cocteau’s stunningly beautiful 1946 cinematic masterpiece is recast with an enchanting new soundtrack by Philip Glass. Not only is it one of Glass’s most accessible works, it may well be the…
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Los Angeles Opera Review: THE CONSUL (Long Beach Opera in Lawndale, The South Bay)
BUREAUCRATIC NIGHTMARE; OPERATIC DREAM After witnessing Long Beach Opera’s extraordinarily satisfying production of Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Consul, starring the magnificent Patricia Racette, I find it shocking that this dramatic opera has not become part of the standard repertoire. There may be one simple reason. When this Pulitzer Prize-winner opened on Broadway in 1950, its…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: MASTER CLASS (Garry Marshall Theatre in Burbank)
SCHOOLED BY CALLAS; ENTERTAINED BY HENNESY If you’ve ever been to a master class, then Terrence McNally’s Master Class will seem very familiar. If you haven’t, then you’re in for a real eye-opener. A master class, as its name suggests, is a class given by an expert (or master) to students in a particular discipline,…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: EXIT STRATEGY (The Los Angeles LGBT Center’s Davidson/Valentini Theatre)
EXIT TRAGEDY Fierce, funny, and relevant under Deena Selenow’s choreographic direction, Ike Holter’s entertaining but uneven melodrama takes place in a Chicago high school that’s suffering from an image problem and a 40% graduation rate. There, a feckless assistant principal, five diverse, overloaded teachers and an intelligent, social media-savvy, system-fighting student will suffer triumph, defeat,…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: SEE/SAW (Civic Center Studios in Downtown)
SHUFFLE ALONG Is stuff magical only because it can’t be explained? Perhaps it’s more than just the absence of logic, probability, or reason. There’s a presence too: Magic evokes a child-like sense of wonder in the oldest adults, rewarding their imagination more than their ignorance. But in a world where Vegas-styled, hi-tech acts abound, nothing…
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Los Angeles Music Preview: BRAHMS SYMPHONIES No. 2 and 3 (Riccardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Disney Hall)
MUTI AND THE CSO BRING BRAHMS SYMPHONIES TO DISNEY HALL Endlessly frustrating his admirers, Johannes Brahms was well-known for his reluctance to begin symphonic works. Once he began—with the arrival of his First Symphony in 1876—the floodgates swung open. The First took about 15-21 years to finish (depending on which scholar you ask), but the…
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Los Angeles Music Review: MOZART CLARINET CONCERTO & SELECTIONS FROM THE MAGIC FLUTE (Los Angeles Philharmonic)
THE HARD-HEARTED WILL TURN TO LOVE Few operas are more delightful than Mozart’s Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte), which fuses fantasy and adventure with high ideals and memorable melodies. Emmanuel Shikaneder’s Singspiel libretto is suffused with masonic elements, emphasizing the triumph of reason, nature, and wisdom over the forces of darkness and superstition. But there are contradictions too,…
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Los Angeles Theater Preview: STATE OF SIEGE (Théâtre de la Ville at Royce Hall)
FANTASTIC, FRIGHTENING, FIERCE, FRENCH: THÉTRE DE LA VILLE’S STATE OF SIEGE AT UCLA Presented by CAP UCLA, Paris’s Théâtre de la Ville returns to Royce Hall with a new production of Albert Camus’ harrowing political allegory, State of Siege, on Thursday October 26 and Friday October 27, 2017. This incredible company premiered the astounding production…
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CD Review: THE DARK TOWER (Motion Picture Soundtrack by Tom Holkenborg)
DARK AND TOWERING, BUT TRUNCATED AND CLICHÉD At turns surreptitious, ethereal, creepy, bold, spidery, wistful and dystopian, Tom Holkenborg’s soundtrack to The Dark Tower mixes traditional filmic orchestrations with an electronica edge, always offering an astoundingly moody, evocative, dramatic soundscape. There are no keyboardists or percussionists listed among the 88 orchestra players, so credit the four orchestrators—Jonathan…
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Los Angeles Music Review: CAMERATA PACIFICA (Season 28; Concert 1)
A HARBISON OF THINGS TO COME Well, lightning can strike twice in the same piece. Three years ago, the glittering Santa Barbara-based chamber music ensemble Camerata Pacifica premiered its commissioned String Trio by John Harbison. That, and the stunning Harmonia Mundi CD recording, cemented this awesome work as a major addition to the already limited…
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CD Review: WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES (Soundtrack by Michael Giacchino)
THE HEART OF THE APES Composer Michael Giacchino is back with another Planet of the Apes installment and his insistent, encroaching, otherworldly, tribal soundscape is awesome. But unlike his first, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, which certainly captured the darkness, mystery, and potency of the popular movie series, War for the Planet of the…
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CD Review: SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME (Ella Fitzgerald with the London Symphony Orchestra)
ELLA REDUX When a new Ella Fitzgerald CD arrived, I ripped it open and started listening to what I believed was a re-mastered version of an album that I didn’t know existed (I own almost 30 of her recordings). The first track of Someone to Watch over Me (on CD and streaming September 29, 2017)…
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Los Angeles Theater Preview: STUPID KID (Road Theatre Company in North Hollywood)
STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES The Road Theatre Company, one of L.A.’s most dependable companies for original material, amazing casting, steadfast directors, and terrific production values, presents the first show of its 2017-2018 season, Stupid Kid, which plays September 22 through November 12, 2017 at Road’s Magnolia Boulevard location. This world premiere, written by one of…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: LA RAZÒN BLINDADA (24th Street Theatre)
AN EXTRAORDINARY FIVE-COURSE MEAL Course One (Primer Plato): The Story. Two unnamed political prisoners, languishing in an Argentine maximum security prison, are allowed only one hour each Sunday to congregate: the inmates make use of storytelling, specifically Cervantes’ Don Quixote, as a means to find solace under great duress. This course feeds the spirit, for it…
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Los Angeles Music Preview: 100: THE APOLLO THEATER CELEBRATES ELLA’S 100TH BIRTHDAY! (Ford Amphitheater in Hollywood)
OH, SWEET AND LOVELY Ella Fitzgerald’s history with Harlem’s Apollo Theater dates back to the fall of 1934, when she won the opportunity to compete in Amateur Night. The teenager went to the Theater planning to dance, but when the Edwards Sisters closed the main show, Ella changed her mind. She performed her rendition of…
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Los Angeles Theater Preview: A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC IN CONCERT (Colony Theatre)
A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC; A VERY SHORT RUN; A MOST ACCOMPLISHED CAST Get ready for the wit, sophistication, and gentle eroticism of this most worldly and elegant of American musicals. The story is worldly, charming, and rueful—emotions eloquently displayed by Stephen Sondheim’s score, and abetted by Hugh Wheeler’s astounding book. A Little Night Music is an…
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San Diego Theater Review: WILD GOOSE DREAMS (La Jolla Playhouse)
FLYING WITH BROKEN WINGS It’s amazing. Thousands of billions of electronic messages are delivered every month globally, but it doesn’t feel like a small world after all. For many, these missives—texts, e-mails, IMs—are the illusion of connecting, and so the world feels more pummeling, pushy and precarious than ever. To wit, survey after survey indicates…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: FOOTLOOSE (Glendale Centre Theatre)
FOOTLOOSE AND FANCY FREE Based on the 1984 film Footloose, this eponymous musical opened on Broadway in 1998. Both adaptation and jukebox musical, in which songs sometimes land willy-nilly without thought to plot advancement and character (that’s SO old-fashioned, isn’t it?), this fish-out-of-water, stranger-changes-stuffy-town dance show doesn’t have to be examined too closely. It’s a…
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San Diego Theater Review: KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN (Welk Resorts Theatre in Escondido)
ALONG CAME THIS SPIDER Defying torture and humiliation in a Latin American prison, two cellmates—seeming enemies—build a passionate friendship and a larger loyalty. Hollywood visions become escapist illusions, binding dramatic opposites: an apolitical gay window-dresser and devoted mama’s boy named Molina—serving eight years for sex with a minor—and Valentin, a straight, unrepentantly newly jailed idealistic…
Theater Review: ST. NICHOLAS (Black Button Eyes / City Lit / Chicago)
by Croydon Fernandes | July 3, 2026
in Chicago, TheaterFAST PAYOUT CASINOS USA 2026 — 5 BEST INSTANT WITHDRAWAL CASINOS RANKED
by Michael Carr | July 3, 2026
in ExtrasTheater Review: MEN OF SOUL (Black Ensemble Theater / Chicago)
by Mitchell Oldham | July 1, 2026
in Chicago, Theater
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