Los Angeles

A LASTING IMPRESSION Fab Fin Esa-Pekka Salonen returned to the hall where he established the reputation of LA Phil, educated audiences to challenging new music, and garnered adulation for his graceful manner and acute interpretation of various works, classical and contemporary. The program this past weekend set the stage for Salonen to do as he…

AN EASY PILL TO SWALLOW Thrillers are always a tough act to pull off in the theater which is why they are so rarely produced. When the show is a revival (or reworking as it is here) and it has been turned into a widely seen motion picture the ability to involve, surprise and shock…

A DIFFERENT TYPE OF SOCRATIC PROBLEM Perhaps one of the reasons Socrates has become a god-like figure in the world of philosophy is that we know very little about the actual man who existed during the dawn of writing. He kept no diaries and wrote no treatises, yet philosophies attributed to the classical Greek thinker’”Socratic…

BIG HOGS AND HOT POCKETS We buy products because they consume us.   Ultimately our products replace us, because if you are what you eat, it follows that what you eat also is you.   And at that point, does the food chain even need you anymore?   Supernumerary to your own plans, it’s easy to end up…

HOLY HORROR It’s that that time of year again when everyone and their brother is looking to scare the crap out of you. To that end, The Original Interactive Horror Theatre Company is back to terrorize their patrons with Delusion: Masque of Mortality. Last year they presented the highly successful  Delusion: The Blood Rite at a…

LA PHIL FIRST IN PREMIERES Having presented exceptionally successful premieres this year, the Los Angeles Philharmonic is on a roll. From the West Coast premiere of Adam Schoenberg’s Bounce  to the U. S. Premiere of Tan Dun’s The Tears of Nature  to the posthumous World Premiere of Peter Lieberson’s percussion-rich composition Shing Kham,  the LA Phil has proven…

SAY WATT? While it is probably safe to assume that the NoHo Arts Center Ensemble’s “playwright in residence,” Joshua Ravetch, had some bright idea in mind when writing The Light Bulb, I must admit that after sitting through the uninterrupted 90 minutes I was left totally in the dark.   Try though I did, I simply…

BE ON YOUR GUARDSMAN Nationwide, nearly half the couples that get married today end up divorced. The aphorism about the difference between the way relationships are handled by this generation and the so-called greatest generation is “back then when something was broke, we tried to fix it, not buy a new one.” Since the 1911…

WORDS FAIL TO EXPRESS THE TRIUMPH When one of the finest chorales in the world offers a musical compendium from their last five decades, one expects a sterling program. Yet the Los Angeles Master Chorale’s 50th Season Celebration at Disney Hall went beyond mere expectation. LAMC cleverly compiled signature works heard under the leadership of…

MORE THAN A CELEBRATION The Walt Disney Concert Hall celebrates its 10th anniversary this week, but the program last night was more of a celebration of The Los Angeles Philharmonic. Do Angelinos truly understand that one of the finest orchestras in the world is in their own backyard? Even with Gustavo Dudamel at the helm,…

RELATIVITY,  STAGED A trusty theater friend witnessed Einstein on the Beach at BAM in New York last year, and she told me it was not just one of the greatest theatrical experiences of her life, but one of the greatest experiences she had ever had, period. I have consistently heard that the 1976 opera by Philip…